Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is available for pre-order from your favorite online book seller. Release date is June 20, 2023. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, I consider An Apple Watch…. What is this tendency I have to say “I don’t need that….I’m fine with the way things are” I don’t need to redo the carpets….buy a fancy car….order what I really want on the menu. Do I even know if I’d like a spiffy car? An expensive entrée? New carpets. Instead, I’ll make do. A $30 analog watch is fine. I buy my clothes at Marshall’s or Nordstrom Rack. And then I’ll tell anyone who will listen about the bargain I got. This is not cute. Or admirable. But it’s an old trope that I can’t seem to shed. I feel like a charicature of myself sometimes. Like the Jewish mother who says, “Don’t Worry, I’ll sit in the dark.” Why can’t I shop retail? Just slide that credit card across the counter and think nothing of it. Why must I compare a menu’s prices – and, admit it, Joanne, the calorie count – when deciding what to order? Cutting meat and chicken out of my diet has made things easier. Now it’s just fish or vegetarian. Less time with the menu. Some of this is a holdover from teenage eating disorders. Some of it is that age old mentality of scarcity. What if I lose my job? What if the money runs out? What if I place more importance on possessions than on experiences? As though buying one cashmere sweater will send me down a slippery slope of chronic indulgence, conspicuous consumption, where I’m inches away from becoming shallow, materialistic and, God forbid, vain. For years I’ve said, “I like shopping at the discount stores. It’s my version of hunting where no one gets hurt.” I pick through the racks, in search of the prize – but like with a box of Cracker Jacks, the prize is generally a letdown. Don’t buy it because of the percentage markdown, I tell myself. It’ll sit in the drawer or the closet like so many shirts before it. Better, I say, to find something you love….Something that makes you feel beautiful –– maybe even sexy….. for an older woman. For years I’ve said the Apple watch is not for me. Why do I need it? I asked. My phone and my watch together do all the same things. But lately, I started to wonder. Why not? More convenience. More security (I do misplace my phone at least 5 times a day) and functionality that I’ll probably become hooked on within a matter of weeks? Tonight, when we go out to dinner, I’m going to intentionally splurge just to see how it feels. On the dollar amount of my entrée? On a second glass of wine? On dessert? (Probably not…) Any, and all of these are fine. This is the mantra now. My mom never ate dessert until she turned 90. After that, she said, who cares? Imagine what might have been if she’d started eating dessert in her sixties? I think its time to find out. PS. At dinner, I had a cup of vegetable soup, a Caesar salad and a glass of seltzer…with lime. Epic fail.