November 2019 - Adulting: Second- Half

Time for Roses

“If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.” – Maria Edgeworth

I read an article recently that suggested that we overestimate what we can do in a year, but underestimate what we can do in a decade. I’ve been milling that idea, around in my head for a while, as we come to the close of another year and also another decade. I am not really sure if I agree with that statement. As a faithful journal/paper calendar keeper, I can assure you that we very often do so much more, in even a day, than we give ourselves credit for doing. Maybe it’s just that we judge a lot of what we do as meaningless or inconsequential. But is that true? It’s all in our perspective, isn’t it? If we were to become physically incapacitated, our daily routine items, the things that we do mindlessly, could all of the sudden become major triumphs and delights. And how many times in just your life, have people who “are just doin’ their jobs” made a noticeable difference in your life? The friendly cashier who cheered you up on a down day, the thoughtful delivery person who helped you carry something heavy into your home, the receptionist at the doctor’s office who was able to find a way to “fit you in” to any already packed schedule, because he or she just sensed that you needed to feel some relief and healing. . . . these people may not have seen any of these actions as particularly important uses of their time or movements towards their life goals, but for you, on that particular day, their doings were difference makers. So, wouldn’t it be a wise use of our talents and gifts and patience and time, to make life a little easier for others? Isn’t that a worthy goal in life? And if we do any reflecting, I imagine that we all do these very acts of kindness, on a daily basis. These are the little things that improve life for everyone. These are the little things that lift the energy of the entire planet. The planet is heavy, but if we all do our part in the lifting, our Earth is so light that we don’t even give the lifting of it, any thought or any merit. Lifting the world’s energy is something that we all do, almost every day of our lives. That is something. In some ways, it is everything.

The older that I get, I find that it is worthwhile to have life goals to pursue, but also every bit as constructive to savor the every moments. It is also vital to accept the surprises as part of “the plan.” Nothing is in vain. There is value to be found in everything, even in “wasted” time.

“Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.” – Mason Cooley

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince.

In Your Favor Friday

Happy Friday!!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!!! Happy Black Friday!! As I mentioned last year, as much as I love shopping (as an aside, when I was showing my son’s girlfriend something in my closet yesterday, she looked around it wide-eyed and said, “Shoe Goals.” – I do love my shoes!), I don’t do Black Friday shopping. I just don’t do crowds very well. The great thing that I noticed last night, while shutting down my computer (I’m highly distractible) is that the retailers are expanding Black Friday to a great on-line presence comparable to Cyber Monday, so I did make a couple orders here and there. I would love to hear what some of you scored today, in the Comments section (and hopefully no physical harm came to you, while making your amazing purchases)

New readers, Fridays are never serious here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I discuss three favorite things, ideas, websites, songs, etc. that make material life a lot of fun. Please see previous Fridays for other favorites and please always be prone to sharing your own favorites in the Comments section.

Since I cannot compete with Black Friday and the amazing products just waiting to be gobbled up, I have limited my favorites today, to the three best bumper stickers that I have noticed lately on other cars, which have been particularly apropos while my youngest child, and only daughter, continues to learn how to drive. Remember, everyone else on the road is NOT just an ass driving a car and double parking in over-crowded parking lots, they are also someone’s beloved partner, spouse, child, sibling, grandparent, parent, teacher, etc. etc. etc. Let’s make a point of keeping everyone safe during this highly distractible time of year.

Best bumper stickers (driving rules simplified):

Use Ya Blinkah!

Don’t Be a Bumper Humper

Dick Likes to Text and Drive, Don’t Be a Dick

And a reminder to passengers:

Driver Picks Music, Shotgun Shuts Cakehole

Have a great, fun, pleasantly exhausting Friday!! Ending with some inspiring quotes from the Hunger Games:

“This is no place for a girl on fire”
Katniss Everdeen

“I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.”
Katniss Everdeen

All is Well

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Happy Thanksgiving, my wonderful faithful friends and readers! You are appreciated and loved, more than you could ever understand. Thank you so very much for being part of the moment that I get so excited to experience every single morning. I love sitting down to pour out my heart and my inspirations and my ideas and my silliness and my reflections and my confusions. And you hear me! And you support me! And you nod along with me! And you shake your head at me! What a blessing and a gift that you give to me, by acknowledging my blog. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

This blog is not a chore for me. It is a big part of my heart. It is my blossoming of a part of me that was dormant for so long and is coming into the light, and everyone who has supported this blog has been such a crucial part of that process for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

You are kind. You are caring. You are interesting and connected to life. I am blessed to have you come into my life. I am blessed to feel a sacred connection to each and every one of you.

Okay enough mushy mush! Go enjoy a wonderful day of family and friends and parades, and dog shows, and feasting (and the wonderful anticipatory smells that come before the feasting) and napping and more feasting! I have overheard it said, at least a dozen times this season, from various people who I have interacted with, that Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday. It IS such a wonderful holiday. Thanksgiving is quiet, peaceful, warm, unassuming, mindful, simple, cozy, comforting, loving, unpretentious, humble, virtuous, awe-striking . . . . what’s not to love about this holiday, and yet Thanksgiving does not beg us to love it or to even acknowledge it. It just soothingly invites us in, with arms wide open. In a world which sometimes seems increasingly faster, noisier, attention grabbing, glitzier, angrier, more isolated and divisive than ever before, Thanksgiving is the reminder that at the core of everything, there is a simple, grateful peace that remains steady. Thanksgiving is a reminder that life is abundant and flowing and pulsing, like a regular, soothing, calming heartbeat, enclosed in a warm, clean, soft blanket of the deep intuitive knowing, that in every moment of stillness, at the quiet center of everyone and everything, All is Well.

Mitakuye Oyasin

I read this gorgeous prayer this morning, recited by the Lakota Native American Tribe. It is called “Mitakuye Oyasin”, which means “we are all related”. I think that it is just perfect, especially at this reflective time of the year. This is Mitakuye Oyasin:

The Prayer

Aho, Mitakuye Oyasin … All my relations, I honor you in this circle of life with me today. I am grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge you in this prayer….

To the Creator, for the ultimate gift of life, I thank you.

To the mineral nation that has built and maintained my bones and all foundations of life experience, I thank you.

To the plant nation that sustains my organs and body and gives me healing herbs for sickness, I thank you.

To the animal nation that feeds me from your own flesh and offers your loyal companionship in this walk of life, I thank you.

To the human nation that shares my
paths as a soul upon the sacred wheel of Earthly life, I thank you.

To the Spirit nation that guides me invisibly through the ups and downs of life and for carrying the torch of light through the Ages, I thank you.

To the Four Winds of Change and Growth, I thank you.

You are all my relations, my relatives, without whom I would not live. We are in the circle of life together, co-existing, co-dependent, co-creating our destiny. One, not more important than the other. One nation evolving from the other, and yet each dependent upon the one above and the one below. All of us a part of the Great Mystery.

Thank you for this Life.

The Toenail Dialogs

If you ever want to find out what the real priorities are, on your to-do list during the holiday season, give yourself about 30 minutes less time than everything will actually take to do, and don’t figure in the unexpecteds, such as a daughter having to go to the doctor to get a strep throat swab (it was negative, thank goodness), and eldest son’s flight arriving 20 minutes early. Let’s just say, pedicure was one of the first items crossed off the list. It was interesting to watch my mind, trying to spin how to handle the chipped, grown out, faded sparkly blue polish now only about half on, my nasty toenails:

Pollyanna voice in my head – Hmmm, well, you could do your own pedicure really quick. Saves time and money! 🙂

Bitchyanna other voice in my head – Are you kidding?!? That will look even worse than how trashy it looks right now, you slobby fool. Why don’t you french braid your hair while you’re at it – ha!

Pollyanna voice in my head – Well, you can just make it a point to only wear boots, clogs and sneakers for the entire Thanksgiving break, therefore no one will know, that you aren’t so perfectly coiffed.

Bitchyanna – Sure, the kids won’t think that it is strange (and secretly start worrying about your mental health) when you are donning boots with your robe, at breakfast, and what are going to do, wear cowboy boots to the beach? You live in Florida, for goodness sake! You used to make fun of the Floridians who wear Uggs. Now YOU look like an Alaskan Inuit any time the thermometer drops below 63 degrees. Ridiculous!!

Pollyanna – Well, your priorities are in the right place. It’s good to show the kids that it is not necessary to be the picture of perfection. Love, family, turkey (and definitely stuffing) – that’s what matters.

Bitchyanna – You know dumbass, you are almost 50 right now. Learn to manage your time better. Maybe start by spending less time in your head, having a wacky dialog between two fake personas, about your damn toenails. Just a thought . . . .

Me (with my personalities, all integrated back into the reality of the moment) – OMG! I have to get to the airport now. Stat. What’s the next, non-necessity thing that I can take off of the list?!? Can I cover up the mildew smell with Febreeze on the damp clothes in the washer if I don’t put them into the dryer until I get back?!

Pollyanna and Bitchyanna – Well, here we go again . . . .

As the Mother Goes

“I hope this year has a good ending.” – FofF (Twitter)

Me, too. On a side note, I love the author’s pen name, “FofF”. Our wonderful lawn maintenance guy is named Ed. His business is called Ed’s. Whenever we need him to do something extra in our yard, I love to say out loud, “I need to call Ed of Ed’s!” It just cracks me up for some reason. I even look for things for Ed to do, so that I can say out loud, “I need to call Ed of Ed’s!”

This weekend I got a little friendly reminder/kick in the pants from a girlfriend on a text chat. We were all ranting about everything that we have to do for the holidays. Now this friend has been mothering for about a decade longer than I have, and she even has a grandchild. She is very wise. She said something to the effect, “Ladies, we only get so many
Thanksgivings and Christmases in our lives . . . . As the mother goes, so does the holiday.”

It’s so true, isn’t it? Who can’t relate to the saying, “When Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”? Perhaps focusing a little less on what needs to be done and more so, on who needs to be loved (including ourselves), would make the holidays even more pleasant and memorable for everyone. Of course on that same chat, another friend quoted an article that was discussing a study that showed that socializing with extended family and friends makes the average person long for peace and quiet within 3 hours and 54 minutes.

So while socializing this holiday season, after about 4 hours or so, (a little less or a little more, depending on how introverted or extroverted you may be), here is my prescription for you (and for me). Go to your special place, by yourself, ideally outside in nature, but perhaps you can just conjure it up in your mind. Take some deep breaths and take ” . . .time to step out into a season – something to do with what John Muir called ‘washing your spirit clean.’ ” (Robert Genn) I think that taking the time to “washing your spirit clean” would be an excellent gift to give to ourselves and thus, it naturally becomes an extended gift, that of being of clean spirit, as we spend time over the holidays, with the people whom we love and cherish.

*****FYI, from Wikipedia:

John Muir also known as “John of the Mountains” and “Father of the National Parks”, was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States of America.

Sunday Soul

This year is different

I’m trying to put a definition on something that has never been.

I am trying to fit the new

into old, worn out, torn boxes.

How do you live outside of a long experienced paradigm

Completely?

Elon Musk and his triangle truck

Inspiration.

Readers, I have decided to turn Sundays into “Sunday Soul” and to play around with poetry on my Sunday posts. It feels strange to me because it is not something I have spent a lot of time doing. Trying to write poetry, when you never really have, is kind of like going to your first pottery or painting classes. I don’t have my footing. I don’t really know what I am doing, but I am enjoying the experience. It feels lonely up here in the blogspot. I sure wish you guys would play around with some poetry in the Comments section. It can be our own neat little virtual coffee house poetry reading, every Sunday.

So, I hope you don’t mind the format change. Unless I have something truly pressing on my mind that must come out in prose form, Sundays here are Adulting – Second Half are dedicated to poetry. I hope the rest of your day flows rhythmically, and softly, peacefully and profoundly and poetically . . . . .

Open, Honest and Real

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In this day and age, the above principle is a tough ship to navigate. I feel like I know three camps of people: people who epitomize the acronym “TMI” and let it all hang out, to just about everyone they see, meet or greet in real life and on-line, and then they are utterly shattered when they are used or taken advantage of; then there are the people who are so private, so completely protected by a wafting sense of mystery and secrecy, leaving everyone who meets them totally frustrated, always yearning to find the hole to scratch and find the actual beating heart and true, open, flowing emotions, under the veneer of steely, calculated collectedness; and finally, there are a vast amount of people who work desperately to keep up and preserve a cheerful, carefree image for everyone, online and offline to see, but in person, seem to be staving off a loneliness and a yearning for connection, underneath the flimsy, cardboard, surface-y, semblance of it all. I think that I have vacillated in between all three of these camps, for most of my life.

People who read my blog often comment on the fact that I don’t mention my family members’ names. People who know some of the major crises I have experienced in my life (by this middle time in life, we all have gone through at least one or two “major biggies”), are sometimes curious why I don’t choose to write about these events. The reality is, I’m still navigating my ship of disclosure, trying to find the waters that are comfortable to me. At the same time, I am not a pirate. I respect the other ships on the sea, and I steer clear of their own private, personal journeys. Their journeys are not mine, and their ships are made to sail along different waters, than where I am headed. Even if we do find ourselves in the same pool of calm or stormy seas, I can only speak for my part of the adventure. How I am experiencing the waves and the turbulence, and even the calm, still waters, may be different than the other ships, because they are built differently that I am, and they carry different cargo and baggage than I do.

In the end, as important as authenticity is to me, and as much as I value real, heartfelt connection, I value the relationships at the sacrosanct table of my life, far more than anything. It’s a fine line to cross and to navigate, especially as a writer. Recently, I was telling my husband how frustrated I am by the fact that my life feels so full of little, aggravating interruptions and I often wish that I could disappear for vast amounts of time, to just focus on writing. But then the “aha moment” came to me, that all of my writing comes from my day-to-day experiences and my interactions with the people at “my table” and even the people standing around the table or even with the people, in the far corners of the rooms of my life. These experiences are priceless to my understanding of myself and thus the extension of myself, my sacred practice of writing, which helps me make sense of that deeper understanding of myself.

Today, with this honest, candid inside view of my thought/writing experience, I have invited you, my faithful friends and readers, to some very special seats, at my table. Thank you for taking the seat, and allowing me to share. I hope that you will sit and stay awhile, and I promise to keep your seat empty for you, when you return again. It is then that I will give you the same warm smile that I wear on my face right now, thankful for your place settings, in my life, making me feel worthy, understood and connected and open and honest and real.

It’s Friday, You Turkey!

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Happy Friday, my dear readers!!!! It is not only Friday, it is Favorite Things Friday!!! Can I get a “Gobble, Gobble?!?” Friends, we don’t get into the depths on Friday here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I typically list three favorite songs, books, products, websites, apps, etc. and I encourage you to add your favorites to the Comments section. This will be particularly helpful, as we all will be doing our Christmas shopping in the next few weeks. Please check out previous Friday posts for more goodies. Without further ado, here are today’s favorites:

mint&lily Remember Who You Are Cuff bracelet – I ordered one of these for my daughter and it arrived over the weekend. She loves it and I love it! It is very nice quality. Inside the cuff are the engraved words: “Whenever you feel overwhelmed . . . remember whose daughter you are and straighten your crown” My daughter wore it yesterday, when she had to take five exams. I like to think that it helped calm her anxiety a bit, and at the very least, she knows that I am with her, always.

Gemmy Industries Animated Baby Goat – Every year I add to our collection of cheesy animated Christmas trinkets. We have a hound dog that sings “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas”, a naughty, flirty, French mistletoe man and a Christmas Tree that shakes and whirls like nobody’s business. This year might be our best addition yet. This little guy wears cute pjs, a Santa hat with a matching scarf, and is a “live” version of the screaming goats that are very popular on social media. He appropriate sings “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire“, while intermittently screaming. My dogs can’t stand him, but I am not even close to being sick of him, yet. I hope that his batteries have lasting power.

Honey app – This app really appeals to the lazy in me. They call it the “smart, shopping assistant.” Honey, when you are shopping on-line, you no longer have to look for promo codes. This app will add every appropriate promo code that it can find, to your order before you check out. It’s already saved me quite a bit of money, honey. (and I have tested it, by looking up promo codes first to see if the app will find it. It has, so far!)

Enjoy a nice weekend!!! I’m so thankful for all of your support!! xo

Extra

Lately, a couple of my friend text chats have been about the love/hate relationship many of us middle aged ladies have with the holiday season. There is so much good about the holidays and then there is a lot, that is well, A LOT. On reflecting on the fact that I know so many women who feel a bit overwhelmed with the “extra” quality (extra food, extra money, extra cleaning, extra cooking, extra parties, extra drinking, extra guilt, extra decorations, extra responsibilities, extra lights, extra emotions, extra grief, extra melancholy, extra anticipation, extra expectations, extra company, extra elf hiding, extra red, extra green, extra sparkles, extra fancy clothes, extra crowds, extra worries, extra shopping, extra returns, extra religious services, extra gained pounds, extra adrenalin, extra glitter, extra packages at the front door, extra patience, extra annoying songs, extra breath-taking music, extra aggravations, extra worries, extra laughs, extra fights, extra joy, extra tears, extra gratefulness, extra exhaustion, extra mess, extra bills, extra cute movies . . . . just, you know, extra) that the holidays bring to this time of year, I decided that I needed to find the lesson in all of this. I think if you can enjoy the holidays, yet also get excited and crave getting back to your normal routine, that says a lot about how you feel about your regular life. If you get to the point of wanting your ordinary, typical life back during the holidays, then what that is saying is that you really, really like your life! That’s a good thing. Because life is mostly life without the extra-ness of the holidays. Perhaps the greatest gift that you receive during the holidays is the reminder of how much you like your regular, ordinary, every day life. It’s kind of like when you go on a wonderful vacation, but find yourself craving getting back to home, towards the end of the trip. You sometimes even say to yourself, “I need a vacation from my vacation.” Perhaps the peace on Earth that the holidays gives to us, is allowing us to contrast the over-the-top quality that our holidays have evolved into, versus the comfort of our average daily life and thus finding ourselves, EXTRA appreciative for the relief and the relaxation that our simple, familiar, orderly everyday lives provide for us, during most of the days, in our lives.