Letting Go

The source where I found this says these wise words come from Anthony Hopkins. I’m a little skeptical. I will have to do some proper research to find out – if indeed he wrote them – when and where? A university graduation speech, perhaps?

Often people who become THAT famous have all sorts of positives attributed to them: even things they had nothing to do with.

That said, these words are perfect. And again, this morning as happened yesterday morning, they are words I need to hear. I am in a friendship situation where the overarching qualities are disrespect and arrogance. That was not immediately apparent.

Now that it is, it is time to cut ties. An unpleasant process to be sure. Like undergoing surgery to remove an unwanted growth that is hurting you. It must be done.

How long did I live in situations in my young life where I was not treated well and as I deserved? In fact, I was often treated very badly. I regularly gave over my well-being and self-esteem to others who misused and abused it. It is a common trait in trauma survivors.

At least now I recognize poor treatment from others and can reject it… even when it takes awhile.

′′Let go the people who are not prepared to love you. This is the hardest thing you will have to do in your life and it will also be the most important thing. Stop having hard conversations with people who don’t want change.

Stop showing up for people who have no interest in your presence. I know your instinct is to do everything to earn the appreciation of those around you, but it’s a boost that steals your time, energy, mental and physical health.

When you begin to fight for a life with joy, interest and commitment, not everyone will be ready to follow you in this place. This doesn’t mean you need to change what you are, it means you should let go of the people who aren’t ready to accompany you.

If you are excluded, insulted, forgotten or ignored by the people you give your time to, you don’t do yourself a favor by continuing to offer your energy and your life. The truth is that you are not for everyone and not everyone is for you.

That’s what makes it so special when you meet people who reciprocate love. You will know how precious you are.

The more time you spend trying to make yourself loved by someone who is unable to, the more time you waste depriving yourself of the possibility of this connection to someone else.

There are billions of people on this planet and many of them will meet with you at your level of interest and commitment.

The more you stay involved with people who use you as a pillow, a background option or a therapist for emotional healing, the longer you stay away from the community you want.

Maybe if you stop showing up, you won’t be wanted. Maybe if you stop trying, the relationship will end. Maybe if you stop texting your phone will stay dark for weeks. That doesn’t mean you ruined the relationship, it means the only thing holding it back was the energy that only you gave to keep it. This is not love, it’s attachment. It’s wanting to give a chance to those who don’t deserve it. You deserve so much, there are people who should not be in your life.

The most valuable thing you have in your life is your time and energy, and both are limited. When you give your time and energy, it will define your existence.

When you realize this, you begin to understand why you are so anxious when you spend time with people, in activities, places or situations that don’t suit you and shouldn’t be around you, your energy is stolen.

You will begin to realize that the most important thing you can do for yourself and for everyone around you is to protect your energy more fiercely than anything else. Make your life a safe haven, in which only ′′compatible′′ people are allowed.

You are not responsible for saving anyone. You are not responsible for convincing them to improve. It’s not your work to exist for people and give your life to them! If you feel bad, if you feel compelled, you will be the root of all your problems, fearing that they will not return the favours you have granted. It’s your only obligation to realize that you are the love of your destiny and accept the love you deserve.

Decide that you deserve true friendship, commitment, true and complete love with healthy and prosperous people. Then wait and see how much everything begins to change. Don’t waste time with people who are not worth it. Change will give you the love, the esteem, happiness and the protection you deserve.

The Halfway Mark & I Am Broken

Now that’s a confession.

Because I write about healing and how to do it and all the ways we can “get back on the horse” after unfathomable losses over many years, it is a shocking confession to me.

Today is significant to me not only for this revelation but because I started this blog on March 14, 2023. I have committed to writing a post a day every day for a whole year. This is the half way mark. High marks for stick-to-it-ism.

I have devised a clever strategy. So I will not feel the true depths and agony hiding in the pain abyss I am carrying. I play an artful game of “feint and parry,” “na-na-na-boo-boo” and the biggie, “You can’t hurt me!”

Lately, however, I am edging toward the rim of the abyss. The pain looks up at me slyly from the measureless depths. It chuckles softly. “I’m gonna getcha. You know that, don’t you?” And the minute I hear that whisper of a threat, I rev up in to high gear. “The hell you are!”

My voice raises and thins and speeds up. My fingers fly faster over the keyboard much more driven than they need to be. I realize there is no need for this manic typing. The words will come out eventually no matter how slow or fast I type. But in an attempt to evade the mocking incessant whispers of pain, the typing seems possessed by an Olympian drive.

I cannot even conceptualize what “surrender” or “letting go” means. I imagine it means death. Psychological and literal. I have entertained the conceit that I have actually been letting go in recent years. I realize I have been tested lately. External forces have triggered and exposed what hasn’t fully healed.

Then the dominoes fall. Just like the 100 foot oak trees behind our new house. I am emotionally bereft. I have tried to live above it all. Real losses and the threat of loss have been swimming in and out of my life for decades. “I laugh in the face of fear and danger!! Ha-ha.” Not.

Occasionally I acknowledge pain’s presence, then let it move along. Lately, the hateful thing seems poised to throw itself onto my emotional beach, loll about sunning itself and indicates its intent to stick around for awhile.

They say that the way to conquer the thing you fear and loathe is to get up close to it, make yourself vulnerable and befriend the creature. Talk about easier said than done. What I know today at exactly the halfway point in my daily blog writing exercise, I have never been so awash in pain and uncertainty.

If I were you reading this, what would I tell you by way of hope and comfort? The platitude scarves would come out. “This too shall pass.” “You are stronger than you imagine and braver than you think.” “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.“ Etc.

That last quote is by Thoreau. It has always struck a resonant chord in me even though it seems to expect an enormous amount of us. It expects we will have sufficient time, wisdom and inclination to fully explore and find that which lives deep inside us. I feel I have never had an adequate amount of any of those three things to find out who and what I really am.

Once in another place of transition in my life, I was lost and confused. My direction in life, how I wanted to live, where I wanted to live. The counsellor I was talking with simply said: “That’s perfectly okay. Confusion is a legitimate place.”

In my mind, I have committed to writing daily about what I observe, what I’ve learned and whatever else came up. To honor that process, I tap into it all – good, bad and ugly. Even the uncomfortable bits. Only time will tell if this confession is a catharsis and sparks another deep healing phase. I have fear and I have hope.

Again it was my old friend Thoreau who said: “Not until we are lost do we discover who we are.”

That being the case, and if Henry is right, I should be on track to solidify a pretty tight sense of self at the end of this waterpark ride.

Here’s hoping.

In the meantime, I’ve got work to do. As I have always done, I will put one metaphorical foot in front of the other. And I’ll keep writing. That is something concrete I can do to contain and examine the pain. Most days, it helps.

ED. NOTE: The Universe often does show up with guidance and comfort. This morning’s message from a spiritual newsletter I read is: The beauty of being lost is the same thing that makes it scary — we must look within ourselves to find the way.

On it. 🙂

Do Unto Others

I believed this for the longest time. That if people care enough, are good enough, try hard enough, avoid the Nazis, good things would come into their life. I had to. I was dealing with a lot of (metaphorical) Nazis.

And it is not that I don’t believe that goodness triumphs. If life is – as many believe – a crap shoot, it is far better to load the die on the side of goodness and optimism. “Do unto others as they would have them do unto you.”

I lived in relentless negativity and pessimism for the longest time. That sucked.

It wasn’t that I consciously chose to see the world that way. Life convinced me. And if I’m honest, my life had a lot of help in forming a negative worldview from my stupid choices and bad behavior. I should have realized I couldn’t have it both ways. I couldn’t be both a screaming a-hole AND be blissfully content and happy. It’s called consequences.

For the longest time, I played a precipitous game between feeling I totally lacked control over my life and an illusion that I had absolute control. I was not well prepared for life.

In fact, I didn’t really have the basics nailed down. Emotionally and physically absent parents who pretty much left me to figure out life on my own. I was not qualified.

My young life was a series of jagged stops and starts, highs and lows, genius and bonehead stupidity. I was offered so many great opportunities that I did not have the necessary skills or experience to hang on to. What child does?

It takes a magical amalgam of upbringing, genetics, personality, opportunity, and chutzpah to land on your feet and stay there. I know one thing for sure. At a point, it is essential to take personal responsibility for your life, aka your choices. At a point, no one (even you) is going to buy: “The Devil made me do it.”

I make these observations as I face a mountainous mess of my own making. Confined in life and options, I continued making a series, if not bad, then not brilliant choices about how to invest my time and energy.

I have rather more of what I don’t want in my life (debt, clutter, stress) than what I truly want and need (friends, happy outings and mini-ad\ventures, dinner parties, fine Swiss chocolate).

I have learned that you must build, not grab. For someone raised I was, it is very difficult not to take whatever comes along and takes what is offered, instead of sitting back and first considering: “Is this something I really want?”

If acknowledgment of a problem is the first step toward solving it, then I have arrived at that point at least. For a troubled kid awash in lack, I am now struggling to balance and find my center now that lack is no longer an issue.

I chuckle at our collective envy and wonder about people who – by any outside standard – “have it all.” That is a very subjective experience to begin with. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” But this is also true even if you “have it made.” Life is going to teach you lessons – whether you are a prince or a pauper, a sinner or a saint.

It is only once your outside reality begins to line up with your inside reality that life becomes easier, even and balanced. From my present stocktaking vantage point, my biggest task these days will be to eliminate what I don’t want to make room for more of what I do. Out with the old and in with the new.

At least that is how it goes in theory. I’ll let you know how I do with that.

The target has been set. Now I just have to make a plan to reach it. And stick with it.

Wish me luck.

Joe Conservative

Not my words, but words I believe, so I am sharing them.

Just as anyone should share one’s beliefs.

The pushback of hatred sometimes makes me forget.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE CONSERVATIVE

Joe gets up for work and fills his kettle with water to prepare his morning tea. The water is clean because some tree-hugger fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swig, he takes his daily medication. His medicine is safe to take, because some stupid commie fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

He prepares his bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meatpacking industry.

In his morning shower, Joe reaches for the shampoo. His bottle is labelled with each ingredient because some crybaby fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

Joe drives to work in a safe regulated car because meddling do-gooders fought for more safety features and standards.

Joe begins his workday. He has a good job with excellent pay, pension, paternity leave, paid holidays and sick pay because some union layabouts fought and died for these working standards.

Joe hurts himself at work and an ambulance takes him to a hospital emergency ward. He receives free-at-the-point-of-use treatment thanks to some bloody interfering trots
who decided to create a national Medicare health system [ED.NOTE: Canadian reference].

Joe gets home and relaxes by listening to the radio. The host reminds everyone that socialists are dangerous and conservatives are trustworthy.

He never mentions that the Conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoyed throughout his day.

Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government socialists ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

Joe lives in blissful [ED. NOTE: and dangerous] ignorance.

Coffee, Tea or Cyanide

Nothing like an early morning flight to remind you how precious sleep is.

Over years of intermittent early morning flights, I have come to rely on my internal alarm clock.

I don’t rely on it so much that I don’t set an actual alarm, mind you. But inevitably, I wake before the clock chimes the hour. I rouse myself no matter how sleepy I am when there is something important to be done. Like catching a flight.

I used to travel enthusiastically. I am not sure what has taken off the edge of excitement. These days I dread travel like I used to dread going to the dentist. Given my druthers these days, I think I’d happily hop in a dental chair.

I’ve been to a lot of places in the world, so there’s that. But no, I think it is that the overall quality of travel has dipped precipitously. My recent flight plans were a shining example.

Flying Leg #1 from North to South was straightforward enough. But at a central hub on the Eastern US seaboard, Mother Nature had her own secret plans for a messed up travel day. A messed up heyday, in fact. Thunderstorms. Complete with thunder and lighting. Travel cyanide.

I have to admire how cleverly the airlines handle such disruptions these days in their own best interests. There was a time when the merest hint of bad weather would shut down flights. The airline would hie its’ passengers off to a nearby hotel with meal vouchers to ride out the storm. Ancient history.

Instead, the airline’s tactic today is to keep passengers baited and on the hook. “We regret to inform you your flight will be delayed by one hour. It is now departing from Gate Whatever at whatever time one hour from now is.”

The same email and text message gets sent out hour after hour after hour. It keeps people dangling and on the hook. Clustered sleepily in the airport waiting lounge sipping bad coffee and chewing on hope.

To be fair, the airline finally made a humanitarian offering of “hydration and refreshments”: warm bottled water and Goldfish pretzels. You’d be within your rights to see the close comparison to the “bread and water” regimen they once served incarcerated prisoners as punishment.

Until finally, when pilots can no longer safely fly because they have passed the allowable FAA regulations deadline, the airline cancels the flight. I don’t know what people do or what happens to them when that happens. I didn’t stick around to find out.

Operating on fumes, I finally bailed at around 7 PM to find a hotel room for the night. I would have felt foolish if my flight actually made it out that night. Luckily it didn’t and I didn’t feel foolish. I awoke this morning to find a text message advising all passengers at close to midnight: “The flight has been cancelled.”

Ominously I had been checked into Room 911 at the hotel. That was particularly ominous in light of today’s chilling anniversary. It was a minor nuisance to learn there was no bathtub, so I asked for a room change. Thus I avoided two undesirable scenarios and my uncomfortable feeling.

There was an eeriness in seeing the room number 911 assignment in a Washington, DC hotel exactly 22 years after the fact. And a “shower only” bathroom. I’m old school and need a bath to relax. Especially after a travel day like this.

The flakiness I sometimes exhibit both confounds and comforts me by times. So many had so many more feels to wrangle on this horrible anniversary and likely still do. But damn, travel is different. No room service. “Only at dinnertime,” said the chipper young thing at the front desk.

I pleaded illness and incapacity to get a basic breakfast delivered. (“Oh, we can give you a mask when you come down.” CYT offered, cheerily.) The whitener served with the coffee was totally oversold. It barely turned the coffee a dark mocha to say nothing of the host of chemicals that cannot be good for man nor beast.

I am about to go all Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz on myself after this necessary travel jaunt. “There’s no place like home!” At least, I can count on a full breakfast any time of the day or night and a readily available bathtub to soak away the cares of the day.

Travel was once the playground of adventure, learning and tolerable inconveniences. These days it is a passage through purgatory to get to wherever it is you absolutely want or need to get to.

Purgatory is a polite way of putting it. Occasionally it can be hell on earth.

Yesterday’s travel came perilously close to that.

Ask anyone who was waiting all day yesterday to board Flight 4424.

Which, of course, they never did.

RIP Peter Newman

Author, editor, historian, and darned frustrating writer to fact check is how I will remember Peter Newman. I was a lowly fact-checker at Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly newsmagazine, back in the day. Peter Newman roamed the halls at deadline, checking on everyone’s progress and making light conversation. Extremely light conversation.

Peter Newman was a man of words but not particularly inclined toward the spoken variety. He ruled the roost at Maclean’s in that way that intimidating figures do. If Peter wanted it this way or that way, then that is what Peter got.

Peter Newman was old school. A Vienna born Jewish refugee from Nazis, he barely escaped being shot as he was about to board the ship that would take him to Canada. He had a fierce drive to find his voice and his place. He certainly accomplished that in the firmament of Canadian journalism and literature.

As a fact-checker, our job was to review the copy submitted by the writers and then painfully, line by line in red ink, underline the ‘facts” in the piece and verify them. We had an array of reference options in the Maclean’s library as our go to. Facts on File was a standard reference guide. Webster’s dictionary to check spelling. No internet back then.

We would also have to call people mentioned in stories to verify facts. I remember a dear colleague (Ann MacGregor gone way too soon) had to call Harold Ballard, then-owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs to have him confirm if, indeed, he had “steely blue eyes.” She never admitted whether she asked Ballard if his eyes were “steely” or not. Confirming the color was likely as far as she got. Ann was tenacious but a little timid.

The point of fact-checking was verification and corroboration. A directive from legal to avoid libel and slander suits, no doubt. That meant we had to have two and preferably three verifiable sources to support the facts in the story, complete with the usual bibliographic elements: source, date, edition, page number, author, etc.

Peter Newman wrote a weekly editorial column for the magazine. Woe betide the checker who got Newman column to review. Peter helpfully provided his own “references.” They would be passed to us along with his copy in clipping shards from one magazine or another.

No author’s name. No identified publication. Page number and issue or edition number was a joke. We trembled when it was our turn to “fact-check Peter.”

We could not properly do the job we were supposed to do with Peter’s copy. It was impossible. But it was Peter Newman and Peter Newman’s word was gospel. We shakily passed our finished copy along to research department head Arlene Arnason. She would swallow any misgivings she might have had about any other writer and say, ”Well, if it came from Peter, I am sure it is okay.” We all sure hoped so.

On Friday nights when we had to work late to put the magazine to bed, Newman would make arrangements for his secretary to call up his buddy Ray Kroc, Canadian McDonald’s CEO. We ate Big Macs and quarter pounders to our heart’s content. Those were the days when it didn’t matter how much cholesterol we ingested. Or booze when I think of it. (After the magazine was put to bed.)

The old guard of Canadian journalism from the 20th century is leaving. Many have already left. It is ever the case as one generation hands the torch to the next one. The world has evolved in such a way that the job we pursued with such passion as young journalists seems a little quaint now. The accusation of “fake news” makes my blood boil in a way that maybe only journalists steeped in the exactitude of our research traditions understand.

I harbor deep concerns that the world of facts and information is nowhere near as regulated and important as it once was. In World War II, posters warned citizens: “Loose lips sink ships.” If anyone understood the power of words to shape and distort the facts and negatively impact people’s lives, it would have been Peter Newman. RIP.

Unwell

My head is foggy. I feel feverish.

The only thing I can think of saying today is that I need to curl up in a ball and rest. I think that is a legitimate message to put out there.

This is the yoga nidra of blog writing. Those who know, know.

And a mark of self-care. So I am. Heading for my favorite place to curl up and drink tea and do nothing.

Isn’t that exactly the advice U gave me the other day?

This is me. Taking that advice.

After taking a rest, I will have more to say.

Consider this a punctuation post.

A pause in a music score.

And for the same reason.

To catch my breath.

What value would there be in a blog about healing if the author didn’t take her own advice occasionally?

Yay Me, Yay You

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

Here is what I am learning these days about a theme I have explored before. I write for myself and only myself. If it hits a chord out there in the world, that’s good. Not essential but good. Welcome aboard.

I believe in the sanctity of the individual and exploring inside ourselves to find out who we really are. What we think, believe, care about, fear, love. Not because we are all that on our own, but because we as individuals are all there really is.

What is in your brain is your life. Full stop. Not a bit more complicated than that. Don’t believe me? Remove your brain from your body. See how that goes.

I hate to go all Henry David Thoreau on you, but I am going to. Collectively, we like to step-to and mind our ps and q’s to fit in and enjoy our perception of being “normal.” Being “seen” as normal in whatever society we are in is an important prerequisite for living a “normal” life. In other words, in larger society, to feel like a person “just like everyone else” and in smaller groups fitting in with people “just like us.”

We gauge our social success by the degree to which we have engendered the regard of our fellows. We spend a great deal of time in our youth preparing ourselves to become our version of what we believe a normal person is and should be.

There was such a brouhaha around Thoreau’s seminal book Walden, Or, Life in the Woods when it was published in 1854. He wrote a lot about being self-sufficient and celebrating himself. He was accused of all kinds of unseemly personal characteristics and hypocrisy and humorlessness. Mostly he was regarded by many as selfish for stepping outside the normal bounds of society. Even for a short two years.

For some reason this scared the living bejeezus out of good folk. Many branded him a narcissist and ne’er do well. But I see Thoreau’s attempt to elevate himself as an individual as a call to all of us to respect and nurture our unique individuality. He urges each of us to respect the dictates of our individuality for indeed, without that, we ain’t got much.

It is funny, in retrospect, that Thoreau contributed so many great one-liners and dorm room poster fodder to our culture. March to the beat of your own drummer, for example. Celebrating myself, another. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.

What I like most in reading about Thoreau is that he didn’t seem to give a fiddler’s fig about what others thought of him or his odd lifestyle choice. He hied himself off to a cabin in the woods where he lived a sparse life for a time devoid of most creature comforts back in the days of mid-1800’s sensibilities. This bothered some people and marked him as distinctly odd.

But I liked that Thoreau subverted the expectations of people around him. He essentially said with his choices and musings: “Let others think what they will. This is what I am doing and how I choose to live my life. Deliberately. There is a price to pay for marching to the beat of a different drummer and I am paying it.” (He didn’t say any of that. I am writing what I think he might have said and thought. How presumptuous is that.)

However, it was Thoreau who said: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

It is a reminder and an invocation to explore our own inner dreams and pay attention to the directives of our “small, still voice.” It is a tall order. Swishing around in society’s daily routines and taking care of a hundred chores and necessaries every day, that voice is often hard to hear. Dead silent for many people. But it is always there. Small and still though that voice may be.

As fragile human beings who choose to act on the prescriptions inside each of us for each one of us, in the face of overwhelming odds by society to push down and push back our individuality, it is really all we have.

We don’t really need a cabin to figure that out and pay attention. Modern life is full of homilies and advice about getting in touch with that directive through meditation and mindfulness. But it is a wonderful occurrence when you and the voice connect occasionally and for the more attuned, regularly.

For that voice is ours and ours alone. Rare. Unique. Original. Just like we are. I feel it best to constantly listen for that voice and to remind myself that it is always available to us whether we can hear it at the minute or not. I celebrate myself. You celebrate you, too. The voice inside you will get louder.

Words Matter

I am burned out. The following will explain a bit about why. In these deep life trenches that we all face occasionally, we look to who and what might lift us up or, at the very least, keep us from sinking ever deeper in our own morass.

Gratefully, there is available to us all the great universal arithmetic that a problem or situation divided by two becomes half as difficult to manage. Or bear.

These words below are from a lifelong friend who is as dear – dearer, in fact – to me than both of my own siblings. By a lot.

Draw near if you are struggling and stumbling or know someone else who is. This advice is universal and I don’t know who else needs to hear it today. I sure did.

I can only hope that you are equally blessed with such a “partner in crime” in your life who is willing to lift up the other side of the yoke and walk with you awhile. Even when your friendship is separated by time and geography and circumstance.

My friend refers to my dismay over the razed forest that came down behind us and was completely unanticipated when we moved into our new home just over a month ago.

A towering and beautiful canopy of old oak trees were summarily taken down in two days to make way for yet another ticky-tacky little Florida house. There are millions of them already. My friend calls it the Oak Tree Massacre (OTM, for short).

The right words at the right time can mean the difference between sadness or happiness, success or failure, life or death. Les mots juste. Does that sound over the top? Try making it through life without someone like my wise and wonderful friend.

She disparagingly calls it twaddle. (U is also good at self-deprecation.) I call it emotional manna from heaven. And an example of what we factor in on a daily basis to calculate the meaning of life.

Thank you, U. for making my load a little lighter and my heart, too. Plus you essentially wrote this post for me today. There is no greater sacrifice than to write a post for one’s friend. I am sure that is a reliable old truism time-tested by the ages. And if it isn’t, it should be.

U Words

You are exhausted, bone marrow exhausted— the deepest kind.

 I’m putting on my therapist hat on top of my friendship head. I’m going to give you something to consider. If it is helpful— great. If not— ignore.

Life in 3 abbreviated (and incomplete) sections, predating the Oak Tree Massacre (OTM)

1. The exhaustion and stress of moving. The looking, the disappointments, the excitement, the lawyers, the paper work, the electrical hookup, internet hook up, physically demanding and emotionally fraught scenarios of where’s my coffee maker, shit ! Did I lose my favorite pair of socks in the move, etc. etc. etc. – all multiplied by 2 people. Tough going, very tough and requires a lot of patience 

2. The exhaustion of caregiving for someone you love who is older. In different circumstances I looked after my parents. The phone calls in the middle of the night, or at work, that one of them had fallen, gotten sick, couldn’t find whatever… buying groceries, finding cleaners, cleaning for hours on end myself. And yet, I had the opportunity to escape to my home, to breathe, to see some good friends. You are isolated and you are worn down.

3. The 2 lists above are external contributors to what’s happening to you now, post OTM. The third is not and is probably the hardest. The propaganda we all buy as women about what it means to be a good spouse, wife, partner and the silent pressure to have and keep a perfect home.

In essence, the dream. The bargain on some visceral level inculcated from birth and whipped up further in our 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s that we can be everything at all times to all people. And if we believe that if we succeed in being all these things  life will be a dream incarnate. It’s not. It’s shit. But in amongst all that shit, we continue to find hope, faith and love. 

We hope that things and people will be good and kind to us, and we try to be and do that ourselves. We do this without guarantees. We should also hope we can be kind to ourselves. 

We have faith in our partner’s love even in the midst of a Donnybrook. We have faith that we have the knowledge to do as you’ve said “less said, soonest mended. ” We need faith that there is a solution of some sort— not a dream but a solution, if we but give it time.

And the love… we love when there is a fantastic sunset, flowers, and a cuddle. But we also love, as you well know, when there is shit quite literally in front of you. But please love yourself. You are lovable, and everyone of us is flawed. It is ok to be flawed. You are a good person. God only knows you try so hard.

The hardest thing to do is to do nothing. Please do nothing. Do nothing several times a day, and several times a week. Go to a Buddhist retreat. Sit on a rock. Drink a cup of herbal tea. Or caffeine if that suits you better. 

And so ends the sermon by U. I can be a pompous twat so ignore all of this if you wish— In short do nothing😉❤️

Choices, Choices, Choices

Lack of choice has been a constraint from time to time throughout history. Sometimes people know they have limited choices. Other times, people are blessedly oblivious. They accept what is, is, and for what it is.

In the past, people didn’t really expect anything as much out of life, or love or telephones. Heck. They didn’t even realize there was anything else to be had because there likely wasn’t. Limited choices made life less confusing. A little boring, perhaps, but infinitely less confusing. And clearer about the rules and priorities of life and living.

Fast forward say a hundred and fifty years to today from the invention of the telephone to its widespread implementation in North America and across the globe. We have evolved into a high maintenance consumer society that is offered and expects “everything, everywhere, all at once.”

Oh, you “need” a new cellphone? What color would you like? What size? What brand? Do you want a case with that? Glass screen protection cover? Warranty protection? What features? Voicemail? Call back options? (I admit the last two are standard on most cellphones but I am trying to make a point here.)

It amuses me to think that it wasn’t that long ago when telephones were hailed as a wonder of modern communication. Pick up this handle? Dial (or punch in) a telephone number? Talk with Aunt Beatrice five houses down the road? Wow.

I can remember when a telephone number was only five digits. Even less in rural areas. In country settings, there were telephone operators who manually patched and connected one call to another. They were usually party lines, too. In some areas you could not get a “private line.” You had to share with several nearby neighbors.

And oh, the scandals and subterfuge the party line ushered in. The telltale click when someone else on the party line picked up their phone to listen into your phone call. Or maybe the operator, a fearsome gatekeeper of local communications, never quite hung up after she’d made the connection.

I am sure some people would have paid good money for the information tidbits the operator carried about in her head about the neighbors. Talk about power! And there was only one style of phone on offer. It was black. It usually hung on a wall.

To connect to the operator who would connect you to Aunt Beatrice, you would have to turn a little crank on the side of the telephone. The number of cranks indicated which number (person) you were trying to reach. The world was that small and manageable.

Well, those days are clearly gone forever. I was in Home Depot today commiserating with a gentleman about the ridiculous amount of available choices for something as simple as window shades. Gone are the days of hanging a repurposed sheet or tablecloth to block out the light. Although sheets clearly did a very questionable job.

Today (hallelujah!) we have blackout curtains. In every imaginable color and style and fabric and size. Hundreds (and maybe thousands) of them. And after poring over Amazon and Wayfair and BlindsRus offerings for days and maybe longer, we make our choice.

They arrive at our front door and darn – they are two shades off the ideal shade we were looking for. “They looked entirely different on the website.” or so we write into the Amazon Reason for Return box.

Have we ever drunk the Kool-Aid! First, that we think that kind of nonsense is important or even matters in the grand scheme of things. It may matter some. Even I appreciate the nuance and subtlety of a fitting color match between this paint color and that shower curtain’s pattern.

But is any of that really important? Will we look back fondly on our shower curtain pattern as we lie on our deathbed? Obviously not. I wonder how many children are neglected today because Mom is focused on fitting in through fashion. I wonder how many Moms still wear their collection of 4 inch stilettos after their first child is born. Props if they even can.

Our focus of daily living and priorities are seriously out of whack. We will never go back to the days of a single style of phone or a few good gingham dresses to pick from in the Sears catalog.I am a Luddite, not a regressionist.

But of this I am sure, when little Sally made her first call to Aunt Beatrice, it was thrilling. There was respect and a little wonder for whatever magic it was in that clunky black machine that had brought that ability into being in the first place.

Today when people encounter a random instance of joy and wonder, they are eager to capture the moment on their cellphones. Then that the moment of magic quickly and emphatically passes and disappears.

I don’t believe we were ever meant to hold on to joy and wonder indefinitely. What we need to know is that those moments are out there and available to us, if we but stop, watch and listen. They often appear unbidden and when we need them the most.

How quaint is that? Who even does that anymore? But from my wheelhouse, it’s a collective loos of wonder and very sad that we don’t watch for wonder. Not often enough at any rate.