Listen, It’s Friday!

Friday Meme Listen Listen Listen Linda

Hi all! Yay! It’s finally Friday! Happy Friday!!! On Fridays, nothing of any kind of a serious nature is discussed here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I typically list three favorite products, songs, websites, books, etc. that make my Material Girl life all of the more fun. I strongly encourage my readers to add their favorites to the Comments section, so that we all can have even more fun this weekend. Please see previous Friday posts for more of my favorites. Today I am going to list my favorite “kid videos” that make me smile and giggle out loud, again and again. Many of you will recognize the first video which is the inspiration for the above meme. Click on the videos and giggle away!

Happy Friday, dear readers and friends!!! I hope that you have a fabulous weekend!!

Where is the love, y’all??

“Here’s the thing – I’m friends with George Bush. 

“In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have. We’re all different, and I think we’ve forgotten that that’s okay, that we’re all different.”

The presenter used the example that while she wishes people didn’t wear real fur, she has a lot of friends who do.

“But just because I don’t agree with someone on everything, doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be friends with them,” DeGeneres said. 

-From the Ellen Degeneres show, after the fallout of her sitting next to George W. Bush during a football game

You know that I have sidestepped and tried to stay away from controversy, for the most part, in my blog. I don’t like politics (nor politicians, frankly), I believe that there are many paths to God, and I certainly don’t care to have people cram their opinions and “shoulds” down my throat. Further, if I just don’t agree with the other person’s opinion, I don’t care to be made out as an “idiot” or even worse, a “villian.” I respect everyone’s right to their own viewpoint, and I expect the same respect in return. No harm, no foul.

What I was trying to get across in my blog that I wrote on Tuesday (Love. Spirit. Life.) was that if we can’t have honest discourse and questioning with each other about our differences, if we have to feel fearful of admitting our conflicted thoughts and feelings and beliefs, all that have arisen from our own unique and personal experiences – these very experiences that have helped shape our own lifetime perspectives, how are we ever going to evolve and move forward to a more enlightened, cohesive state of being, as a whole? How are we ever going to feel that we are leaving a good world for our children and our grandchildren, when we pick divisiveness and exclusivity in our “clubs of thought” over our love for the whole of humanity?

If I were to only choose to associate with people who felt the exact same way as I do about all things, than I wouldn’t have one single friend. In fact, the six people who I love the most in this world, my immediate family, would no longer be able to associate with each other. In the last presidential election, the voting members of our family of six, effectively cancelled each others’ votes out.

We all complain about the horrifying polarization of our current society (that seems like the one thing most of us agree about), yet we start out with the assumption that anyone who doesn’t see things the way that we do, is evil or stupid – people to be feared and ostracized. How are we ever going to experience empathy, understanding and compromise, if we are made to feel that we can’t even express our own viewpoints for fear of being excommunicated from our communities, our churches, our friend groups, perhaps even our own families?!? What is our highest law? Shouldn’t it be Love?!? Does Love behave this way?!?

We all complain about the horrific statements made anonymously on the internet. Still, even with these forums, we have gotten so “careful” that I have even seen anonymous Comments, start off with, “I’m probably going to be skewered for this, but here goes . . . .”

We will never be entirely unified with anyone about everything. But if we choose to only communicate and commune with people who are close enough to “being just like us”, we will never, ever bridge these ever widening gaps. We will just add more suspicion, paranoia and make assumptions about other people, without ever trying to see them as most importantly, other people who likely have the very same deepest, core concerns as us. (love, safety, health, security, and peace for our families and our friends, our communities, and our world)

I am always amused when people tell me I’m so “honest” in my blog. Why shouldn’t we all be “honest”? I’m not saying cruel, and thoughtless and blunt. (which unfortunately, I have been these things, as well, and I am not proud of that fact) Why do we fear having open, authentic discourse? I think it is because the new way of communicating seems to be more “cram my righteous thoughts, ‘my holier than thou beliefs’ down your throat” and if you don’t agree with me, I will attack you with name-calling, bullying, shaming and ganging up on you, and then I will never speak to you (or anyone who you associate with) again.”

What ever happened to really hearing each other, trying to understand where the other person is coming from? What every happened to saying, “This is how I am seeing and experiencing and processing what is going on. Tell me your thoughts. Where am I wrong? What am I missing?” Whatever happened to the belief that in the end, we are so much better off looking for our connections, than staying in our far corners of disconnect??

I don’t like rants. I just wrote one. I am only human. Aren’t we all???

“Discussions are always better than arguments, because an argument is to find out WHO is right, and a discussion is to find our WHAT is right.” – unknown

Brought Him Back

I’m headed out to see my eldest son’s new digs this weekend for the first time. I am going to see his life in reality, not just how he describes it to me. I have my expectations set correctly. He has always leaned heavily towards the Oscar side of things, versus Felix. I can’t wait to see him, of course, but I also can’t wait to have an accurate visual of him hiking around the neighborhood lake, the placid lake that he always talks about while he talks to us, his short commute to his office building and I can’t wait to see his beloved local grocery store, supposedly filled with fabulous, unique delicacies, the likes that we’ve never seen.

My daughter and I were talking about what it is like to see something or someone in reality, that apparition which you have conjured up in your mind, for a very long time. When I read a good, engrossing novel, before long, I have a very detailed image in my mind, of what the characters look like, and their mannerisms and their voices. When Hollywood gets it “wrong” in the movie version, I just want to scream. Sometimes, I can’t even finish watching the film.

Also interesting are the times that I have seen celebrities, in person. That experience is always a tad disconcerting, too. The celebrities always seem like such teeny people to me. Perhaps, because in our minds, famous people seem so much larger than life, so when we see them in person, they are shockingly normal sized. They are amazingly, just people, and not the exaggerated, dynamos of energy, announcing their presence like The Great Wizard of Oz. The real person part of them is the human wizard who lives behind the curtain, behind the facade of their illustrious acting or singing or sporting personas. When the superstars are not bolstered up, and blown up by the spotlights and the limelight, they shrink back to size, like a puff pastry, taken out of the hot oven, to cool down.

Regardless, while curiosity killed the cat, I’ve always liked the part of the proverb that reminds us that “satisfaction brought him back.” I love having my curiosity satisfied. It is one of my greatest pleasures in life. Even if whatever I have been anticipating disappoints or is 180 degrees different than what I have been anticipating, at least I am now, “in the know.” There is no nebulous about that particular person, place or thing, swirling around in my mind, lost in wonder and fog and exaggeration. The hazy, imagined concept, constantly being stirred and conjured and changed up in my imagination, finally solidifies to form to a concrete vision – a hard chunk of reality, and my life and my visions and my sensibility feels more solid again. I’ve got my feet on the ground again, and the comfort of the accuracy of my experience versus the ambiguity of an idea with no true, real physical form, has the tendency to give my soul some solace and my mind some peace.

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Love Better.


Love better

Love is the most important thing in our lives, yet we are taught very little about it. One Love is on a mission to change that. We educate young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships, empowering them to identify and avoid abuse and learn how to love better.

The above entry is from the One Love Foundation. (joinonelove.org) Last night, I was reading an article about the CEO and the background of this foundation, and I thought to myself, “Oh, I’ve got to save this for Favorite Things Friday. This is a great website.” The Ted Talk, lead by the CEO of the foundation, Katie Hood, is an excellent watch.

Honestly, I planned to make this website one of my Friday favorites, mostly for myself, as a saved resource for my daughter and for my sons, and for my friends’ children, and for the girls whom I mentor, and for you, my readers and your children. Sometimes, I see a great resource or website or an article and then I forget about it, or where I saw it and I try to find it again in the massive mountain of information piled on the internet, and it is sadly, Mission Impossible to do so. My blog has become my treasure trove of what strikes a chord in me, and thus, hopefully, it can be helpful to others, as well. Still, I woke up this morning, thinking about this foundation’s mission and I thought, “This can’t wait until Friday. It’s too important.”

One Love was created by the Love Family. In 2010, a University of Virginia lacrosse player, Yeardley Love, was violently killed by her ex-boyfriend, also a UVA lacrosse player, right before they were both to graduate from college. In retrospect, all of the signs of a dramatic, unhealthy, abusive relationship were there, waving their red flags. Unfortunately, though, a lot of people (even smart, educated people from loving families) are colorblind to red flags in relationships because as the above statement says, we as a society, don’t do a whole lot to teach young people about love. We don’t do much teaching about what is healthy and what is not healthy when it comes to love or any other type of relationships.

Yeardley Love, was a beautiful, athletic, talented young woman who came from a loving, prosperous family. I remember in college joking that there was an obvious inverse curve when it came to relationships. Often, the prettiest, most ambitious, most campus involved, women with the highest GPAs, who I knew – the women who seemed to have “their sh*t together in every other regard (pardon my French), would often have the least healthy relationships out of all of us, with really toxic men. Yeardley and her boyfriend would have proven that hypothesis. It’s not really a funny joke, though. Obviously.

The old model for love relationships has kind of been a try, experience and learn, without much direction from anybody. But too often those experimental relationships turn deadly or leave lasting scars that color all future relationships to come. I really like what One Love is on a mission to do, in terms of educating young people and giving them some insight and direction.

That being said, I think One Love needs to add a precedent to these videos and lessons about relationships with other people. I think, we as a society, have to teach and model to our young ones how to learn to love themselves and how to have healthy relationships with themselves, first. I copied this quote into my notebook recently by Melanie Tonia Evans:

“Most of us won’t stay in relationships in which the level of love is below what we feel for ourselves.” Evans then goes on to say this:

“We have as yet not become a solid source of love, approval, survival and security for ourselves and we hold other people responsible for meeting our needs.”

Narcissism is a huge buzz word these days, but it is still largely misunderstood. People equate self-love with narcissism, but nothing could be further from the truth. True narcissism is a personality disorder, usually formed at a young age as a defense mechanism from abusive or neglectful experiences. A true narcissist has no sense of true self, and can only find his or her reflection and sense of self from others, hence often being called “energy vampires.” A healthy person with good self-esteem and full of self-love and who is capable of self-care, has absolutely no need to take anything from anyone. They are brimming with confidence and comfort, that comes from within themselves. A healthy person understands the bounty of their own grace and the grace bestowed on others.

Often, especially in a competitive society such as ours, our children think that they need to do special things, to be high achievers, or to stand out in some form, in order to be noticed and to be loved. They are searching for love and approval from outside sources. They have put conditions on whether or not, they are worthy enough to be loved.

If we are honest with ourselves, what kind of love are we modeling to our children? Do we love ourselves unconditionally? Do we treat ourselves with kindness, understanding and respect at all times? As a mother of four children, I have seen again and again, that children are much more likely to model what we do, than any lecture we give to them.

Love better. It is such a good mantra. We can only love better when we fully understand what true unconditional love looks like and what it feels like, when we choose to embody it. Better love is there, inside of each of us, ready to come out into action form, for ourselves and for others. People like the Love family understand that, as they are turning this horrific tragedy into a revolution of change in the ways our young people approach love, and life, and relationships. If that isn’t the deepest form of love, I don’t know what is . . . . .

Love, Spirit, Life.

I experienced a situation this weekend that I have to write about it. I’ve pondered it and ruminated on it, since it happened. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what lessons I have gleaned.

There is a beautiful old theater that was built in the 1920s in the city that I live in. It’s in the National Register of Historic Places. It has been on my bucket list to see a movie at this theater, known for it’s ornate beauty and Wurlitzer organ, for a long time, but we have never gotten around to it. My friends brought it up recently, talking about it’s amazing antique features, and so, on a whim, with nothing else going on this past Saturday night, I looked up the movie that was playing at this particular venue. (this theater typically shows indie films or old classics or the Rocky Horror Picture Show) The movie showing on Saturday night was The Shiny Shrimps, a comedic French film about a homophobic man who after using homophobic slurs, is ordered to coach a gay water polo team for The Gay Games, in order to still stay qualified as a national swimmer for France. My husband, who was curious about the theater, as well, agreed to drive the 45 minutes into town and to look around forever and ever for parking, because we really didn’t have any other plans for the night and we are always seeking out novelty (we are both adventurous fire signs).

Now, having seen Moonlight at the theaters, we both understood that there would likely be a larger than usual gay population at the theater. That doesn’t phase us. We have gay friends and gay family members and we don’t consider ourselves homophobic, whatsoever. However, as we got closer to the mob sitting outside, waiting to get into the theater, it became obvious that the crowd was 90 percent gay men and maybe 9 percent lesbians and we helped make up the possibly 1 percent or less of straight people, who were going into the theater. The theater holds 1200. We were clearly in the minority.

I immediately felt uncomfortable, not just for myself, but also for my husband, who is a good looking, charming, outgoing man. I stammered something about just exploring the theater quickly and then just leaving. I found myself wanting to get to and to sit into our seats, quickly and discreetly. I found myself trying to almost shrink into myself, as to not bring any attention to our traditional, conventional long-married, totally straight couple status. I sensed and understood my husband’s acute uncomfortableness, as well and I felt guilty for the whole situation, all the way around.

Obviously, after ending up exploring the theater and ending up staying and watching what was a fun and enjoyable movie, my husband and I discussed our experience.

“I felt like everyone was thinking, why are YOU here?” is what I said to my husband.

“I think that you have that all wrong. I don’t think that anyone cared. I don’t think that they were thinking about us at all,” my husband said.

Yes, he was probably right. It could be kind of narcissistic to think that I was any kind of focus, for the night. I compared it to an experience I had long ago when I was still in high school. One of my best friends was of Chinese descent and she invited me to an event at her Asian Cultural Center. It ended up that I was the only Caucasian person at the festival. Again, I had that same feeling of wanting to disappear, so matters got worse, when we were playing dodge ball and I got knocked in the head and my contact lens popped out. Everyone stopped the game and started searching the gym for my contact lens and I had another great, sore thumb moment. I can still make my face turn red and heat up over the moment, over thirty years later.

For me, the most important lesson, I got from my experience on Saturday night (and from the high school experience that I can still remember clearly) is empathy. It is a very strange, self conscious feeling to be “the different one.” Even if the whole population is being kind and considerate and supposedly ambivalent to your being different, you can still feel it. It is a lonely, apologetic, uncomfortable, maybe even a tad scary, defiant and defensive, yet tinged with shame feeling. I’m not saying that those feelings are the “correct” feelings to have, but to deny them would be a lie. Empathy for those who have to go through their whole lives feeling like the “different” ones, is probably the best reminder/gift that I received over the weekend. Those complicated, mixed bag, stirred up emotions would be a lot to face for anyone, on a daily basis, every single day of your life.

Recently I watched a very interesting reality show called Couples Therapy. One of the married couples, DeSean and Elaine, a black man and a Puerto Rican woman, were disagreeing over wanting to go to upscale restaurants. DeSean was trying to get across to Elaine that he didn’t enjoy spending their hard-earned money in places that made him feel “less than.” Elaine’s response to that is “Who cares?” She says that it is the other people’s problems if they are racist or bigoted or just plain snooty. While that is the truth, it is also not reasonable nor fair to discount DeSean’s internal and external experiences, and the confusing feelings that arise from those experiences of being a black man, in a predominantly white culture.

I always tell my children that we are never going to solve any of the world’s problems until we change the way people think. We cannot change how anyone thinks, until we really go about trying to understand the other person’s point of view and the feelings and experiences that have created that point of view. This is really what empathy is all about. I like that the younger generations are less focused on differences. They do a better job of “I’m okay, You’re okay.” My husband and I both agreed that our weekend’s theater experience would have most likely been much less uncomfortable (or even less of anything notable to talk about, at all) for our children, three sons, who are all young men and our daughter, a teenager. Our children have only experienced that it is okay for two people of the same sex to love one another, and for two people of different races to love one another. They know that is normal for women to be CEOs and Airforce pilots. They were children when a black man was voted President of the United States. Our children know that it is only the extreme, vicious, simple-minded and ugly-hearted people who hurt people or minimize people who have different religions, sexual preferences, political stances, or racial backgrounds than they do. They know this, not because it has been preached in esoteric theory and righteous platitudes, but because it is the experience that they have mostly lived and seen, on a daily basis, since they were young.

My experience this weekend was a very introspective, compelling lesson in empathy. I hope that someday soon in the future, we can bridge the gap of our differences and see them just as that and nothing more – differences in perspectives and points of view, spawning from vastly different lifetime experiences. Differences are not personal affronts. They are nothing to be feared or to be ashamed about. Differences are nothing to create individual, protective, inclusive clubs about, and around. Because in the end, as much variety as there is this world, at all of our own very deepest cores, under all of the hurts, and the masks, and the fears, and the bravado, and the ego creations, we are all very much the same substance – Love, Spirit, Life.

Gummy Cubs

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This week I purchased a couple of bags of teeny tiny gummy bears from The Fresh Market. They are like baby gummy bears. They are gummy bear cubs. These little cubbies taste amazing . They taste way better than regular sized gummy bears. Why is that? I hate that baby anything tastes really good – veal, chicken eggs, grapes before they turn into raisins. It’s just not right. But who doesn’t pick out the raisins from their oatmeal cookies? Let’s just be honest.

Have a silly Sunday! See you tomorrow.

Jumping to Conclusions

If you really want to test how positive or optimistic a person that you really are, watch your reaction to someone, who you love, not texting you back quickly, or not showing up immediately to a planned get-together.

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My friends and I had a hilarious discussion about our overreactions to everything. I have very smart, creative, imaginative friends, but like all things, being smart and creative and imaginative, can be a blessing and a curse. A friend of ours was meeting a mutual friend, but when she showed up, the friend wasn’t there. She texted the rest of us and said that the friend wasn’t responding to texts or calls. We all started reassuring our friend for about three minutes, but then the texting wildly veered into questions of car accidents, heart attacks, amnesia, early onset Alzheimer’s, passive-aggressive behavior from someone who secretly doesn’t like you, etc. etc. . . . . Turns out, a few minutes later, there was a text back to my friend and it was all just a very explainable miscommunication. Yawn.

Why do we go to over-reactions so often? Any time that I lose something and I can’t find it, before you know it, I am convinced that a very stealthy, clever robber (who probably lives in my attic) has stolen it. It never fails, I find the nail clippers or the pizza cutter, soon after my mind goes to crazy-land. In this particular situation, I know why I over-react. I’ve conditioned myself to believe that when I start blaming other people (real or fictitious) for my own foibles, the Universe will send me a lesson. I’ll find my object (yay!), but I will have the right dose of guilt and shame to punish myself for believing that someone is out to harm me. It’s a lesson that I’ve never fully learned and digested, because I do it to myself, again and again and again.

I wonder if we over-react for the adrenaline rush – the excitement, the flush the that comes to our cheeks, with our hearts pounding. I wonder if we do it to ourselves, because our otherwise normal, day-to-day life seems somewhat routine, dull, and boring. If we over-react, our lives are seemingly filled with mystery, intrigue and diabolical characters, just like the movies.

I always feel stupid and annoyed with myself when I realized I pushed my own panic button. I preach to myself (and to others, if I am honest) to stay in the moment, live in the now, deal with things as they come, but actions speak louder than word, right? I am also annoyed with how my mind always goes to the worst case scenario. Maybe, as a self-professed optimist, I need to take baby steps. I’ll allow myself to still over-think, and to over-hypothesize, but this creative over-reaction must always lean to the positive.

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Dogs, Shells, Mimosas . . . Friday!

Today, we get to be like our dogs!! We always say that we want to come back as them, right?! Honestly, I want to come back as either my husband’s boss’ dog or my aunt’s and uncle’s dog. No doubts!

Happy Friday, friends and readers!! Today is Favorite Things Friday!! On Fridays, we stay away from deep thoughts and reflections here at Adulting-Second Half (unless you are pondering as to whose dog you want to come back as). On Fridays, I list three favorite things, websites, songs, products, anythings that keep my life going along in a fun way. Please share the love with your favorites in the Comments section (shout out to Kit, my most prolific commenter, so far! Kit, today you are my favorite!) and also check out previous Friday posts for more favorites. You can never have too many favorites!

Here are today’s favs:

Cherub’s Doses & Mimosas song – Please just ignore the nasty lyrics and profanity and just jam to this tune. My sons were annoying our neighbors with this tune blasting out of their waterproof JBL speakers (that they kept testing by throwing the speakers into the pool – you are impressive, JBL) this past weekend and I found myself not able to stay still, from its beginning until its end. (much to their chagrin) Try not to even bob your head, or lift your shoulders while this song is playing. See, not possible. Close your eyes and go back to your night club days, so very long ago . . . If you can pretend that you don’t understand English, this is the perfect Friday mood setter song.

Betta Fish – One of our pets is Big Dickie. He is the Betta fish who lives in a container in our powder room (you do the math). Big Dickie has lived with us for a few years now. He is a beautiful, gorgeous, giant red Betta fish. (all of the Bettas with huge, big, fancy fins are the males). Bettas actually have personality. Any time, any one of us uses the powder room, Big Dickie rises the surface to greet us. He thinks that it is feeding time. (circle of life moment). Bettas can’t move fast, because their fins are actually quite heavy for their bodies to lug around. So they just sit still and stare at you (if look closely, they actually have very interesting, expressive faces) Big Dickie actually has a little leaf perch, suctioned to the side of his bowl, so that he can rest. If you want a low maintenance pet that is really quite interesting, I highly recommend a Betta (two male bettas will kill each other in an aquarium – they are also known as fighting fish, so keep ’em separated.)

Shell Jewelry – I’ve always loved shell jewelry, even when I didn’t live in Florida. Right now cowrie shell jewelry is all of the rage. Cowrie shells are those white shells that look like a piece of macaroni, often confused with puka shells. Pukas are white shells that look more round and bead- like than cowries, but they are lovely, too. I love brown and white shells made into jewelry. One of my favorite pieces of jewelry is a wampum bracelet that my husband bought for me in Martha’s Vineyard. (my grandparents eloped there during World War II – very special place to me) Wampum is a purple and white shell that Native Americans used throughout history as a form of currency. The wampum jewelry on Martha’s Vineyard is made by the Aquinnah Wampamnoag tribe who have a reservation on the island.

There you have it! As always, thank you for coming by! I love you guys!!

Infinite Merry-Go-Round

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I don’t have any tattoos, but this was posted on Think Smarter (Twitter) this morning and it made be giggle, so I thought that I would share the giggle with you.

Here is a small part of The Magnificent Marvelous List of the Never-Ending:

Corporate meetings.

Dusting.

Surfing the internet.

Trying to match black pants to a black top.

Taking the dogs out.

Lawn/plant care.

Shoveling snow.

Spending money on your kids.

Trying to lose weight.

Doing laundry.

Bills.

Dishes.

Rush hour traffic.

Complaints.

The list goes on and on . . . . it’s well, never-ending. But hey, these are the constants in our lives. We can always rely on these steadfast happenings. We can always take these tasks up, right where we last left off. They are always right there, waiting for us, tempting us to try the futility of actually finishing them all up for good. There is no beginning and there is no end to these things. This list is a great way to teach kids the concept of infinity.

My meditation yesterday talked about making peace with the fact that we will never “get it all done.” It’s a truth that we understand intellectually, but we still chase the idea like it’s a real possibility. We drive ourselves crazy in the process.

Despite earnestly reading and considering my morning meditation, last night, after dinner, and after dinner clean-up, and after walking the dogs and after putting away some laundry, I wanted to sit down and to relax, but then I notice a few of my plug-ins needed new refills and then I thought I should replenish the toilet paper rolls in the bathroom cabinets and then it occurred to me that I might be out of AAA batteries, so I had to check the pantry to see if I needed to add them to my shopping list, which reminded me to go order dog food on Amazon . . . . . as I continued on and on, I realized that it was almost time for me to go to bed.

I read once that we are all going to die with our in-boxes full. I think that if I can really cement this fact into my mind, I might be able to relax a little bit more and just let Life flow. Life is the journey, the process, the experience, the adventure. It has no real beginning and it has no real end. And so many of our daily tasks mimic that truism. So, in short, let’s just chill. The dusting, the matching, the surfing, the traffic, the laundry will always be there for us, when we want to entertain the idea of conquering them all for good, again. In the meantime, in the words of The Beatles:

“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and
round
I really love to watch them roll
I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and
round
I really love to watch them roll People say I’m lazy
dreaming my life away (My lord…)
Well they give me all kinds of advice
designed to enlighten me (My lord…)I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and
round
I really love to watch them roll
I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and
round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round.”

Major Awards

I wanted to share with you a major award I received a few years ago. I was hesitant to share it with you, because I understand that a lot of my readers are mothers and I didn’t want to make you feel bad. Perhaps some of you have won this award in previous years, yourselves. Maybe even some of you are even in the “Hall of Fame.” Here it is:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. (I figure that you are probably giving me applause right now.) I’m very proud of this award. I actually picked it up for myself. I just knew that my family wanted me to have it. I am a very intuitive person. I actually wrapped it up for myself at Christmas one year, and I acted totally surprised and delighted when I opened it. It was so fun to watch my four children eye each other up and down suspiciously, trying to figure out which one of their siblings was the suck-up. See, “Best Mom Ever” move, if you ever saw one.

In all seriousness, I want to award all of my readers who are mothers this award right now. Copy it, print it and hang it up where you can see it every single day! Mine sits right on my desk. And if you are not mothers, pick out what you are, realize how much time and energy and life force you have put into being the most important personal identity that you have, and award yourself for it!! Best Wife Ever, Best Dad Ever, Best Husband Ever, Best Dog Mom Ever, Best Boss Ever, Best Friend Ever, Best Sister Ever, Best Provider Ever, Best Philanthropist Ever, Best Child Ever – give yourselves the damn awards!!

Mothering is a guilt-filled job. We never think that we do it right. We try to be the best parts of our own mothers, our own grandmothers, all of the best TV moms ever played, what all the expert books tell us to be, a twin to that “soccer/PTA/doctor mom who still manages to bake cookies in high heels”, and we always come up short. We think that we fail miserably and we get up the next day, and attempt it bravely all again. We forget that we have an entirely different set of circumstances (and an entirely different set of kids) than our mothers had, our grandmothers had, than what is on the fictional TV/movie set, the study subjects in parenting books, or even what our friends and neighbors have in their lives. We forget that we are our own individuals with our own personalities, and what our kids really need is just us, our most authentic selves. And they need to see us love ourselves, forgive ourselves, and honor ourselves for trying our best. Our children watch us, and if we love ourselves (our true authentic selves), forgive ourselves, and honor ourselves for trying our best, that is what they will allow themselves to do for their very own selves. What is more important than that?

I want you to give yourself your award today. You get up every day and you try so hard. You work really hard at what you do, and yet you are your own worst critic. Why not try being your own best award giver, versus your own best roaster? The Heavens above clap for you every single day. There are so many angels above and angels on Earth who think that you are just divine, and courageous and amazing and brave and all together wonderful. Believe them. Give yourself the award. Pause in its glory and then go out, with your head held high. You deserve nothing less. (and don’t forget to award others around you for all of the goodness that they bring to your life, too. Let’s make it “Awards Day” every day!!)

“Recognition is not a scarce resource. You can’t use it up or run out of it.” – Susan M. Heathfield

“People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards.”  – Dale Carnegie

“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” – Mother Teresa

“There are two things people want more than sex and money: recognition and praise.” – Mary Kay Ash