Month: August 2022

iJennette

I read a fascinating book yesterday. I couldn’t put it down. It is the first time in a while in which I have read an entire book in one day. The book just came out and it is called I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Jennette McCurdy is a (now grown) child star who is best known as the character “Sam” on the Nickelodeon hit “iCarly.” My kids loved watching that TV show growing up, and I personally always enjoyed the character of “Sam” the best. However, the book makes it abundantly clear that Jennette doesn’t like “Sam” at all. I’m Glad My Mom Died is a memoir of what it was like to be a little girl forced into child acting, by an overbearing, abusive, narcissistic stage mom, in order to live out the unfulfilled dreams of her own mother. Jennette comes into her adulthood, realizing that she never liked being an actress at all. Jennette comes into adulthood realizing that her entire childhood was spent hoping to make her extremely difficult to please and sickly mother, happy. Jennette feels robbed of her childhood, her adolescence and her very own sense of self. The book is a brutally honest, frank, often funny, yet frequently sad memoir, leaving the reader with hope that Jennette can come into her true self, in a healthy way, leaving the ghosts of her past behind. (Warning the book is explicit, and may hold triggers for people, including candid accounts of abuse, sexual encounters and eating disorders.)

For my fellow writers who read my blog, you will definitely relate to this excerpt from the book:

“I absolutely prefer writing to acting. Through writing, I feel power for maybe the first time in my life. I don’t have to say anybody else’s words. I can write my own. I can be myself for once. I like the privacy of it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s judging. Nobody’s weighing in. No casting directors or agents or managers or directors or Mom. Just me and the page. Writing is the opposite of performing to me. Performing feels inherently fake. Writing feels inherently real.”

And chapter 91 was perhaps the most brutally honest chapter of the book, yet incredibly insightful. Jennette writes:

“Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them? Especially moms. They’re the most romanticized of anyone. . . . My mom didn’t deserve her pedestal. She was a narcissist. She refused to admit she had any problems, despite how destructive those problems were to our entire family. My mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me. . . . Her death left me more questions than answers, more pain than healing, and many layers of grief – the initial grief from her passing, then the grief of accepting her abuse and exploitation of me, and finally the grief that surfaces now when I miss her and start to cry . . . . Sometimes when I miss her I start to fantasize what life would be like if she were alive and I imagine that she’d have apologized, and we’d have wept in each other’s arms and promised each other we’d start fresh. Maybe she’d support me having my own identity, my own hopes and dreams and pursuits.

But then I just realize I’m just romanticizing the dead in the same way I wish everyone else wouldn’t.

Mom made it very clear she had no interest in changing. If she were still alive, she’d still be trying her best to manipulate me into being who she wants me to be.”

Two of my absolute favorite activities in this world are reading and writing. I am not sure which I like better, but I do know that they go hand-in-hand. I’m so grateful for the written word.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Sentience

“A person who leaves when they are angry, often returns. A person who leaves when they are calm, rarely returns.” – Wise Connector, Twitter

“The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.” – Elie Wiesel

Love and hate are often passionate and fueled with emotion. Many unhealthy relationships (romantic and otherwise) exist on the yo-yo spectrum of love and hate, because the parties involved are in love with the drama, and the excitement, and they are individually fueled by the passion and the spectacle of the relationship, not necessarily with each other. This yo-yo string keeps them connected, and the back and forth cycle continues ad nauseum, until someone finally burns out and the string is irretrievably broken.

Any time in my life that I came to a conclusion about leaving a place, a job, a relationship, a situation, a habit, etc. it always came with a quiet, calm, sincere fullness of knowing. The last drop fell into my already overflowing pitcher, and there was no more room left for me and my energy, to stay in an untenable situation. It is in these moments in my life when I fully came to understand what my own intuition really and truly feels like. The comfort of the wisdom of our intuition is other-worldly. Intuition doesn’t arrive with an highly detailed plan book and a guaranteed crystal ball prediction of the future. Instead, intuition comes with an assurance like you have never felt before. It assures you that all that you have to do is take the next right step, and you will be lead. Intuition is not necessarily fearless, but it is reassuringly affirming that you are more than able to rise above the fear and do what you must do. Intuition comes to us with an urgency that is not excitable, but is intense and persistent. Intuition is our best leader, but your intuition won’t force you to follow it. Intuition is much like love – patient, kind, understanding . . . . Perhaps our own intuition, is the best form of self-love which we can ever know. Substitute “intuition” for “love”, in the ever comforting love verses in the Bible. It makes complete sense. Love is an action. Following your intuition is the act of loving yourself.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Let Go

RIP – Olivia Newton-John (image credit: Gregorio Catarino, Twitter)

I was a little soul sick yesterday when I heard the news that Olivia Newton-John had passed. What little girl in the 70s/80s couldn’t sing every song by heart in the Grease soundtrack? My fun, stylish, youngest aunt took my sister and I to see ONJ’s “Physical” concert. It was the first musical concert I had ever been to, and it was amazing. What a lovely, talented lady! Olivia Newton-John will be missed.

It struck me lately that a lot of my “regulars” whom I count on to be there: my dentist, my hair stylist, my son’s neurologist, and my favorite pedicurist, are all older than me. And I am no longer a spring chicken. I now worry that at any given appointment that I have with them, they will be announcing their well-earned retirements. And I will be devastated. I am not ready to let go.

“Let go.” We get told that a lot in life. And the older that we get, the more often we are reminded to just “let go.” It make sense. Wanting things to be different than they are, is a sure way to go crazy in the moment. Still letting go is not easy. It never gets easier. We all know the steps to letting go: Accept the things we can’t change, change the things we can, and move on or away from toxic people and situations. Lose our rigid expectations, i.e. “the shoulds.” Allow ourselves to feel our feelings, in order to free them. Get lost in a creative outlet. Pray and stay with our faith. Stay focused on the tasks at hand (mindfulness). Look for the silver linings and the possibilities of the situation. etc. etc. Honestly, in my own experience and in observing others, it is mostly just time and patience that helps the letting go process finally happen. Letting go can’t be forced.

At our ages, we have been doing this “letting go” thing a long time now. And it never seems to get much easier. I suppose it all comes down to letting go of the idea that life should always be utopian. Or letting go of the idea that we actually know what utopian should look like. Letting go means forgiving ourselves for struggling against what is, and giving ourselves permission to move forward into what may be . . . .

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

Credit: Titsay, Twitter

“Place your hands into soil to feel grounded.

Wade in water to feel emotionally healed.

Fill your lungs with fresh air to feel mentally clear.

Raise your face to the heat of the sun and connect with that fire to feel your own immense power”

– V. Erickson (credit Native Red Cloud, Twitter)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Many people think that poetry has to be serious, long, confusing, emotional, hard to understand and difficult to decipher. It’s easy to forget that Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein were also world famous poets with their fun and silly, rhymey ditties. Today’s poem is written by the Hollywood actor, Woody Harrelson. He wrote the poem on social media, to a response to an Irish mother posting a picture of her daughter Cora, remarking on Cora’s resemblance to Woody.

Oh Woody! You’re delightful!

Those who dismiss you are just being spiteful.

I’ve enjoyed your many roles over the years.

But my favorite is when you were the bartender on Cheers.

On the show you fell for a girl who shares my name.

Listening to the song you wrote for her, I may never be the same.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Miss U

My daughter and I both get reunited with our romantic partners today. My husband has been away for over a week, helping an ailing family member. And my daughter took summer session classes at her university, while her boyfriend travelled with his family to see various friends and relations over the summer. This morning, needless to say, the air in our house is one of girly giddiness.

You really know how much you care about someone when there is an aching void in your life when they aren’t around. While I think that it is healthy for everyone to get individual breaks from one another, there is truth to the saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. You forget about all of your nitpicky gripes that you have about your partner, when you are pining away for the comfort of their every day presence.

I’m happy that my daughter and her boyfriend have modern day technology like FaceTime and Snapchat and texting. When my husband and I were in college, we spent every summer apart, as we lived in different states, several hours away from one another. With having jobs and other responsibilities, we were lucky if we saw each other once in a summer. We didn’t have cell phones, and those long distance calls were incredibly expensive. So, we wrote love letters. Remember those? Sigh. Love letters are wonderful. Maybe this modern technology isn’t always such a great thing after all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Friday Fun and Stickiness

Happy Friday! Happy Friday Favorites!! On Friday, I keep it light and superficial on the blog and I discuss my favorites, such as products, beauty items, books, movies, websites, games, etc. It is the sensual stuff in life which makes it fun, so on Friday, I talk about the stuff that make my senses happy. Please check out previous Friday blog posts, for more favorites.

Before I get to today’s favorite, however, I have “a no horse pucky” story to tell you. Long time followers of the blog, know that I occasionally interject “no horse pucky” stories into the mix. (search up “no horse pucky” for more weird stories on the blog) These are stories that are so ridiculous and incredulous, you might think that I am pulling your tail. But I am not. Everybody has these crazy stories that happen in their lives every once in a while. These unusual events are so much fun to experience, and to retell.

Yesterday, our eldest son sent me a strange text. For background purposes, our eldest son is a tech professional who was attending a conference for his company in Boston earlier this week. My eldest son is a tall, gregarious twenty-six year-old man, who has curly red hair. (I only note his hair color because redheads/gingers can never be anonymous. They are rarely forgotten, primarily because they are so rare. Ask any ginger you know. This is the truth. When we took our son to Puerto Vallarta Mexico, when he was a toddler, the older village folk treated him like he was a god. They kept touching his hair for “good luck.”)

Anyway, the first line of the text said this: “Hey Mom! Random question for you, do you remember that apartment complex we moved into when we first moved to Charlotte (NC)? Was there a Colombian family there you gave a Steelers ornament to?”

Me: “Yes. Wow. Why?”

Our family moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in 2002, when our eldest son was six. We stayed in corporate housing apartments for three months that summer, until our house was ready to be moved into. While we were living in those apartments, we befriended a very nice Colombian family. They had just relocated to North Carolina from Columbia, because they wanted a safer place to live. Despite being well-off, educated professionals, and middle-class citizens in Columbia, they lived in constant fear of being kidnapped for ransom. That was a common thing in the early 2000s in Columbia. They said that they lived in terror, if any of the family members were even five minutes late coming home from work and appointments. We had a couple of enjoyable dinners together. I remember that they had lovely heirloom furniture and the wife introduced me to the wonders of cooking with capers. However, when we moved out of the apartment at the end of that summer, we lost touch and we never spoke or contacted each other again. We were never friends on social media.

Bottom line, it turns out that their son holds the same exact tech job, for the same exact company which my son works for, except that their son resides in Washington, D.C. and our son lives in New Jersey. Both young men happened to be at the same conference in Boston. Their son thought that he recognized my son (20 years after seeing each other at the age of six!) after they were talking and they realized that they had both lived in North Carolina as children.

Our son: “He told me his family kept that ornament for like ten years. LOL”

No horse pucky. In my opinion, coincidence is God being anonymous. This story brightened our day.

Okay, on to my favorite for today. It’s been a stressful summer, full of change and trepidation for our family and for our extended family. I have been looking for more items and objects to help me with mindfulness. On a whim, I purchased a Brain Games Sticker By Number book at our local grocery store. This book is like painting by numbers, but easier and less messy. The only skill that it requires is a steady hand. It’s such a satisfying, meditative activity and the end result is always really cute. I’ve already finished putting all of the stickers on that one particular book, and thus I have purchased three more of these Brain Games Sticker By Number books from Amazon. Try it. You’ll like it. You’ll relax doing it.

Have a great Friday! Go discover a new favorite to enjoy!! Don’t be afraid to play with stickers, no matter what your age!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Marco!

credit: Just Mike, Twitter

Laughing is good. There are a lot of funny people in the world. I saw someone pose the question on Twitter the other day, “Would you rather be smart or be funny?” A lot of people responded that most funny people tend to be quite smart. “Funny” itself is kind of a cute, funny word.

I pick up our youngest child, our daughter, from her university today. After a small bout of homesickness, she came out of her shell and took her first summer session at college by storm. My one son exclaimed that his sister had done more activities this summer at college, than he had done there in all four years. Funny.

Our daughter will be home for a couple of weeks, before she heads back to school for fall session. I am excited and aware. Once a child leaves home they never come back quite the same. And this is not a bad thing. It’s fun to see the facets of your children that are glistening new aspects of themselves, which only occur when they leave the nest and really explore things on their own, with a blossoming adult outlook. This is when your relationship with your children starts to evolve into a mutual, adult relationship, and this is when we parents and children start to explore each other’s personalities, experiences, perspectives on a more level ground. We get to know each other more as “people” versus rigid, hierarchical roles. I honestly enjoy this shift. It’s surprising, interesting, and a growing moment for both of you.

As has been the case with all four of our children, I think that our daughter is most excited to reunite with our dogs. They never disappoint. Dogs never hold back their exuberant feelings of love and excitement.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Cycles

When endings come in life either through death, or divorce, or moving to a new house, or changing jobs, or children growing up, I’ve come to understand how complicated the grief of this situation can be. When endings come, you don’t just grieve the loss of the person, or the loss of the place, or the loss of the thing, you also grieve the loss of yourself that has identified strongly with that person, or that place or that thing, or that function, or that title. Even though we are human beings, there is a huge part of us who identifies ourselves by what we do, and we label ourselves accordingly. For me, I have many labels: I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, cousin, in-law, friend, homemaker, writer/blogger, American, Florida resident, JMU graduate, UF parent, Pittsburgh native, avid reader, dog owner, animal lover, boater, walker, mentor, deep thinker, adventurer, brown-eyed girl . . . . The point that I am making is that any of these labels that I identify myself as, can change (and have changed over the years) through death, moves, job changes, health changes, relationship changes, aging, world events (hello, 9/11 and the pandemic) etc. So when we are having a hard time letting go of someone, something, or some place, a lot of that difficulty of letting go, is the letting go of that function, or that label that connects us to the person, the place, the pet, the job, the house, the title etc. In order to let go, it feels like we almost have to cut off a piece of our own selves, that is still clinging to make this part of our lives, an ongoing part of our present circumstances. We have a hard time surrendering this person, place, or function, or thing, to our past, because we still desperately want it to be part of our present. We aren’t ready to sever that part of ourselves.

With the ailing of our extended family member, I’ve been reflecting a lot on grief and why it is so hard and unique to each individual. A lot of how hard you grieve someone or something, is how much you sunk your whole self into a relationship or a situation. When endings come around, you have to face that the definition of whatever you are grieving – the relationship, the place, the role, is soon coming to a close. There is no going back and changing it and making it different anymore. It is what it is, becomes the final statement. And so when you are packing up your things from your desk, or when you are turning in your keys, or you are signing your divorce papers, or you are attending a graduation, or a retirement party, or a funeral, you are giving away a little chunk of yourself. You are closing out a chapter on YOU. And that is so incredibly hard.

There are so many endings in life. Life is cyclic in nature. Summer is soon coming to a close. Many people have already experienced their long anticipated summer vacations. And there is grief in these facts, for many people. But as the saying goes, for every ending, there is a new beginning. I can’t wait for the cooler weather of fall and even the overload of pumpkin spice everything. I hate saying good-bye to anything or anyone important to me, but I also love anticipating fresh, new hellos to what’s next in my life, and the new pieces of myself that these new, fresh hellos will reveal to me.

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

Your Spirit

I always tell my family that none of us are even leaving this life with our bodies. And they groan, “Mom, you’re so morbid.” But I think that this is an important concept to fully understand and to grasp, in order to best savor your life. I love my stuff, but I get that what I really love, is the experiencing of “my stuff.” I love to play around with clothes and fashion and shoes and make-up, and I love to drive around in my car with the convertible top down, but I do these things with the full understanding that it is the experience of playing around with my stuff which actually enthralls me. Life is the experience for the spirit to enjoy. My body is the vehicle to get my spirit to all sorts of experiences. My physical home is a place that protects my body and comforts my spirit. But none of this is mine. My spirit (which is my peaceful awareness of all that it is experiencing) is the only eternal part of me, and the memories of all that my spirit has experienced in this life, is the only thing that I’ll be taking with me, when I leave this Mother Earth and journey on. I hope that I am collecting an incredible treasure trove of memories to take with me, because that is the only treasure I have amassed which truly has any real meaning and eternal value.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.