Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, friends. Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – SecondHalf. Today, I ask you to take the time to notice the stuff that you don’t typically notice. Notice the unusual color of eyes of the person who waits on you at Walgreens. Notice how perfectly synchronized all of the colors and lengths of hair on your dog’s face, or your cat’s face, come together into perfection and poetry, creating their beautiful expressions of being. When we really notice life, we starting living a beautifully poetic life. Here is my poem for today:
Falling in Love, Again
I love how you still surprise me.
I love that you showed me my favorite peanut butter pie,
even though I could be skinnier.
I love that I was rolling my eyes and watching the clock,
impatient for your movie choice,
And yet, when we watched it, it turned out to be a new favorite of mine.
And you knew that it would be, mate.
I love that you find it vitally important to find new favorites, for me.
“7.5 billion people in this world And you let the opinion of one stop your good energy? You’re better than that.” – Eric Thomas
Years ago, I had an eBay store. I’ve mentioned before on the blog, that I am an excellent treasure hunter/picker. I say this not to brag. There are a plethora of things which I completely stink at, but I am pretty good at honing in on “diamonds in the rough”, which others tend to easily dismiss. So, my eBay store (Baubles and Bling, it was called) was filled with one-of-a-kind treasures that I would find in garage sales, or flea markets or second hand shops. I had a lot of fun with the whole process. I enjoyed the treasure hunting, and I was thrilled with some of the prices I obtained for things that had been discarded, and were now highly valued by someone else. I felt like I had connected the desired thing, to the person who had been yearning for it. It was like being a match maker of sorts, and it was quite satisfying, most of the time. In particular, I was intensely proud and protective of my 100 percent customer satisfaction rating. I kept the “perfect” rating for several months after starting up my store (maybe even over a year), until one day, I got a disappointed customer. I couldn’t believe it! I did everything that I could to rectify the situation, even giving a full refund, even though I didn’t think that the refund action was particularly fair or justified. Still, I was obsessed with keeping my 100 percent rating. The person refused to change their negative feedback and my approval rating dropped all the way down . . . to 99.9% satisfied. I was utterly sick about this fact. I groaned and moaned for days to anyone who would listen. I would try to avert my eyes from my less than 100 percent perfect customer satisfaction rating. I became incredibly nervous and worried and overly affected about everything that I sent out to customers, living in fear of more negative ratings. What had been a fun hobby of mine, started turning into nerve wracking, gut wrenching experience.
Then one day my exasperated husband said to me, “You have hundreds of satisfied customers. Over ninety-nine percent of your customers, are grateful to you, and they are happy with their purchases. Many of them are repeat customers. Maybe you should focus on what the majority thinks. Not everyone is going to like you, but obviously a whole lot more people like you, than don’t like you. You are giving a whole lot of power to something/someone you don’t have any control over.” (I like to think that I am the wise one in my relationship, but when I retell these stories, it becomes clear to me that I am the one who married a sage.)
When what my husband said to me, finally sunk in, I felt a new sense of freedom. I no longer had the “perfect” rating, and I started to feel immense relief. These days, I sometimes lose a follower to my blog, or sometimes my blog has a low daily count of visitors, and that old sense of shame and dread and a desperate need to please, sets in. But then I remember my husband’s advice and I just keeping doing “my thing.” Deep connection is a unique and precious and intimate quality. I treasure the connection that I have with my readers who “get me”, and who relate to me, and want to read what I have to say. I treasure our authentic connection and that doesn’t have to happen on a mass scale. When I come here to write, I am so happy and excited. I am thrilled to commune with you. Please don’t ever change who you are, and I promise in return, to always give you “the real me.” And you are always welcome to come and to go, as you please, of course.
“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” – George Lucas
“Don’t lose yourself trying to be everything to everyone.” Tony Gaskins
(****** On an aside, I know that you are probably wondering, because my friends ask me about this a lot. Why did I close my eBay store? There were a lot of reasons. We were making a big family move to a whole other state at the time, so I was paring my responsibilities down, to focus on the transition, for all of us. Also, I am sort of a contrarian. Being a stubborn contrarian is something that I know kind of bugs and annoys the people who love me. I fully understand and accept that even the people who love me, do not love 100 percent everything about me and that’s okay. I doubt that I even have a 99.9 percent approval rating, but as long as I’m at 65-75 percent approval, I consider that good and interesting for anyone I am in a relationship with, going both ways. Anyway, picking and selling stopped being cool and fun for me, when American Pickers and a bunch of other TV shows like it, started making picking a thing for the masses. Ironically, I lose total interest in almost anything that 99.9 percent of people like. Hidden gems are always my target and obsession.)
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Hi friends and readers!!! Friday is here. Love it!! Here at Adulting – Second Half, Fridays are all about the light stuff, the fun stuff, or just plain stuff. On Fridays, I list three favorite things, or songs, or books, or movies, or food items, and I strongly encourage you to add your favorites, to my Comments section, so we all have a lot of fun things to buy, or to try, or to experience, over the weekend. A lot of our best ideas and inspirations come from outside sources. Creation is meant to come from collaboration! Please also check out my previous Friday posts for more favorites.
How did yesterday’s “luckiest day of the year” work out for you? Ours was amazing. Our middle son got accepted into medical school, which has been his dream, since probably middle school. We are beyond thrilled for him, and completely relieved. I had no idea how grueling the process is, to get into medical school, until he began this journey. Medical professionals, I have even more mad, mad respect for you now, than I ever did before. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Here are my favorites for today:
Match 3D – This is my newest phone game addiction. I am surprisingly good at it. Essentially, the premise of the game is that you are given a big pile of stuff to go through, and you can only make the pile go away, by finding the matches. I find it so satisfying to clean up a big messy pile of stuff, in the matter of a few minutes. (if only this could happen in real life) I am not one to pay for anything on my phone games, but I did break down and I paid a couple of dollars to get rid of the advertisements. It was worth it. Otherwise, you lose your concentration when they interrupt you in the middle of your game, to advertise another game which they think that you would probably get addicted to, as well. I think that phone games are a satisfying, inexpensive, harmless way to keep my 50-year-old mind sharp. They help to keep my mind clear of worries and distractions, and keep my fingers and hands out of the cookie jar, so I don’t snack so mindlessly anymore.
Orchidaceous – This my is my favorite word of the week. It is a real word. It means flashy and showy, like an orchid. I always fall for the orchids blooming in the grocery store, and then I buy them, and I bring them home and then they promptly lose their “orchidaceous-ness” and never bloom again. I had given up on some of my orchids as of late, and I ignored them and I probably didn’t water them in weeks, and surprise, they got me. They started blooming again! They are so orchidaceous, that way!
And finally here is my favorite quote of the week, from a great author, Anne Lamott. I washed every stitch of our bedding yesterday and this quote says it all:
“When you crawl between your clean sheets, after a hard day, you are saved. You feel like you are the best sandwich ever.”
Bonus: Although I wouldn’t put either of these movies in “my favorites” column, they are certainly good, worthy of your time, interesting films to watch this weekend. News of the World and The White Tiger are these films. I’ll leave it up to you to research them, to decide whether they should be part of your weekend repertoire of things to do.
Have a great weekend, my lovely, cherished friends and readers!!!
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
In astrological circles, today is the luckiest day of the year. Today, the sun is in a conjunction with Jupiter, the biggest, boldest, badass luckiest planet in our solar system. Ironically, this conjunction did not happen in 2020. The last time this conjunction occurred was December 27, 2019. It is believed that today is a wonderful day to manifest more of what you want in your own life.
In my experience, the best way to manifest more amazing, incredible miracles in your own life, is to swell with happiness and gratefulness, while counting your countless blessings, already surrounding you. Here are a few beautiful miracles that most of us probably share: family, friends, flowers, fruit, fragrance, fits of laughter, fabulous food, fancy cupcakes, funny fun stuff, fondue (this is just the “f”s) . . . . It is not my onus to make your Blessings list, but it is yours. It is also my experience that when I start listing and thinking about all of the amazing blessings that have occurred, and are occurring, in my own life, I get so swelled with happiness and peace and awe and love and thankfulness, that I often forget that my initial purpose for writing my blessings list, was to ask for even more miracles. Don’t think that asking for more blessings in life is selfish (which often happens when you see how much you have already been abundantly blessed with) The beauty of it all, is that we live in an ever expanding Universe that loves to create blessings. Our Universe loves creation. Our Universe is Creation. There is an abundance of everything for everybody, if we let it happen in the purest, most grateful expectancy of Love for all of us.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“An abundance mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations.”- Stephen Covey
“Abundance is about being rich, with or without money.”- Suze Orman
“If you look at what you have in your life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”- Oprah Winfrey
“True abundance is feeling worthy enough to believe beyond what you can see. Expect miracles and they will manifest.”- Sarah Prout
“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”- Tony Robbins
Yesterday, I wrote about being a gracious compliment receiver. I knew that I had written about this topic before, but I certainly don’t expect all of you to remember my past posts. Well, you caught me. I had to laugh this morning, when I looked at my stats and I saw that my previous post on accepting compliments, from at least two years ago, was trending. I am guessing that some of you were thinking, didn’t she write about this before?? Here is the older post. I do love the meme.
I am one who repeats myself often. My kids call me on this fact, all of the time. When I was young and older people did this, I just assumed that they were forgetful. However, now that I am an older person, I realize that a lot of my repeating of things, is just a reminder to myself, as to what to keep imprinted on my heart. My repeating is part of the beating of my heart. My “repeating” is keeping my life beating to the important stuff – the lessons, the stories, the ideas, the verses, the experiences which have come together to form the current version of “me”. My repeating of what is meaningful to me, is just a way to keep that “life gift”, as a relevant part of myself.
I am waiting for the Progressive Insurance’s “You Are Turning Into Your Parents” advertisement campaign, to do a segment on all of the stuff that we parents say, again and again and again. They have already burned me with my love for throw pillows, and cutesy signs, and being way too obvious when looking at people with aqua blue hair. I am sure that repeating the “same old stories” will be part of the next Progressive TV commercials. And I honestly look forward to any advertisement from this “turning into your parents” series. I like to laugh, and I don’t have any problem with laughing at myself. I give myself a lot of material to laugh about.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I read a story in Real Simple magazine last night that made me think. It was written by Hoda Kotb. She talks about having a young twenty-something page at NBC, working for her, whom Hoda was really impressed with. One day, Hoda complimented the page about her work ethic and her calm nature. She said that the page smiled and replied, “I received that.”
“I received that.” Koda complimented the page, once again, for her serious response. They talked about the fact that compliments are such a gift. Koda thinks that if you respond to a compliment with “I received that,” you are saying, “What you’ve said to me is inside of me now. I’m not deflecting it, I’m receiving it. I accept your kind gift.”
I wonder if I would feel weird saying “I received that,” to someone who complimented me. Probably. But, I could think it, after I smiled and warmly said, “Thank you.” I could decide to receive the compliment, instead of thinking, “oh they’re just trying to butter me up,” or “How could they possibly see that attribute in me? They are totally mistaken.”
Genuine compliments are rare, unfortunately. For some strange reason, it takes guts to tell someone what you think is particularly interesting or special or unique or positive about their persona. When someone has mustered up the courage to give us a genuine compliment and we deflect it, it is almost like throwing a sweet, thoughtful gift, down to the ground, right in front of their faces. Ouch.
Readers, I think that you are incredibly kind, thoughtful, insightful, loyal people who have made a major difference in my life for almost three years, now. I am incredibly grateful for you. Your gift of attention has meant the world to me. I consider you to be a major, meaningful gift in my life.
Please receive my compliment and my thankfulness.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Friends, I added a funny little addendum to my blog post today. It struck me that my subscribers won’t get it. While I appreciate all of you, who are kind enough to subscribe to my blog, I think that you should be aware of my editing process. I am a big picture kind of a gal. I need my nitty-gritty, detail oriented editor (husband) to help me find mistakes, which usually happens later in the morning/early afternoon. I explained my writing process best here (I think it bears repeating):
I didn’t really start seriously drinking coffee until I was probably in my early forties. Before that, I drank gallons of Diet Coke. When I decided Diet Coke wasn’t healthy for me anymore, I substituted my three morning Diet Cokes, for coffee. Hmmmm. I am going to look up a word for replacing one bad habit for another bad habit. I’ll be right back. Okay, the closest thing I could find was “addiction replacement.” You learn something new every day.
Addendum:
Because Big Brother always knows what I am thinking about and what I am writing about, an article popped up on my feed. Look what is new on the market, below! I am going to look up a word for adding a bad habit, to another bad habit. I’ll be right back. Okay, the closest thing which I could find to describe coffee and coke together, is “comorbidity.” (It pays to come back to the website if you are a subscriber. I edit my blog posts all of the time!)
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, friends and readers. I hope that this post finds you well, and rested, and peaceful, and hopeful, and thoughtful, and in the moment. My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted entirely to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. I think that this is fitting, because poetry is the form of writing that is the most closely entwined with our deepest feelings and soul. I was very moved by Amanda Gorman’s recital of her beautiful inauguration poem. I love the ending suggesting that we should be brave enough to be “the light”, which we are all really made of, underneath all of the noise and masks and insecurities and ego. Please, as always, feel safe to share your poetry in my Comments section. I would love to read what your soul has to say today. Here is Amanda Gorman’s poem in written form:
The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman
When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast, We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always just-ice. And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one. And yes we are far from polished. Far from pristine. But that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true, that even as we grieved, we grew, that even as we hurt, we hoped, that even as we tired, we tried, that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade. But in all the bridges we’ve made, that is the promise to glade, the hill we climb. If only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust. For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption we feared at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour but within it we found the power to author a new chapter. To offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be. A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation, because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our children’s birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west. We will rise from the windswept northeast, where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states. We will rise from the sunbaked south. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover. And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful. When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
This one hit me hard this morning. It reminded me about the time in my life, that my only daughter and I went shopping for the only doll which my daughter has ever liked or cared about. It was last fall, when my daughter was 16. We “adopted” Betty Faye together at the Cabbage Patch Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia.
I knew that I was pregnant with a daughter before she was born. She is the fourth child, and she has three older brothers. I am a “girly girl.” I like clothes and shoes and purses and high heels and lots of accessories. As a child, I loved dolls in every form. I loved Barbies, and Holly Hobbies, and Drowsy babies, and fancy foreign dolls on pedestals. I had the largest collection of paper dolls known to man. I still have a few of my precious paper doll sets, in storage. So, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I started collecting dolls for her, that I just knew she would love, with her whole heart and imagination. I bought the prettiest, most collectible, most cuddly dolls which I had ever seen, in bulk. My inner little girl bloomed, as my pregnant belly bloomed, and “together” we shopped for dolls for my soon-to-be daughter and I expectantly piled them high, in the closet.
For the first couple years of her life, my daughter was my own living baby doll. I dressed her up in a new outfit, every single day. She had the prettiest blankets and bathing suits and bracelets and monogrammed binkie holders, and I reveled in all of it. When she was about three, I started introducing my daughter to her curated doll collection, but she didn’t show too much interest. Her brothers proved to be much more fascinating, as they bounced her, like a ball, on the trampoline or used her for target practice for their dodge ball games. My daughter showed her athletic prowess early on, and the boys decided that my daughter was a worthy, valuable teammate for a lot of their games, and she was thrilled to be part of the action. Plus, never one to sit down much, she much preferred to play with her toy kitchen, dramatically chopping up and carving up plastic turkeys and lettuce, “Gordon Ramsey” style, with devilish flare, or to jump enthusiastically and tirelessly, mimicking all of the intricate moves on the video game, Just Dance.
One day, we had a “come to Jesus moment”, when my daughter was almost four. As I gingerly pulled out a fancy, antique Madame Alexander, exquisite doll from her still intact trademark cardboard blue box, in order to transition the doll over to the next generation, my daughter looked at the doll with a glimpse of disgust and maybe even despair. Then she looked me firmly in the eye and very matter-of-factly said, “Mom, dolls are scary.”
My daughter is a talented artist. She has long, shiny, beautiful hair and she loves to do it up, in all different styles. She is so creative when she paints her lovely nails. (luckily she didn’t inherit my ugly, stubby, chippy little fingernails) We enjoy shopping together. So, while we have shared a lot nice “girl times” together, playing dolls was never a part of our bonding experience. So, imagine my complete surprise when she seemed eager to visit the Cabbage Patch Hospital with me, this past fall, when we were staying in a cabin in the mountains of Georgia. I figured that it was just an odd fascination and curiosity about a giant plantation-like looking building, where Cabbage Patch kids are “born.” Even my husband and eldest son agreed to go, for laughs, I suppose.
We walked all around the doll hospital. It was the first time in a long time, that wearing a mask felt fun and normal and appropriate. All of the salespeople were dressed like nurses, and there were walls of photos of famous people who had visited the Cabbage Patch hospital, over many years. It was a silly, fun, unusual, interesting experience, at a time when we needed that type of experience the most.
After getting my fill of the place, I noticed my daughter kept looking at one of the dolls. “If you had to just pick one doll, out of the thousands of dolls here, which would you pick?” I asked her casually. She giggled embarrassedly and pointed to little blonde, pony-tailed Betty Faye, all decked out in comfy aqua pajamas.
“I’ll buy her for you, if you want her,” I said casually. (trying to keep hope out of my expression) “You know, as a funny souvenir and remembrance of our trip.”
She took me up on my offer right away, and we headed back to the “nurse’s” office, to fill out Betty Faye’s adoption paperwork. I don’t know why my sixteen-year-old daughter showed the interest and enthusiasm for a doll that day, that she had never shown before. Was it to make sure that she didn’t miss out on anything in her childhood, with college and adulthood now looming, so soon in the future? Was it a form of love and connection that she was trying to express to me? Or maybe, was it that a soft, comfy doll to hug was just the ticket, after a year of so much fear and uncertainty that came with the pandemic? No matter what the reason, I lapped up the experience, and so did my daughter. And every once in a while, when kissing my baby girl goodnight, I notice that Betty Faye has made her way off of the shelf, and into the bed, with an ever smiling face, promising that you are never too old or never too young, to enjoy all that life has to offer, all along the way.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
