The other night, my gorgeous friend L. up and quit her job. She'd been thinking about it, dare I say fantasizing about it, for months. It doesn't seem that there was any particular incident that led to the reverse pink slip, other than perhaps a desire not to end up like the woman who died at her desk--and none of her colleagues noticed until the next day. (Sarcasm here would be the written equivalent of too much jewelry: unnecessary and unattractive.)
Leaving a job without another one lined up, especially in a recession, takes a lot of guts, conviction, confidence, and faith. If L. were a man, she'd be described as having balls (always pronounced BAWLz, to give it that extra oomph). I prefer the more female-appropriate and frankly cuter sounding word moxie.
Moxie, I've found, is one of those 40+ perks. Women under 40 can have confidence, sass, audacity, cheek if they're British, chutzpah if they're Jewish. Sometimes, their boldness is just described as being crazy. Moxie is different--a more mature, elegant mixture of courage and adventurousness. It's backbone with a dash of dash. There's life experience in moxie, though it may be just as impulsive as its little sister crazy.
My utterly fabulous Nana had moxie for days. Also due to another impulsive job departure--Grandpa quitting his milkman gig--Nana found herself trapped in a remote farmhouse with no job and no friends, baking and watching her waistline thicken while her sanity slimmed. One day, Grandpa came home and found all the farm animals gone; Nana had sold them all and announced that they were wintering in Florida or she wouldn't be responsible for her actions. Because of this, my mother's code for an act of moxie is, "Sometimes, you just have to sell the cows." That's what L. did when she quit her job. It's a leap of faith, having the moxie to sell the cows. But what a view as you sail through the air.
And what does Mr. Depp have to do with moxie, or a blog about the fabulousness of the 40+ set? Other than that he's effin' h-o-t-t and I need a little window dressing for this blog or who the hell's going to read it, he's L.'s ultimato favorito. This is my way of sending her a Man Candygram, not for seizing life by a crude term for anatomy she doesn't possess, but for having moxie.
Besos, bellezas.
