admin, Author at Adulting: Second- Half

The Reality of Neverland

“If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.” – Think Smarter, Twitter

“We repeat what we don’t repair.” – Christine Langley-Obaugh

I just watched the HBO documentary featuring two of Michael Jackson’s sexual abuse accusers called Leaving Neverland. Tough stuff. My family has experienced contact with pedophiles in the past. Thankfully, our children were not harmed, but others, who my children knew, were not so fortunate. Please look up my blog post called Mama, Trust Your Gut for more detail.

I know a lot of people stand by Michael Jackson’s innocence. He is not alive to defend himself. Still, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that these now grown men are telling the truth in the documentary and Michael is guilty of sexually abusing young boys. Both men claim to have come to crisis points in their adult lives, where they just couldn’t hide the truth from themselves or the people who they loved, any longer. They had to open up their wounds and clean the feeling of a dirty secret, out of those wounds. They both felt that this was the only way that the wounds could eventually scab over and heal to the point of being scars of the past. Interestingly, both men seemed to come to their crisis points right around the time that they started families and they had their own children. They couldn’t fathom allowing anyone to do the things that they claim that Michael did to them, to their own precious children. Their perspective of wanting to protect their own children, showed them that what happened to them as children, was so wrong and so undeserved.

Self-care can be a difficult road to navigate sometimes. Sometimes we have such fear of being or being perceived as being “selfish” that we forget how important self-love and self-care is for not only ourselves, but for the people we love and share our lives with. We are not giving others the best of ourselves, if we are not self-nurturing and working on healing, and growing from the hurt parts of ourselves.

As a parent, I have four young people in this world who I love beyond life itself. I want nothing but the best of everything that life has to offer for my children. I imagine that most parents feel the same way. I have learned to use that perspective for myself (and for my inner child). As I have grown in parenting, I have learned that children watch a whole lot more of what you model, than what you say. Children are much more intuitive and astute than most of us give them credit for being. If we want them to learn to take care of and nurture and heal and protect themselves, than we must do the same for ourselves. We, and the people we love, deserve nothing less than pure, real, kind, love.

“Memories demand attention, and these memories will have teeth.”
― C. Kennedy, Slaying Isidore’s Dragons

“There is no one way to recover and heal from any trauma. Each survivor chooses their own path or stumbles across it.”
― Laurie Matthew, Behind Enemy Lines

Down-Home Wisdom

RIP – Luke Perry. Too soon. So, so sad. Back in the day, my friends and I were huge 90210 fans. How fleeting life can be!

While looking at my newsfeed, I got sidetracked on another bit of news about the musician Jerry Lee Lewis. He recently suffered a minor stroke. As often happens in my course of clicking through news stories, I started researching more and then, being reminded of the movie, Great Balls of Fire!, I somehow ended up downloading a book to my kindle, written by Jerry Lee Lewis’ ex-wife. Now Jerry Lee Lewis has several ex-wives, but this book was written by the notorious ex-wife who was his 13-year-old second cousin and that marriage almost completely derailed his musical career. Her name is Myra Lewis Williams and her book that I downloaded is called, The Spark That Survived.

I am not a huge country music fan. Still, I find myself drawn to the stories of women country musicians who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made something of themselves, despite all of the odds against them. They’re as American pioneer as a person can get, in my mind. I have read several articles and exposes about Dolly Parton. I have read more than one book written by Loretta Lynn and I finished The Spark That Survived, in just one sitting. I have found that what these women lack in formal education and “grooming”, they more than make up for, in their sheer pluck, determination, and faith in God and in themselves. They have a grounded common sense that seems to be a lacking quality these days, and I find it so refreshing to hear their honest, true voices speaking candidly about life and how they see it. These strong country women typically hold nothing back.

Here are some gems I plucked from The Spark That Survived:

On friends – “Friends understand that you dogs come first. Friends understand when you want to spit at your husband but love him dearly anyway. Friends understand your female problems. Friends are there when you go to the hospital, with a nice new set of pretty jammies for you to wear. Friends buy your lunch when you are broke. Friends listen to your troubles and then dismiss them when you do. Sometimes friends cry with you, but most of all they make you laugh and let you know that you are loved. . . We all need friends.”

On co-parenting with a jerk – “If you teach a child that their father is bad then they may very well think that since they are his child they, too, are bad. It’s a thin line to walk but trying to turn a child against one of the parents is like beating your ex over the head with your child as a weapon. Being an ex-wife is not easy and I was determined that she was not going to be an ex-child.”

On overcoming rock bottom – “I’m living proof that your past does not have to determine your present, or your future, for that matter. If you feel like nothing, that means you have the freedom to be anything you want to be. As I always say, if a naive thirteen-year-old girl could elope with her famous second cousin, and survive all of the tragedy and trouble that wrought, you can survive your dumbass decisions, too.”

On forgiveness – “I’ve realized that forgiveness isn’t for the other person, it’s for yourself. You do it so that you can move on with your life, no longer giving that other person one iota of space in your thoughts or actions. . . . I suppose for people who like to control others, that’s hard to accept. If you’re the one who’s been manipulating others, driven them away and still trying to yank their chain and they’re just not even letting themselves be connected to that chain anymore, it would seem a rude awakening.”

On the edge of despair (Myra lost a child to drowning and was very abused by Jerry Lee Lewis) – “It was as if Myra the girl melted away into that cold, damp earth and a grown woman slipped into the body that was left behind. . . . I know that psychiatrists would probably say I’m nuts, or at the very least it was a natural maturing of my ability to cope. They would be wrong. This body was now home to a new person. I suspect there are lots of people who know what I mean. Anybody who has been to that edge of desperation and despair, and somehow got back up to carry on with life, might have a sense of having died and been reborn. . . . . It was the new me who breathed the fresh morning air and knew that life must go on.”

I am a firm believer that many perspectives give you a whole perspective. I have never limited myself to where I find my treasure of wisdom. I seek wisdom everywhere. In my experience, some of the most profound gleaming gems of real truth, have come from the least likely of sources. Down-home wisdom is often the best.

My Decision

“I get to decide who I am.” – Rachel Hollis

A younger friend of mine enthusiastically recommended the book Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. It’s an inspiring, upbeat book, written by a real-life, 30-something, successful mother, wife and entrepreneur. It’s a fun, easy, earthy read that I think my younger self would have appreciated even more. Still, I found myself writing the above quote in my inspirational notebook. It is strange to be almost 50 and to still feel the need to remind myself of that fact, from time to time. I get to decide who I am. It’s an empowering mantra.

I think that we women, especially, work so hard to please the “others” in our lives, that we sometimes lose ourselves in the process. We let other people’s definitions of what the perfect wife, mother, friend, daughter, daughter-in-law, girlfriend, niece, co-worker, boss, sister, spiritual follower, cousin, teacher, customer, volunteer, etc. etc. lead us into who we think we SHOULD be. We then drive ourselves bananas, being our own hardest task masters, trying to live up to these definitions of perfection that aren’t even necessarily our own visions and definitions of the “perfect woman.”

I think it is a worthwhile reminder for all us to consider from time to time. “I get to decide who I am.” Is what I am doing right now in my life my decision? Am I being the person who I know myself to be to the deepest core of my being? Am I living up to my standards for what I want in my life? Am I abusing myself by trying to live up to impossible standards set up by society – standards that don’t gel with who I really am or what I really want in life? Am I letting other people decide who I am?

I get to decide who I am. What an empowering mantra!

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cell Phone Fiasco

Yesterday, my cell phone went on the fritz. It locked up, it started speaking commands out of nowhere, and it wouldn’t shut down or shut up. The most disconcerting thing about the whole situation was how panicked I felt. My phone is about a year old, a new model and I really wasn’t up for getting a replacement phone. I got my husband involved with the whole fiasco and we looked up help sites and barked out orders to each other, grabbing the phone back and forth, getting grumpier by the second, with the situation and with each other. We seemed to be stuck in a quagmire, where even the old trusty “turn it on/turn it off trick” wasn’t going to work because the phone refused to turn off. We called our cell coverage carrier, the maker of the cell device, and the insurance coverage company of our cell phones, with no one having any really good advice to give to us. We spent a couple hours on this craziness, spiraling into a funnel of frustration. When I finally threw my hands up in the air and started the insurance claim, my 18-year-old son arrived home from the gym. He saw the frustration on his parents’ faces, the clumps of hair lying on the ground from being pulled out of our heads and he said, “Mom, could I just see your phone for a second? Could I just take a look at it?”

As futile as I knew that would be, I tossed him the phone so that I could get back to concentrating on my insurance claim. Five minutes later, he had it fixed, back to new. I didn’t even bother to ask him how he did it. I was too exhausted and relieved. I think my son’s generation and the ones coming up behind him have special abilities programmed inside of their heads, tied to technology, that my simpler model, retro-mind just doesn’t have programmed into it. And that’s okay. I know where to find my kids when I need help.

What Is

“Never let the memories of the way things were, blind you from the reality of the way things are.” – unknown

We all do the above statement, don’t we? We stay in relationships, friendships, jobs, neighborhoods, club affiliations, etc. sometimes way past their expiration dates, lost in the fond remembrance and loyalties, stemming from the past. When we do this, we avoid the fact that everything is always in a constant state of change, including us. Change is the only constant. It’s okay to outgrow a situation that is no longer healthy or right for us. Goldfish move from bowls to aquariums and then to ponds. Plants need to be replanted when they grow too big for their confining pots. The examples go on and on.

Right now, there are so many books and teachings on the importance of being aware and staying in the present moment. At a time in history when everything, especially technology, seems to be growing and changing at warp speed, it is even more important to take pause, take a breath and really assess what is going on in our lives, right in the present moment. Now. It is a hard concept to grasp, but the only thing that we really have is the present moment. Now is the only reality.

“The reason people find it hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” – u.fo Twitter

Show Me Yours

“Go and Rock Your Fabulous Oh So Feisty Self. It’s Feisty Friday. Own It!” – Feisty and I Know It

Hi friends!!! Happy Friday!!! Rabbit!! Rabbit!! Rabbit!! We keep it silly, stupid and delicious here at Adulting – Second Half, on Fridays. I typically list three items, websites, music sources, information sites, etc. that I find divine. Please check previous Friday postings for more favorites and as always, PLEASE add your own favorites to the Comments section. Please don’t hoard them to yourselves!! Sharing is caring. Here are my three for this Friday’s edition:

BUG ART greeting cards – These greeting cards are so beautiful, that I buy them with every intention of sending them and yet, I rarely do, because I can’t bear to part with them. I’ve even been known to frame some of them because they really are works of art. Most of the cards depict animals but in the most artistic, unusual, interesting of ways. I find mine at The Fresh Market grocery stores, but you can buy them online, as well. Bug out in a good way!! Feast for the eyes!!

Greenies Pill Pockets for dogs – Ralphie, our labrador retriever, got stung by some nasty thing Monday evening, and blew up like a balloon. Three steroid shots later and orders from the vet to give Ralphie fistfuls of Benadryl, made me buy yet another bag of Greenies Pill Pockets, which are lifesavers. We have been to the veterinarian so much in the last six months that my husband says that we’ve bought him a new car. It’s okay. We’ve got a great vet, our Ralphie is on the mend and Pill Pockets are the only way that I can get my dogs to take their meds. Every dog that we’ve ever shared our lives with, all seemed to have the special talent to separate pills from whatever cheese or meat I wrapped them up in, so that the pills would be unceremoniously spit back out on the floor, while the delicacy was devoured. This doesn’t happen with Greenies Pill Pockets. The whole treat with the meds stuck securely inside of it, seems to get devoured in one full swoop. They are lifesavers, literally!

Boudreaux’s Butt Paste – If you have a baby, a grandbaby, a sweaty, athletic teenage boy who has trouble with chafing, or a dog who swims so much that he’s always pink from chafing, you need to have a least one tube of this stuff. Nothing works better for the nasty rash that makes the above parties cry, lick excessively and/or walk funny. It seems to work in a day. It’s supposedly chemical free, but boy, does it do the trick! I buy it in bulk.

Okay, friends. I showed you mine. Now, you show me yours. Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Astropophobia

My husband and I react quite differently to family situations that are emotionally charged. These situations typically hit me hard, like a tornado. I instantly feel every emotion involved surrounding the situation, and then some. I have outbursts. I cry. I scream. I laugh hysterically. I create instant, miles-long “to do” lists to try to bring back order and control to the current state of chaotic affairs. In short, everything relating to the situation, whether it is good or bad, or a mix of both, hits me all at once, and turbulently.

My husband, on the other hand, almost freezes. It’s like he sees the storm clouds coming, puts his hand up in the air and says, “Not yet.” While I am in my tirade, he is in the calm before the storm. It is at this point that I am usually screaming at him, “Don’t you care?!? Is this even affecting you?!? Aren’t you going to do something?!?”

Once we get through a particular family crisis, or even a family joy that we are dealing with, my tornado has long past. I’m back to my happy-go-lucky self. But it is different for my husband. His emotional storms don’t come in turbulent, violent cone clouds. His emotional storms are more like lingering, gray, heavy rain clouds than stay overhead and dampen his mood for a while. And this is usually the point where I am saying to him, “Get over it already, grumpy! See the bright side!”

Recently, we were dealing with yet another big change in our “in the major process of the emptying of the nest” family. My husband calmly stated to me, “I promise not to get upset with your outbursts, tears, and emotional surprises. I promise to understand where they are coming from, if you promise not to get upset with my moodiness and crankiness. Please understand where it is coming from.”

Damn. It took us almost a quarter of a century to articulate and to do our storm preparedness, in our relationship. Still, the sheepish smile of familiarity I felt inside when my husband said this and the joy of living with someone who “gets me” and trusts me “to get him”, has made all of the time and effort and energy of it all, all worth it. It makes the storms easier to weather. And the sunshine, all the sweeter.

“There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.” – Henry Kissinger

Ugly Ducklings and Brown Pandas

“The comeback is always greater than the setback.” -u.fo Twitter

When my eldest son was a little boy, he found the story of The Ugly Duckling to be so upsetting. He’d want to skip right past the depressing childhood (“ducklinghood”??) of the poor little guy to the part where the young “ugly duckling” became the majestic, beautiful, elegant swan that was more fabulous than all of the other ducks in the pond. I was reminded of this memory when I recently read about Qizai, the only known brown panda in the world.

Supposedly, Qizai, the brown panda, was abandoned by his mother when he was only two months old and he was horribly bullied by the other pandas when he was a cub. Now, even though other brown pandas have been spotted in the past, Qizai is so rare that he is considered to be the only known brown panda alive and he is one of China’s national treasures. Qizai has all of the bamboo he could ever want to eat, his own special enclosure and a keeper devoted only to him. China has even found him a special mate so that they can study the genetics of his offspring. Despite his initial hardships, Qizai lives the life other pandas could only dream about. The best part of the story is that Qizai’s nature and demeanor has always been uniquely sweet and that has never changed.

I was only in my twenties when I would read to my son the story of The Ugly Duckling, but even then, I had enough life experience under my belt, to experience first hand that if you hold on and keep the faith, fortunes always change. I wanted to reassure him of that, but usually the best reassurances come from our own actual experiences. That’s the hard part of parenting. You want to take all of the “licks” for your kids, but if you do that, you don’t let them experience how sweet the rewards can be, after being knocked down a time or two. You rob them of some of the greatest validations in life – resiliency and the redemption that comes from that resiliency.

“It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.” – Bram Stoker, Dracula

Cast the First Stone

The other day I was getting a pedicure. There was a woman, sitting next to me, getting a pedicure, as well. She was speaking very loudly on her cell phone to someone who was obviously not getting their fair share of speaking time. This woman barely took a breath, as she barked forcefully into her phone for everyone in the whole salon to be privy to her conversation, whether we wanted to be or not. I became an eavesdropper by involuntary default.

The basis of this woman’s one-sided conversation, more like a spotlighted soliloquy, was all about how enlightened she was and how she hoped the rest of the world would get on board and move on up the scale of enlightenment, with her. The woman referenced Dr. Phil a lot. She then started complaining about a friend who didn’t give her enough “likes” on Facebook and the shining moment came when she stopped mid-sentence to shout at the technician, who was doing her pedicure, to stop rubbing her feet so hard. If this is “enlightenment”, the world really is in trouble.

I started feeling very annoyed, and then I could feel myself climbing on to my judgmental pedestal. This woman was rude, inconsiderate, selfish, gossipy, out-of-touch, loud, obnoxious and not at all enlightened. I started feeling like I was the arbiter of enlightenment and I had to bite my tongue not to put her back down in her place, to her base level on the spiritual growth chart. But then, I had one of those dawning a-ha moments when I put the spotlight back onto myself. How many times had I spoken too loudly on my phone, sometimes even in close quarters like elevators and waiting rooms? How many times had I been on the phone when someone was waiting on me, telling myself that a quick “sorry” was enough to excuse my thoughtless, impersonal behavior? How many times had I dominated conversations, rudely interrupting my friends and family, because I deemed what I was saying to be so much more “enlightened and important” than what they had to say? How many times had I felt annoyed or slighted when I didn’t get someone’s approval?

This self-awareness movement that we have going on in the world right now, is tough. But the funny thing about the situation is that when I put the focus back onto myself (and the only person I actually have any ability to change), I got a different perspective about the woman in the salon and the whole experience. I actually felt sort of grateful towards her for making me get a better understanding of areas where I could improve myself and my relationships. Wow – things that make you go “Hmmmm.”

“People are quick to judge others’ faults, but never quick to point out their own.” – PictureQuotes.com

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Theresa

“Be curious, not judgmental.” – Walt Whitman

Here She Comes

I have a passage from Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea that I include in every sympathy card that I ever send. (which by the time you are in middle age, is unfortunately too many to count). It was sent to me by a friend when my beloved grandmother died and it brought me so much comfort. I am so happy when I pass it on, and others remark of the comfort that it has brought to them. I was reminded of this passage, by a friend, this weekend, who lost both of her beloved parents many years ago. It really speaks of dying, but after leaving a loving, warm, reunion atmosphere with my dear friends and coming home to a loving family, who were so excited to see me and to hear my stories and to share their weekend experiences with me, I thought to myself that the passage really applies in life, too. How fortunate we are, that so many of us travel between loving groups of people as we journey through our experience of Life. It’s like we have comforting rest spots and safe harbors, in the arms of people who know us and love us and only want safe passage for us, as we move along our paths of purpose. Here is the passage and may it bring you comfort and realization that we are not alone in our journeys:

“I am standing upon that foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says “There! She’s gone!” “Gone where?” “Gone from my sight, that’s all.” She is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at that moment when someone at my side says “There! She’s gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout “Here she comes!” And that is dying.”

And that is Life.