Piloting Your Life: In-Flight Entertainment (Love Rollercoaster) (May 14, 2019)
By: Terri Mead
Tags: Piloting Your Life, Writing, Midlife Women, Womanism

Welcome Back My E-Ticket Holding Passengers:

As I was meditating and stretching this morning I thought about what I wanted to write this week. I did a mental replay of the last 7 days and it was another doozy of a week. Since I’ve been so focused on getting draft 3 of the book done, I’d already put so much of it out of my mind. It was quite the emotional roller coaster and I thought I’d share some of the ride with all y’all.

Zuko, kitty with 8 lives left

This little guy went into heart failure on Thursday and we nearly euthanized him to put him out of his misery. He was drowning from the fluid in his lungs and the vet’s prognosis was not good. When we were sobbing and saying goodbye, he started to perk up and groom himself as if nothing had happened.The vet came in to see if we were ok and was totally surprised by his condition. She said, “That was unexpected.” Poor Rei. She was prepared to let him go and when I said, “Well, I can’t put down a cat that looks this good and yes, I know he will have another recurrence, most likely in the next 9 months, but we will love him and care for him until then.” He’s pretty good about taking the medicine we give to him by syringe twice a day, always followed by treats. Keep on keeping on, Prince Zuko! Let’s try to get you past your second birthday.

Terri with Anne Cocquyt of The Guild

I fell back in love with supporting female founders and investing while speaking at a Guild event on Tuesday in San Francisco. I was inspired by the women there and had some truly engaging conversations. I met Kim Roxie (I call her Moxie Roxie) from Texas who has a clean cosmetics line (LAMIK Beauty) for black and brown skinned women. She may not know much about the Silicon Valley ecosystem but she will very soon. She’s been working on her business for a while, but in Texas, where things are very different from here in the Valley. Special thanks to Anne Cocquyt for hosting the event, having me as the guest for her fireside chat and appreciating my candor.

Terri with Shilpa Bhat

Thursday I was a guest at Stryker Medical in San Jose to speak at their regular Stryker Women’s Network (SWN) event. I spoke of my experience with unconscious bias and had a great time with a diverse, highly supportive and inquisitive audience. I am counting this as my first paid speaking gig since they gave me a lovely gift card and Stryker water bottle for my efforts. They too appreciated my candor and my willingness to talk directly about the issues, rather than dance around them. Special thanks to Shilpa for the opportunity, and to her husband Sanjoy for the introduction. Shilpa is quite the firecracker and I now know why he and I worked so well together; he was used to strong, competent, dynamic, and amazing women!

I am just a few days away from turning in draft 3 of the book and it’s turned into a slog. I am spending way too much time on every word and phrase and now have to go back through all of the chapters. I know that I have lots of clean up in the chapters I worked on two weeks ago. I am canceling most of my plans this week so I can make sure the content is the best it can be before Katie (my writing coach/editor) takes it and works her magic. I don’t want to be embarrassed by the content when she gets it Saturday. I’ll have a reprieve for a few weeks before I get it back and have to dig in for three more weeks.The final draft is due on 6/21. There was a WSJ article on the New Rules of Middle Age, Written by Women that confirms that my theme is right on point and perfectly timed. Now to stop procrastinating, pour a cup of tea and get back to work!

Adam had to work on Mother’s Day so Rei, Zeke and I joined him at Laser Quest where he marshaled our game. I am so proud of him. He’s had this job for over a year and has shown tremendous work ethic. He’s been called in to cover someone’s shift on several occasions and has happily gone to help out the team that he loves even if he doesn’t love the work. He’s even gone in hungover which is a good lesson in our opinion. Rei and I cooked and baked together after Zeke took care of most of breakfast and a lot of the clean up. Rei is so kind and courteous and capable. And she’s starting to ‘fashion’ as she calls it and is enjoying adding color to her wardrobe, but always with a little twist. That’s my girl.

I even pulled out a win on the tennis court on Saturday night, playing singles for 2 hours. That too was a slog. My opponent radiated negativity which wasn’t fun but I had at least 8 aces. My serve was on fire and I got in my 10,000 steps after sitting on the couch and writing all day!



If you’ve been wondering about the taglines, they are all titles of songs. This week’s song, Love Rollercoaster, came out in the 70s and I remember hearing various urban myths around the scream in the middle. The older kids loved terrifying me with some of the stories and I couldn’t remember why I thought of honey when I heard the song. Now I know why and I looked up what the real truth was and found it here.



If your week is a roller coaster, I hope you feel all the feels and let them “wash through you like a wave” as my friend Connie suggests. Resisting the feelings gets us nowhere.

Have a great week!

Piloting Your Life (the podcast)