Tag: parents

OPW

Sometimes OPW (other people’s wisdom) is too good not to share.

Especially when OPW is your wisdom and belief.

I’ve often thought a manual should come with every newborn baby.

That way, eager young parents would have the tools at hand to imbue their children with solid life lessons for building a happy life.

But no. Life doesn’t work like that. We are all given challenges and lessons to learn as we (hopefully) grow. Each life is individualistically designed to teach us what we need to know.

That said, this list is a pretty solid “go-to” for guiding you to better decisions and making better use of your time on the planet.

  1. Fix yourself before you try to fix anyone else. People are often very comfortable in their miserable lives.
  2. You’ll be 10 times happier if you forgive your parents and stop blaming them for your problems.
  3. Marry the right partner. The right one will help you build your physical, mental, and financial strength.
  4. Make friends who are ambitious, motivated, and strong where you are weak.
  5. Be old enough to realize no one cares. Chase what you believe is right and just.
  6. Seek zero advice from people who are not where you want to be in life.
  7. Your circle of friends should discuss business ideas, family, and success more.   Not politics, religion, and celebrity gossip.
  8. Spend a few hours every week working on your business and dreams. Working for someone will only get you enslaved forever.
  9. Invest in a home library. Nothing is more toxic than wasting your time watching the news, Netflix, or scrolling social media.
  10. Create opportunities for yourself. No one will ever come to save you from your problems.

Fuck Fear

Fear swims into my chest unbidden and swirls around my solar plexus in aching, incessant revolutions. Dead center in my body. Unbidden and heavy … triggered by what I assume will be bad news.

It is said that while we cannot control what others do or think or what happens around us, we can control our reactions. When fear hits, I immediately think all of that is pure malarkey.

My solar plexus fills up with fear without any conscious thought on my part. It is downright creepy.

I do not invite fear to fill up inside me overwhelming my senses and my reason. But fill up inside me it does. As surely as gas goes straight into a tank when the nozzle is depressed.

Unlike pumping gas, however, the fear doesn’t stop once the nozzle is released. It feels like a more automatic process.

I have learned some remedies for managing uncomfortable feelings of fear. Intellectually, I realize the highest and best road to take in the face of fear is simply facing it.

But that is usually my strategy of last resort. I play games in my head. I avoid picking up the phone or confronting the perpetrator. I avoid whatever will connect me to the bad news I fear. My stomach churns incessantly and the fear dances and coagulates in my body’s middle region.

As a stopgap measure, avoidance is actually not so bad a choice. It gives me time to collect myself. It gives me time to steel myself for the words I emphatically do not want to hear. In the poem Desiderata, there is a line I often refer back to: “Nurture strength of spirit to shield yourself in times of sudden misfortune.”

For me, getting to that end state is unreliable. When I am already feeling run down, maybe a little vulnerable, hungry, angry, lonely or tired … the well-known HALT acronym, I tend to be even more avoidant.

I have my fair share of memories where fear and terror swooped in when my defenses were at their very lowest ebb. I had no emotional or psychological defenses as no small child does. Yet my childhood world was full of fearful happenings and sudden wrenching losses.

Dad would frequently come home drunk and beat up my mother. I could do nothing but sit on the top step of the staircase outside my bedroom and shake from a combination of fear and cold in my thin cotton nightdress. Mom told me I once put myself between the two of them and pushed them apart when they were fighting. That was a pretty ballsy move for a four year old.

My beloved golden cocker spaniel Gus and my best buddy as a toddler was killed by a car when he bolted across the road in front of our house. He had been after a quicksilver squirrel. The squirrel got away.

Noone talked to me about how Gus died. As I recall, they didn’t even actually tell me he was dead. Probably one of those incipient “white lies” parents make up, presumably to “protect” their children. Maybe at the tender age of two or three years old, they saw no need to “traumatize” me with details I could not understand. Or so they thought.

I knew something must be wrong because Gus was nowhere to be found and didn’t come to my call. I also knew when I came upon a large red pool of liquid left in the front porch after Gus’s lifeless body had been taken away.

The sadness of that loss was compounded by the secrecy and hushed voices of adults around me who talk in that sotto voce way when something terrible has happened.

I know when I make that call today, I am going to hear: “Nothing more can be done. The builder can proceed and there is no legal impediment to prevent him from doing so.” I am steeling myself for the bad news.

By contrast, yesterday, my heart filled up with joy and hope for a few hours. An investigator came from the local authorities yesterday. I was temporarily cheered and encouraged by his very presence.

In the back of my mind, however, I knew my elation and optimism was sitting on flimsy evidence. Still, hope is a powerful analgesic.

An analgesic which is about to wear off.

Fuck.

Off-Putting

Today’s writing prompt: What have you been putting off doing? Why?

Taxes.

I know I am not alone in this. The prompt is timely as I am remiss in providing my accountant with all of the necessary records and statements to get the verdammtes things finished.

I believe my aversion to taxes is connected to other money-based fears I have.

My father was a miser. In retrospect, I would call it an identifiable disorder. I know his miserliness emerged from childhood trauma. In his childhood, he experienced severe emotional and also financial lack (though not wildly different than others of his generation).

His miserliness in coin and spirit defined him and his life.

By contrast, my mother was exactly opposite. She freely and frequently spent money she didn’t have. She would not concede that there would be a lack of anything in her life – no matter what reality showed her.

In both parents, money issues came from dysfunctional childhoods and plagued them to their grave. In fact, their money management styles only became more deeply entrenched as they grew older.

My father exhibited visible pain when his caregiver selected a package of ham only slightly more expensive than the ham offered at the lowest price. She switched them out and bought the lower priced (and lower quality) ham. His relief was palpable.

For awhile, he ran an ice cream parlor. That was a sweet semi-hobby (pun intended) my father took on in retirement. For his grandkids, it certainly was. But Dad drove his employees up the wall. He hung around the shop all day and would not stockpile perishable items, like bananas.

When someone came in and ordered a banana split, Dad would get in is car, trundle down to the supermarket ten minutes away to buy one. One banana. I can’t imagine his strategy was all that great for attracting repeat business when a customer had to wait 20-30 minutes for an ice cream treat. I can’t imagine any money he saved by not stockpiling made up the cost of his gas.

My mother was completely opposite. A bit of a scofflaw if I’m honest. When the banks came after her in her dotage for unpaid loans, she actually took them to court to argue that she hadn’t made payments on the loans because the banks miscalculated the interest.

I can’t imagine the legal logic she deployed to make that argument. I never saw the argument written down on paper. I’m not she ever did write it down or would have dared. I only know Mom lost that case to the banks. She often said, “The banks never lose.” She knew that going in.

I know people who actually do their taxes themselves, every year and submit them on time. I do not understand those people.

Even with hired help to get the dreaded taxes done, my neurosis hangs on. I am a procrastinator extraordinaire when it comes to tackling my taxes. Or I go the opposite way. I binge produce my statements only to have the whole process slow and eventually shut down because I missed sending one statement in the annual batch.

It is an immaturity to be sure. It is also clearly a neurosis. A crazy mix of my mother and father’s belief and treatment of money. I save every receipt and invoice and bank statement like Gollum holding on to his “Precioussssss.” Unlike Gollum, I don’t get the same emotional or psychological satisfaction from grasping and holding on to fading pieces of paper.

During my recent hoard unload, it was beyond satisfying (and embarrassing) to throw out batches of receipts and paper clutter I had been hanging on to for decades. It is important to mention that not once in all those years of hoarding receipts in case of a tax audit, did I ever have to face one.

Yet there is a teeny-tiny voice inside that says if you start throwing away receipts now, you just KNOW the tax department is going to come for you. Maybe. Maybe not.

I only know it seems like a silly (but essential) habit of receipt hoarding I have had my whole adult life.

So there. I am making my fears known and facing the buggery tax returns. I’ve done that before and it is usually enough to get me partway through the backlog. I need to do it again. Ad infinitum it would seem. Or at least annually.

So guess what I’m doing today? Honest? Likely anything but taxes unless the money gods conspire to inspire me. Sigh.

Necessary Losses

Necessary Losses is the title of a 1986 book by Judith Viorst. The title intrigued me but the sub-title even more: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow. 

(Grown up children (like mine) will recognize Viorst’s most famous children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We loved that book when they were little people.)

When I first encountered Necessary Losses, I was in a period of deep mourning for my life. I’d lost nearly everything. My family of origin. My marriage. My job. My self-confidence and my center. My “promise of youth.”

What Viorst’s book taught me was that we all go through inevitable losses in life. They are unavoidable. We will lose “our childhood.” We will lose our youth. We will lose our parents. And, eventually, extended family. Then friends.

It is how we grow and change through these losses that we are brought to a deeper perspective, true maturity and fuller wisdom about life.

Oddly, it was this book I was thinking about when I was clearing out a storage locker yesterday. The contents of many boxes reflected my life back to me. An agenda for a planning meeting. Articles I’d published. School reports for one or the other of my children. Random recipes and receipts from everywhere.

It was both freeing and unsettling. Clearly, I had hung on too long to too much stuff. As my energy level dropped in proportion to the amount of stuff I had to go through, I understood why. It is emotional and daunting to revisit the past. My past in any case. It is also exhausting.

I saw my survival through line in the detritus. The contracts I pursued to keep body and soul together. The self-help books that acted as guides and friends when I felt bereft of both. The children’s art that I kept to remind them one day of their younger selves. (I honestly don’t think they care all that much. A mother’s predilection, not a child’s.)

Growing older, I can feel myself bracing for the upcoming wave of losses over the next ten years.

When you are younger, the death of a friend or acquaintance is shocking and seemingly random. We celebrate together as a community and memorializing that death is a noteworthy event. We go to the funeral as a community. We share remembrances of the departed and swap jokes they used to laugh at. It is a bonding experience.

Then I remember my mother once went to the funeral of three friends in one day. We are still in the time of “one-offs” when among the condolences, we dutifully deploy “s/he died too young.”

We see ourselves in the remembrances in the obituary. We remember rocking out to Tom Petty in the basement together. Furtively getting high on illicit weed from questionable sources.

We meet their adult children and marvel at how much they look like the parent – our friend – that they just lost. The culling has begun.

It is for the best that the wisdom we gain about death as we get older does not preoccupy us when we are young. Persistent thoughts of death and dying are deemed pathological in our youth. In youth, those thoughts are often treated as symptoms of a mental condition, like depression or suicidal ideation.

In old age, those thoughts can become constant companions. After attending so many funerals and reading so many obituaries, we aren’t surprised by death anymore. If we are wise, we prepare for it every day we are living.

We all know there are “no guarantees” in life. An infant can expire as well as the octogenarian.

I decided some time ago to walk with death. Aware it is there and standing by. But not yet invited to the party. I have too much living and exploration still ahead of me. I think.

This attitude has been both life-affirming and life-changing. I am philosophical about death compared to what I was in my youth. Then the thought of death or a terminal illness could make me white with terror. Looking back, I think my greatest fear was dying before I had actually lived.

No one knows the internal crater of pain and emptiness as well as the recently bereft. It is not a universal reaction, of course. Some deaths bring more relief than sadness. That is a loss for all involved in that particular passing.

I accept death’s inevitability now. I know it will take precious loved ones from me. That constant, hovering possibility focusses me more on living life now. I make the apple galette when asked. I watch a movie I’m not crazy about because he enjoys it.

This is not about suppressing or ignoring my own needs or sense of self. Because what I need most now is for my dearest to live happy and healthy for as long as possible. As that is my ultimate goal, the details of how I get there aren’t as important.

On with the day and dealing with the next batch of boxes. Sifting through memories. Even expressing gratitude for the hideousness of the task.

At least, I am still here and able to go through them – a privilege denied to many.

Beautiful Chaos

According to the Urban Dictionary, beautiful chaos means someone whose life and/or personality are hectic or chaotic. When you have long defined yourself and your output as a “hot mess,” this positive reframing is welcome.

Tidiness and order do not come naturally to me. I am sure this deficit in me is attached to a trauma-filled childhood. Parental modeling has to be another. My mother’s aunt raised my mother to believe: “If you don’t learn how to do housework, then you’ll never have to do it.”
That view seemed fairly short-sighted on great-aunt Grace’s part, then and now.

I believe my great-aunt Grace was preparing my mother to live a life above her birth station. What it accomplished was a domestic incompetent who was inordinately proud of being so. Mom may have secretly suffered for her lack of housekeeping and cooking skills, but like many other things, she made a joke out of it.

“Cooking,” she would say, “is like murder. You only have to do it once to be one.” In her back pocket, she had but a handful of “go-to” recipes on the few occasions that I remember her making a homemade meal. “Joni marquette,” for example.

Joni marquette was an elevated moniker for a tasty dish of ground beef, macaroni, and a can of stewed tomatoes. Easy to throw together and admittedly tasty. In moderation.

But if there was a meal to be made and Mom was the only person available to do it, joni marquette was likely the main course. I later discovered that “joni marquette” was actually based on a US-Italian recipe called Johnny Marzetti. The Wikipedia article on the origin of the dish is an interesting read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Marzetti

The joni marquette entree was occasionally followed up with a dessert dish Mom was fond of making. We weren’t especially fond of it, but no matter. If dessert was called for, floating islands are what we got. That dish was prepared much like one would make meringues.

You know the crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside cookie confection of soundly whipped egg whites, infused with sugar and vanilla, and baked to golden brown perfection. A French derivation and specialty made popular by French cuisine superstar Julia Child. In French, they are called oeufs-a-la-neige. (eggs on clouds) https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/19050/floating-island-oeufs-a-la-neige/

Mom’s variation was to make the beaten egg white base with sugar as directed. She would then carefully ladle individual “islands” into a warming milk bath in a frying pan to cook. And voila. Floating islands.

To me, there was something vaguely off-putting about floating islands. It may have been their squishiness. Sort of like marshmallows but not nearly as firm and awash in milk. They felt funny in your mouth as if you were chewing on sweet foam. Maybe they weren’t so bad when I think back. Maybe it was their frequency as Mom’s “go-to” dessert that rendered them vaguely unappetizing.

Mom’s lack of domestic skills was a great source of humor for her. She often touted Dad’s skills around the house as being well above her own. He had been a bachelor practically forever when they met and married so was well familiar with domestic necessities.

Dad could cook and enjoyed it. He was also a little guilty of overdoing the “one-dish I’m good at.” In his case, it was cod au gratin. He would buy a large piece of cod – preferably fresh – and mix it with what I now know as roux. That is a flour, milk, and butter-based white sauce that he made extra thick and seasoned with salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.

He would pour this mixture into baking dishes I now know are called ramekins. He topped each ramekin with about an inch of sharp shredded cheddar cheese. Then he popped the ramekins in the oven until the cheese melted and the fish and roux had heated sufficiently. Pretty good eating.

But a little like Mom’s joni marquette, Dad’s cod au gratin was served excessively. Seems the mindset was that if you have a winning recipe, why deviate from it? A generational thing maybe.

My cooking adventures have been a combination of both parents’ approaches. I have a few “go-to” standards but take great delight in experimenting a little more than they did.

Of course, now if a new dish I am making doesn’t work out exactly like the picture on the New York Times recipe page, I am happy I no longer have to describe it as a “hot mess.”

What you have in front of you, I will say, is my own self-curated special dish, Beautiful Chaos. Would you care for some more?