admin, Author at Adulting: Second- Half

The Vibe

The state of my mind, and thus the state of my writing, is all over the map, these last few days. Perhaps it is because a new season is starting, and we (my family and I) haven’t settled into our latest routines, yet. My middle son is home this weekend. He will move to another city, in a couple of months to start medical school. He, myself and my husband were out to dinner last night, and he was telling us about how he is more than ready to get started on a structured routine again. My daughter was on a date last night, and has a few graduation parties to attend tonight. She is eagerly waiting to hear back from some job applications. When I asked her the details of her parties, she rolled her eyes and sighed, “So much social time!” I smiled knowingly. I hate when the equilibrium my daily life feels out of kilter, and heavily leaning towards one activity, versus towards all of the other things, which I also want to do. I think this is just part of our human nature. We crave structure, and then we start to crave a break from our self-made structures. Finding that happy, healthy balance between regimented, systematic, in-control living, plus free-wheeling, up-for-anything, creative leisure time, seems to be a challenge for everyone who I know – young and old.

What’s your “vibe” these days, readers? Are you feeling a little unsettled as “normal” life opens up more possibilities to us every day, and our routines are changing? If nothing else, the pandemic really simplified our lives down the bare studs, didn’t it? Incidentally, the word “vibe” seems to be making a revival. A friend of mine had a job interview the other day, and the young, millennial manager wanted my friend to come into the workplace to see if she would “fit into the vibe.” Our group of friends (all from older generations), of course, got a lot of giggles out of the wording, and “vibe” became the joke word of the night. Of course, that same night, my 17-year-old daughter texted me to let me know that she was just driving around, “vibing” with her friends. They say that “your vibe attracts your tribe.” I like my tribe. They’re a great tribe. So, I guess my vibe is pretty good. Valencia (Twitter) recently tweeted, “Vibing with people who have the same goofy humor as you, is so therapeutic.” I giggled to myself when I read that quote. I was thinking about the fact that my tribe and I, made at least 67 jokes about the word “vibe,” when my friend told us about her interview story. And we laughed hysterically at all 67 goofy “vibe” jokes, as they seemed to get better and better, as the night went on. And Valencia was right, vibing with my tribe, who share my same goofy humor, and laughing hysterically, truly was, much-needed and amazing therapy.

37 Good Vibes Quotes With Images for a Happy Life - Darling Quote

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

Calamity Friday

(The Cure – of course, it is actually Friday that is the cure for everything, correct?)

Hello to my friends and readers! Thank you for supporting my blog. Thank you for showing up for me and my art (writing). It means the world to this middle-aged gal, trying to blaze new trails for myself. I’ve gotten a few new subscribers this week. Woo-hoo and welcome!! I was trying to do a new feature on my Thursday blog post called “Throwback Thursday” in which I highlight old blog posts that have been among the most popular ones which I have written over the years. Of course, I immediately forgot to do that yesterday, so for my new readers, I am going to point you to this previous post of mine. It explains my writing process, and also why you probably won’t get the typo/mistake free, mostly smoothly worded version of my blog in your inbox. Still, I am beyond honored that any of you want a daily email from me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Housekeeping

My regular readers know that Fridays are devoted to the fluff in life. I love fluffy Fridays!!! On Fridays, I discuss three songs, books, websites, apps, beauty products etc. that have made my own life a little more sensory, and fun, and I strongly encourage you to add your own favorites to my Comments. Also, please check out previous Friday posts for more good stuff. Here are my favorites for today:

Calamityware – This porcelain china is awesome. From a distance, it looks like fine, expensive, Blue Willow china (that ornate blue and white, antique dinnerware that has an Asian quality to it), however when you look real closely, the patterns actually show all sorts of crazy fiascos happening in the scenery depicted. Dinosaurs, flying monkeys, aliens, sharks etc. are all doing their crazy antics on fine dinner plates and teacups. The irony of this, just tickles me! My favorite pieces are the soup bowls with flies painted at the bottom of them. Years ago I was gifted “Dirty Dishes” from Fishs Eddy. The “Dirty Dishes” depict topless women, lazily lounging all around the rim. I also have a martini glass ornament that is decorated with ornate swear words. It’s called the “dirty martini glass.” I love this kind of stuff. Calamityware is made by a cheeky Polish artist, and his website is a such a pleasure to peruse (a perfect activity for a Friday). Check it out and at least get yourself a mug from the “Things Could Be Worse” series. Get your laughs wherever you can (I think perhaps, that the best laughs come from the most unlikely of places. Unexpected laughs are really, really good for the soul).

Flip Flop Feet Planter – My husband found me this at Ace Hardware. It was the last one left because they were so popular with the customers. Apparently you can also get these cuties at Walmart. These whimsical pieces are not the highest of quality. They are made out of some sort of light plastic. Hence, including the plant, the Flip Flop Feet Planters only cost around 10 dollars. What an inexpensive way to get a smile every time you look at it! It’s like a dimestore mannequin with a bushy little plant body. Wow, okay – I promise that the planter is not nearly as weird and creepy, as my description sounds.

Dog Poop Bag Holders – These are another super cheap, “must buy” for anyone who has a dog, and walks their dog. We have three dogs, who prefer to “save up” and do all of their elimination on our walks. We are also good, considerate neighbors, so we always pick up after our dogs. And we take long walks. And we live in sweltering Florida. It is not fun to walk around for miles, in sweltering Florida, holding a swinging bag of poop. It just isn’t. Trust me on this. These holders are little plastic clips that you attach to the dog leash, which allow you to tie the bag up, slide it on the clip, and the clip then allows the bag to dangle far, far away from any of your bodily parts, until you happily arrive at a trash can. Make sure that you attach the clip to the top of the leash. My husband accidentally attached Josie’s (our lovely collie) clip too low, and being the priss that she is, she was absolutely mortified when she was thumped with a bag of the three dogs’ excrement. (Understandable. We may have to get her therapy.) I got a set of two dog poop bag holders, on Amazon, for around 6 or 7 dollars. Worth every cent.

Have a great weekend, friends! I’ll give you the advice which I often give to my adult children: “Live it up, but don’t eff it up.”

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

Faux is French for Fake

I was perusing some online shopping outlets and I looked at a “faux” shearling jacket. I live in Florida, thus I don’t need too many jackets, and I certainly do not need too many warm jackets. Therefore, I passed on buying the jacket. Still, I paused on the description page, and I felt a tad nostalgic and wistful. Having grown up in Pennsylvania, there are two things that I miss about living in the north, these things being fall leaves and winter clothes. Certainly, I don’t miss having to wear winter clothes to ward off frigid temperatures and snow, but I do love the look of winter clothes. Winter clothes have more texture, and comfortability, and richness of quality to them, than summer clothes do. Winter clothes beg to be layered. And the biggest plus about winter clothes, is that they are so much more forgiving than summer clothes. They’re like make-up/masks/disguises for your body, whereas a bathing suit is like that giant magnifying glass at your dermatologist’s office.

Reading the description of the jacket, I had to giggle at the word “faux.” The French have a way of making everything sound lovely and sophisticated, don’t they? What if the description kept it all in the same language and said, “Fake Shearling Jacket.” Yep, it’s fake. Do ya still wannit? I wonder if the word “faux” is as off-putting to the French, as the word “fake” is to us. Do they change “faux” to the word “fake” in their descriptions of things, to give their products a more exotic, foreign appeal? I have my doubts. I’ve read that a lot of Europeans like to buy American western wear here. Do their catalogs advertising “vegan leather” (ha!) cowboy boots read, “Fake cuir des bottes de cowboy”? Maybe using the word “fake” gives the boots a charming, Americana twang to the description?

There are so many word comparisons like this, that seem to accentuate our American down-home flavor, versus the French air of sophistication:

biscuit/croissant

swagger/savoir-faire

really good/par excellence

fancy clothes/haute-couture

friendliness/bonhomie

one-on-one/tête-à-tête

“the bomb”/crème de la crème

get together/rendez-vous

presto!/voila!

I love being American. I’ve been to France once, and it was nice. The French were actually much kinder to us than they are reported to be. In fact, they sure were super friendly! 😉 I think that the French people, who we met, must have felt my joie de vivre, being on a fabulous trip. Truth be told, I don’t speak French at all. I took five years of Latin for my foreign language requirement. There are so many stories and sub-stories from this experience, (my erratic and dramatic Latin instructor was also my hyper-competitive high school Forensics coach, and his wife, alarmingly looked exactly like a human version of Betty Boop), but these stories are for another blog post, some day.

Reading over this post, I see how “off track” I tend to get, and how rambling it is. It’s been a crazy week. Pardon, my la divigation, s’il vous plaît. Thank you, kindly! Merci!

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

M. and B.

The other night we attended a large graduation party for one of my daughter’s tennis team members. The party was held in a big banquet hall, and it was the size of a medium wedding reception. We knew the graduate, my daughter, a few of my daughter’s friends, the graduate’s parents and one other mother attending. That’s it. In a hall of at least a hundred people, we knew about eight of them, and four of those people who we knew were kids who, understandably, had no interest whatsoever, in hanging out with parents. We had been having work done on our house that day, so in waiting for the workers to finish up for the day, my husband and I ended up arriving to the party, a little later than most. Our daughter was already ensconced in some corner tables with a bunch of her friends, and was fully engaged with talking and laughing with them. The graduate and her parents were being excellent hosts, going from table to table, talking to everyone. I nodded “hello” to the one other mother who I knew at the party, who was sitting at a table, with all of the seats already taken. I could feel a little social anxiety creeping into my gut, especially with being so out of practice, from dealing with the pandemic shutdown, for over a year.

But then, my eyes glommed on to the buffet tables, which were overflowing with incredible delicacies (all handmade by the graduate’s mother). The graduate’s mom is Italian, and so it naturally follows that she is an amazing cook. It’s just in their genes. I have never had an Italian friend who wasn’t an incredible chef. I don’t mean to stereotype, but this has been my divine experience, and I have my fair share of Italian friends. Seeing the delightful spread, I got over my sinking feeling of not knowing anybody, and I got right to the task of filling up my plate, as high as it could go. My husband followed suit.

With my mountainous, overfilled plate, I started scanning my seating options. What appeared was several full tables of people laughing, and enjoying each other’s familiar company. There were also two empty tables, which I started to make a beeline towards, but then the table with M. and B. appeared. M. and B. (keeping their names private), were two older ladies sitting by themselves at a table, quietly eating their food. To get to the empty tables, I would have had to walk right past M. and B.’s table, but my arm was getting heavy with my food (and my husband was at the buffet, still filling up his plate), and plus, my mama taught me good manners. “Are these seats taken?” I asked M. and B politely, with a frozen smile on my face. “Oh no, please take a seat!” they both exclaimed.

Okay, this is the part of the story in which I admit that I am an ASS. As the saying goes, “When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.” I had already made a bunch of assumptions. I assumed M. and B. were elderly family members. (wrong, they were neighbors of the graduate and her family) I then assumed M. and B. were a lesbian couple. (wrong again, they lived on either side of the graduate’s family and they were both widows. They did get a charge out of the question, though. M. looked at B. with her eyebrow raised and said, “Well, I never considered that before . . . ” B. just laughed) The biggest assumption which I had made is that I was going to be bored to tears, making polite, careful conversation with two senior citizens. Ha! M. and B. were a blast! They were interesting, inspiring, witty, edgy, and funny as hell. They teased and flirted with my husband, who teased and flirted right back. Before long, we had become “the raucous table”. I wasn’t even getting to gorging on my delicious food, because I was having so much fun. We were creating so much merriment, that the other mother, who we knew, noticed, grabbed her purse, and excused herself from her own table (full of boring, dull people of our own age, according to her) and joined and added to the merriment. I was sick when M. and B. said it was time for them to leave. We were having such a good time.

It turns out that M. was 83 and B. was 79. We were all shocked. Besides the teens, M. and B. were the most lively, fun-loving, vivacious people at the party. (on an aside, shocked to learn their ages, my friend asked them what creams they used on their faces. “Oh you know, that stuff in a red jar,” M. said, which I assume is Olay and I am not surprised.)

Whenever I start into a new decade (I turned fifty last December), I find myself looking at the generations older than me. I am goal oriented. I like to look ahead to be inspired to be who and what I want to be, when I become of the next age subset. When I am in my eighties, I want to be young. I want to be lighthearted. I want to get a kick out of living, no matter what I am doing. I want to be M. and B. I want to pleasantly surprise the hell out of a fifty-year-old woman, who almost walked right past me, full of her dumb assumptions. And I want to have good skin, so I am going to run out to Walgreens, after I post this, and get some Olay.

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

In the Beginning

13 Uplifting Quotes About New Beginnings

I love new beginnings. Today feels so fresh and new. It is the first day of the month, and the first day of summer (in a calendar sense). Over the weekend, we did things like going to see a movie (at a theater!) and we ate at a couple of restaurants (inside, no masks). It feels so good to get reacquainted with “normal life” again. It is, perhaps, a hidden blessing which the pandemic brought to us. We get to experience all of our old stuff, like it is new, with a more wide-eyed and open-hearted appreciation for everything that before, at times, seemed dull and routine.

I am watching the latest Naomi Osaka story with a keen interest. I am trying to stay detached from having any strong opinions about the story. Naomi Osaka, a Japanese tennis player, is one of the best tennis players ever to play the game. She withdrew from the French Open, after she experienced quite a lot of pressure and fines and criticism, for choosing not to speak to the French media, which is considered an obligation of the players. (Sports is a big business, after all – as is, just about everything) Osaka cites being an introvert and suffering from depression, as her reasons for not wanting to speak with the press. She is putting the priority on her mental health, by choosing to withdraw from the French Open.

My daughter is a competitive tennis player. She has a lot natural talent and athleticism and she could have chosen to take her tennis experience to much higher level, if that was her goal. In sports, having the raw talent is a necessary component, but to really succeed at the highest levels, it requires a single-minded devotion to the sport. It takes a focus and a passion, that makes all decisions about anything in your life, always to be hinging on the highest and utmost priority of succeeding at your sport. (what to eat, when to sleep, how to fit in your schooling, spending money on trainers, conducting your relationships etc. etc.) It can often lead to a one-dimensional life. It is not for the faint of heart.

I’m 50, so I have, quite frankly, laughed at “the snowflake” jokes and the memes that say that our younger generations are “soft.” Each older generation thinks that we are so much “tougher” and wiser and more resilient than the generations that come after us. And that may be true, in some regards. We older people have a lot more experiences in life, under our belts, and the old adage, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”, often rings true. However, in my life’s experience, my strongest, bravest moments rarely came from “toughing out” something miserable. It did take bravery to hold on through negative, painful experiences, but it took even more bravery, to ask for help. The moments that I had to muster up my greatest courage, usually were the moments when I said to myself and to others, “I can’t endure this any longer. I don’t want to feel this misery anymore. I must be true to myself.” My bravest moments were times when I “bucked the system”, because the system no longer rang true to me – to the deepest part of myself. My most heroic moments in my life’s experience, have come from the times when I no longer cared what other people thought (sometimes masses of people), and I stayed clear on what was truly important to me. It takes a hell of a lot of gumption to be true to yourself. It is not for the faint of heart.

I have a deep sense that we are at a “new beginnings” stage in so many factions of our lives. There is a lot more vibrant re-considering of the status quo, going on, and perhaps because of social media, and so many more public news outlets, this questioning is being brazenly played out, on a world stage. In the case of Naomi Osaka, what some may see as a weak moment, may well be the most defining, brave moment of her life. It may be the most inspiring thing which she has ever done for herself, and for her fans. As I said in my opening sentence, “I love new beginnings.” I have learned to embrace them. New beginnings happen all of the time, every moment of every day. And they are good. They are what leads to a brave, new world.

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

We Will Not Let You Down

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you to any of you who are veterans, family of veterans, and to any of you who have lost family members who were serving our nation. We are indebted to you.

My family is chockful of veterans and I am extremely proud of that fact. My father and my father-in-law (who is deceased) are veterans. None of my family members, who are veterans, had to pay the ultimate price for their service to our country, and I am exceedingly grateful for that fact. But, they were all willing to pay the price. They all believed that our great nation, and its ideals of freedom and liberty, is worthy of protecting and preserving, even if it meant their untimely deaths.

I was watching a comedian this weekend, and he talked about the fact that if you ever have to question about how diverse the United States is, compared to any other country in the world, just watch the Olympics opening parades. Who has a more diverse team than us? Sweden? Japan? China? Nigeria? Jordan? Bolivia? The United States is the ultimate test room. We are trying the grand experiment of a democracy that our forefathers carefully laid out. I am sure that our forefathers were mocked. I am sure that their ideas were considered too idealistic and utopian.

No nation is perfect. No country does everything right. The preamble to our Constitution, starts with this:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, . . . . “

Are we doing our best, individually and wholly, to form “a more perfect union”? It doesn’t say “perfect”, because that’s not possible, but it does make its first sentence about aiming to be “more perfect”. Our Constitution’s starting sentence talks about justice, tranquility, common defense, general welfare, and the blessings of liberty. Are we doing our parts, individually and as a whole, to promote these sacred qualities for each and every one of our citizens? Service people have died for almost 250 years, to make sure that our citizens are provided these ideals which are set out in our Constitution. Are we truly doing our best to aim towards “a more perfect union”? Can we look a mother in the face who has lost her child in combat, and say that we are doing our best to be the great nation which we are intended to be? Can we look a child in the face, who will never grow up with a beloved parent because that parent died in defense of the United States, and honestly feel that we are fully putting forth our highest efforts to be the essence of what the United States is intended to be?

I think that these are questions that must be pondered on Memorial Day, and every day. What can we the people do, as a group and as individuals, to help form a more perfect union? What can we all do to make sure that all of our citizens receive justice, tranquility, common defense, general welfare and the blessings of freedom? What can we do to make sure that we deserve the many, many lives that have been lost, in order to preserve our country and its highest ideals, which it was founded upon? Instead of divisive finger pointing and righteous obstinacy, we need to face our challenges full on, together, using our rich, diverse heritage, as a mighty power and a formidable strength. We need to have one aim: to form a more perfect union. We must do this. We cannot let our fallen soldiers’ deaths be in vain.

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning, soul mates. I hope that you all are having a lovely, restful yet rejuvenating holiday weekend. Welcome to summer! My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry. Poetry is much like the “summer” of language. It is slow and contemplative and full and sometimes heavy, meandering and inquisitive, full of background humming. On Sundays, I either write a poem or I share a poem, written by someone else, which has moved me. And also on Sundays, I implore you to write a poem, as well. Please feel safe and comfortable enough to share your poem in my Comments section. Today’s poem is a classic, popular poem by a poet named Marge Piercy. It speaks of the first days of summer.

MORE THAN ENOUGH by Marge Piercy

The first lily of June opens its red mouth.
All over the sand road where we walk
multiflora rose climbs trees cascading
white or pink blossoms, simple, intense
the scene drifting like colored mist.

The arrowhead is spreading its creamy
clumps of flower and the blackberries
are blooming in the thickets. Season of
joy for the bee. The green will never
again be so green, so purely and lushly

new, grass lifting its wheaty seedheads
into the wind. Rich fresh wine
of June, we stagger into you smeared
with pollen, overcome as the turtle
laying her eggs in roadside sand.

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

Quills and Spikes

I came across these Coyote Vests in my morning readings, and I think that they are wonderful! We live in an area where it is not unusual for small dogs to be mauled, and killed by a whole bevy of creatures such as alligators, coyotes and even hawks. These vests are an attempt to make adorable dogs look formidable. Still, I think that there are certain dogs that are just made even cuter by any embellishment that you put on to them. (Who doesn’t get an emotional lift from seeing a Dachshund in a hot dog Halloween costume?) You can’t erase “adorable” with quills, and spikes, and evil eyes. Still, these vests may at least give the pups a “not worth the effort” kind of a look. We can relate when we think about how often we avoid ordering crabs or crawfish to eat at a restaurant, even if we love shellfish. You have to be focused, famished, bibbed and full of stamina, to get your money’s worth, from a lobster dinner.

I won’t be ordering these vests for our three dogs, ranging in size from 40 pounds, to 90 pounds. When the daily wrestle mania event occurs with our canines, I can only imagine that scene, with neon colored quills and sharp spikes and evil eyes, added to the mix. I imagine that my couch might end up looking like an abstract Picasso painting, after the mashup, with the eyes staring up at me with an “I told you so” look, coming straight from the mess of it all. I like to think that my dogs have size on their side, when it comes to any predators, plus they are all separation-anxiety ridden, Velcro dogs. If I stay away from gators and things that go bump in the night, so do they.

I was thinking that I might like to have one of these Coyote Vests for myself, on days when I am feeling vulnerable, raw and exposed. The vests do have a way of saying, “Back off, Bozo!” without using any words. “Step off, stupid, lest you want a hot pink quill in your eye!” Maybe, if I keep checking the website, they’ll eventually have one in my size.

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

Lil’ Friday

Hello Friday!!! Hello Holiday Weekend!! Fridays are the best, aren’t they? They are just so full of anticipation and relief. On Fridays, I don’t go for the deep dive. On “Favorite Things Friday“, I list three favorite songs, books, TV shows, websites, beauty products, etc. that remind me why it is so much fun to be alive. What is the material “stuff” that you love in life? Please add your favorites to my Comments section, and please check out previous Friday postings, for more good stuff. Here are my favorites for today:

Better Call Saul – If you missed this spinoff/prequel to the TV series Breaking Bad, like my husband and I almost did, this is your lucky reminder to check this series out. It has become our new nightly, couch event. This show is excellent and is full of flawed, but interesting, colorful characters who you can’t help, but to love and to root for, despite all of their shortcomings. Better Call Saul is so good, that last night we were attending a really fun, joyous graduation party, and yet, in the back of my mind, I was hoping that we would get home in time to watch another episode. We did. 🙂

Embellish Creative Co-op Tote Bag – I recently purchased this tote bag at a little local shop, because it was adorable, reasonably priced, large, soft and smooshy, and looked easy to clean. It appears to be made out of a bath rug, with a tassel for flourish. It is the best bag for boating, or for the beach, or for other fun summer activities. It came in a variety colors. I went with boring, blah taupe and I love it. Which brings me to my next favorite . . . my next favorite is a fun prompt to just put out there, when you are hanging out with your friends this weekend. You may remember my blog with the prompt “Your Drag Queen name is your Grandmother’s first name and the last dessert/sweet you ate. Go.” That was a good one. Here’s the new prompt for today’s shenanigans:

“Your Rapper Name is “Lil” then the last thing you spent money on. Go.” – It so happens that I purchased the above mentioned bag right before I saw this thought provoking prompt, hence my rapper name is officially “Lil’ Beach Bag.” I tried this prompt with my best friends from college and here are some of their rapper names:

Lil’ Biscuit, Lil’ Cookie, Lil’ Books (this rapper friend said that the books were for her daughter, Lil’ Money Pit), Lil’ Hula Hoop (she has much better hips and dancing skills than I could ever dream of having), and Lil’ Shorts (who we changed to Lil’ Shorty, even though she is taller than any of us)

What’s your rapper name? This is an important question, on a Friday.

The shop that I purchased my beach bag from, had this sign in the window:

Apparently this comes from the title of a book by the actress, Reese Witherspoon, which came from a phrase her grandmother used to describe Southern women: “her grandmother used to describe Southern women: Like whiskey in a teacup, they’re beautiful on the outside and fierce on the inside.” I suppose this is another phrase for “Steel Magnolias”. Frankly, I think that this phrase describes most women, whom I have known, and whom I have loved in my life, from all over the United States, and the world. Embellish the outside of yourself however you like, ladies, but remember, the inside of you is FIRE. Have a wonderful weekend!!

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

I Know

15 Inspirational Book Quotes We Loved in 2017 | Scholastic | Parents | Quotes from childrens books, Inspirational quotes from books, Children book quotes

I was sad to read that Eric Carle, the author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, passed yesterday, at the age of 91. What a lovely man! What lasting gifts he has given to so many of generations of kids! (including my generation, and my kids’ generation, and likely my future grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s generations, to boot!)

Last night, I was having dinner with some friends and one friend was relating about how maturely her twenty-something daughter was handling a drama with her friends. We all marveled at how wise her daughter seems to be, at such a young age. We all talked about what life lessons that we wished we had figured out earlier, and really let sink in, when we were in our early adulthoods, such as: “Whatever anyone thinks about me, is none of my business.”, and “Expectations are the root of all heartache. – William Shakespeare”, and knowing that the saying, “This too shall pass”, is really, really the honest truth, and a hope to hang on to, going through any kind of negative ordeal. (All of us have just experienced this, first hand, with the pandemic, starting to finally be seen from the rearview mirror.)

It is interesting to be 50, and to still be learning a lot of life’s lessons. Life is one long learning process. The classroom never ends. I think a big paradox happens as you age. The very few things that I Know, the things that resonate in the deepest part of my soul, I Know (capital K is on purpose) with a more confident absoluteness, than I ever did before, but at the same time, I am in a constant state of “unlearning” so much that I thought I was so sure of before. I am sure there is a lot more of that “unlearning” lesson to come for me. And this “unraveling of truths” lesson seems to come at an advanced pace, the older that I get. Maybe if I reach a ripe old age, some more of my “I Knows” will turn into “Oops, looks like I was wrong about that one, too.”

My middle son is headed to his first year of medical school later this summer. At dinner the other night, he was telling my husband and I, that he’s been reflecting on the different personas which he has had, already, in his young life: Soccer Dude in high school, Frat Boy in college, now moving on to Budding Doctor Guy. During the conversation, I said that I don’t think it is so much that we change into different identities, as much as we integrate all of the experiences and wisdom that we’ve collected along the way, as we morph into new roles. At the same time, there comes to a stage in life (and I think it is primarily, in this second half of adulting) where we start shedding a lot of those “roles” or “titles” and we start peeling away at the onion of people and places and experiences and beliefs, which have created “us” and our lives, to go searching for what’s really there, in that simpler core. I think if we all stripped away all the layers, and all of the lessons, and all of the perceptions, and all of the experiences, and all of the calculations, and all of the complications, and all of the emotions, and all of the experiments, I think that we’d find the same thing at the core of all that is . . . love, just love. One day, I think that I will Know (with a capital K), that it’s only love that is at the core of everything. Simply, love.

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

New feature – THROWBACK THURSDAY

I’ve decided to highlight some of my older, more popular posts, since I have been writing this blog, daily, for almost three years now. Here’s today’s Throwback post:

Letting Myself Be Lived