admin, Author at Adulting: Second- Half

Charmed, I’m Sure

Years ago I worked for a small “mom and pop” company. Every morning when I would walk through the door, the owner would warmly and happily exclaim, “There she is!” That greeting always made me feel so welcome and special. After decades, I got reunited with a childhood friend. One of the first things she reminisced about was the nickname my father had given to her. She said it had always touched her and she’d never forget it. One time I was staying with a friend at her home. Back then I thought Diet Coke was the “Breakfast of Champions.” I’ve matured a little since then, but I’ll never forget opening my guest room door in the morning and seeing a cold, frosty Diet Coke waiting for me right outside the door. There was a skylight there and the sunlight was beaming on the Diet Coke, like it had been sent from Heaven. In a way, it had been. When my beloved grandmother died, a fellow soccer dad sent me a kind sympathy card with a lovely poem enclosed. The poem touched me so much that I have included it in every sympathy card I have ever sent since (unfortunately too many to count). I have heard that the poem has been read in many funerals.

Kathleen Winsor said that “Charm is the ability to make someone else think that both of you are pretty wonderful.” When I started looking up information about charm one of the first articles to pop up had a title that was something to the effect of “20 Signs that You are a Charming Person Without Being Aware.” I think that is the essence of charm right there. It is genuine, sincere kindness with no ulterior motives attached. A truly, naturally charming person is unaware of how much they have elevated the person they have touched. Like H. Jackson Brown said, “People may not exactly remember what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”

Dale Carnegie has a famous, often repeated saying, “To be interesting, be interested.” When someone describes a charming person, they often say that the person made them feel like they were the only person in the room, even if the room was a stadium full of people. I remember a friend telling me about going to an event to see the Dalai Lama. It was a stadium event, and it was sold out. She said that the Dalai’s presence was so calm, peaceful, loving and tranquil that she had to look around herself more than once, to make sure that she wasn’t the only person present.

In today’s world with so many different information outlets and media content, it seems like everyone is scrambling for their “15 Minutes of Fame.” My son often repeats the saying that never before have lives so unlived, been so well-documented. I sometimes feel a bit precious writing this blog. I think that is why charm is such a warm, special quality. The enthusiasm, sincerity and attention is all directed at others, which is such a rarity in a selfie obsessed time period. Like all traits, charm can be used for good or for bad, depending on the intentions of the charmer. Nonetheless, when it is used for good, it is a quality that is a difference maker in people’s lives and experiences, sometimes in ways that create lifetime memories and feelings that will never be forgotten.

New Normal

My friend was texting our friend group last night. She had just dropped her eldest daughter at college for the first time and was going through the inevitable turbulent feelings that come with that scenario. We, of course, were all comforting her, letting her know that she will soon come to accept and maybe even end up liking her “new normal.” Ironically at the same time, my husband and I were driving home from dropping our second son at his college for his sophomore year. Unlike last year’s teary, dramatic good-bye with our son, this year’s good-bye was short and sweet. I feel nothing but excitement for him. I’ve been through this drill a few times. It’s not new to me or to him. I know that everything is going to be just fine. Having kids go to college and even having a child leaving the nest completely has become my “new normal.”

I wonder how many “new normals” you have had to come to accept by the time you are middle aged. If change is the only constant, I would imagine the “new normal” number runs in the thousands. Marriages, divorces, births of children, all the different stages of a child growing up, job changes, new pets, diagnoses of chronic illnesses and conditions, moves to different homes, new schools, new places of worship, the illnesses and losses of loved ones, the list goes on and on. I think the beauty of getting older, is that you’ve gotten that “new normal” experience under your belt so many times. Having this experience to lean on when you are dealing with the inevitable rough feelings that comes with change, helps you to know that you are going to be okay, even more than okay. You have proven it to yourself, again and again. Buddhists have a saying that “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” When our “new normals” are first thrust upon us, the scary, lonely, fearful, angry, painful feelings are real and must be processed. However, we can lean on the fact that our current lives are a culmination of a giant stack of “new normals” that we have accepted before. We can limit our suffering with that calm, peaceful acceptance that we can handle this change like we have handled the many changes that came before and the many other changes that our coming our way in the future, all in this roller coaster ride we call Life.

Ambivert?

Years ago, I saw an interview with Barbara Walters. The interviewer asked Barbara what her favorite question to ask her famous and infamous subjects when she interviewed them. She said that her absolute favorite question was, “What is the biggest misconception people have about you?”

Now, I have used that question myself many times in social situations and it always brings about some interesting results. Try the question on your squad. You may be surprised. Of course, the question inevitably always gets turned back on me. My same answer for years and years has been that the biggest misconception people have about me is that people think that I’m an extrovert but I’m truly more of an introvert. People do scoff when I say that because people’s perceptions are that extroverts are loud, friendly, energetic, talkative and often with crowds, and I do seem to fit that bill. Actually though, the difference between an extrovert and an introvert is more about where you get your energy stores. An extrovert gets a lot of energy from being in the action, being with people, and being social. An introvert gets their energy stores from their alone time, their quiet time, and being reflective. I really need a lot of alone time. Social events deplete me pretty quickly. My husband seems to be the same way as me. Turns out, this is more common than I thought and the relatively new term for this way of being is ambivert.

An ambivert is someone who is mostly in the middle when it comes to extroverted and introverted ways of being. An ambivert just as easily gets consumed in their own thoughts as they do in conversation. An ambivert doesn’t mind small talk, but he or she gets bored of it after a while. Some people who know an ambivert describe them as social, yet others would say that they are quiet. Most experts now agree, that most of us are more likely to fall into this middle ground of being an ambivert than being extremely extroverted or extremely introverted.

So, bottom line I think that I am going to have to come up with my new answer to Barbara Walters’ question. Ask yourself her question, “What is the biggest misconception people have about you?” And feel free to put it in the comments section. I am feeling friskily extroverted today. 😉

Friday! Favorite Things!

Happy Friday!!

Rip dear Aretha Franklin. Nothing but RESPECT.

My second son heads back to college tomorrow. He’s a busy, social man. He’s always on the go, with future plans always churning. So yesterday, I decided that I would love to have lunch with him before he goes back. (when you have four kids, one-on-one time is special and hard to come by) Early in the morning, I went into his room while he was still asleep and asked him if he would like to have lunch with me. He said, “Sounds great.” I figured I would get on his schedule before he got up, got on his phone and started planning away. So, an hour or so later, when he got up, he said, “Mom, was I having a dream or did you say something about lunch today?” LOL We did go to lunch and it was great.

Without further ado, Favorite Things Friday:

Goat’s Milk Soap Bar with Sponge from Lori’s Soap and Sponges – I live by this cute little town in Florida called Tarpon Springs. It has the highest percentage of Greek Americans of any city in the United States. Every year it has an epiphany celebration where young boys dive into the gulf searching for a cross which will bring good fortune to their families for the entire year. The town is also known for its natural sponge industry. In fact, their high school mascot is The Spongers. Anyway, the only soap we use now, are these soaps. They are infused with olive oil and they have so many wonderful scents. Coco Mango is my favorite. The soap bars are attached to a natural sponge, so the sponge works as almost an exfoliator while the soap seeps through it. I am a big believer in the little luxuries in life and these are one of those wonderful luxuries! They make my shower experience one that’s very hard to leave. You can order them online if you google Lori’s website.

Gourmet Garden Garlic Stir-In Paste – Now, I am nothing close to being a good cook, so I am sure that there are chefs out there who can do wonderful things with this stuff. I’ll tell you what we use it for, though, and I always have a tube of it in my refrigerator. We love to press our sandwiches on our George Foreman Grill (another favorite thing, for sure!). Why do sandwiches taste so much better when they are pressed? I think it infuses all of the flavors together and makes the cheese so hot and melty and delicious. Anyway, we spread some of this paste on top of the bread, before we press the sandwiches and it takes the taste sensation to a whole new level. They have a really good Ginger version, as well. These are found in the refrigerated produce area at your local grocery store.

Wild Birds Unlimited eliminator Bird Feeder – I am a nature/animal enthusiast. I love almost all animals except that I’m less than thrilled with squirrels. (sorry, squirrel lovers) This is the only bird feeder I have ever owned, that effectively stops the squirrels from draining my bank account from constantly having to buy more bird seed. The squirrely squirrels now just have to wait patiently at the bottom of the feeder, hoping that the many beautiful birds that come to our “Avian Cafe by the Lake” will drop their crumbs for them. I recommend Cole’s Blue Ribbon Blend bird feed if you want a large, colorful variety of birds to come and add a little dried meal worms (yuck, I know) if you want woodpeckers. I got my feeder at the Wild Birds Unlimited Store and I order my bird seed from Amazon.

The blog is getting more readers every day! I so appreciate your support! Feel free to add your favorites in the Comments section. 🙂 Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Miss Me More

I have very eclectic tastes in just about everything. Music is one of those things. My playlist looks like someone with Multiple Personality Disorder set it up. My kids are always pleasantly surprised to hear a Drake or Kanye song pop up when they are riding in the car with me. They aren’t as pleased with the yoga chants and Italian accordion dinner music. I like some country music, too. I think country music is especially good at telling a personal story. Yesterday, the song Miss Me More by Kelsea Ballerini popped up when I was driving. In the song, the singer laments that she had just broken up with a lover. She thought that she would really miss him, but what she realizes is that during the relationship she had given up so much of herself, changing to do what she thought would please him, that she actually “missed herself” more, hence the title. The chorus lyrics are particularly telling:

I thought I’d miss you (when it ended)
I thought it hurt me (but it didn’t)
I thought I’d miss you
I thought I’d miss you

But I miss me more
I miss my own beat, to my own snare drum
I miss me more
Miss my own sheets in the bed I made up
I forgot I had dreams, I forgot I had wings
Forgot who I was before I ever kissed you
Yeah, I thought I’d miss you
But I miss me more (I miss me more)

Now, my dear husband is my biggest blog supporter and a daily reader, so I want to make it clear that I am very happy in my relationship with him. He’s never asked me to change a thing about myself. This is one of the many reasons why I love him so much. The truth is, if we are honest with ourselves, most of the time, people don’t ask us to change ourselves. But sometimes I think, us women especially, start making subtle changes without even realizing it ourselves.

Society is pretty geared towards rewarding women to be pleasers, nurturers and carers. Now I believe some of this is biological and some of this is just what happens when we start creating our lives and our families. Both men and women make all sorts of personal sacrifices for our family and career responsibilities. And we are happy to do these sacrifices, because of the greater good for our families and for society as a whole. However, sometimes we get in the habit of making unnecessary sacrifices. We start whittling our lives down to the “necessities” and the “shoulds” and then we reach a burn-out stage and look for someone to blame. It is painful to understand that the “someone to blame” is often ourselves.

Years ago, a friend was telling me that her mother was shaming her for everything my friend expected her husband to do around the house and with the kids. My friend got frustrated and finally spouted out, “I don’t want to end up being an angry, resentful, victim like so many older women seem to be!!!” That hit home for me. It would be unfair for me to feel resentment towards my family, for things I willingly gave and did for them. Heck, our kids didn’t even ask to be born! I am willing to bet that most men (not talking about the abusive ones), really ultimately would rather come home to the happy woman he fell in love with, than the one who is seething in resentment but is keeping up “perfect appearances.” Joan Rivers had a funny line about this. This is what she said: “Don’t cook. Don’t clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum. “My God, the floor’s immaculate! Lie down, you hot bitch.”

I think the song hits a chord by reminding us to give love and self-care to ourselves every bit as much as we give to our children, our partners and our friends. We tell our children to “be themselves”. We encourage them to really explore their interests and dive into their talents. Kids listen to what we do, more than what we say. It’s the old adage of putting on our own oxygen masks before we can help anyone else. I remember reading that Jackie Kennedy once said something to the effect that our biggest responsibility to the world is to be happy. She said that most of the world’s miseries are caused by unhappy people. Now a lot of times, giving and doing for others feels really good, if we are doing it for the right reasons. However, if we are giving just to get something in return or giving to the point of martyrdom, then perhaps we really have to check our motives and take our own temperatures. Our responsibility to ourselves, our loved ones and frankly, to the world, is to nurture ourselves. We must be kind and loving to ourselves. We must make it a priority to take time to love and grow our own unique characteristics, instead of tucking them away and then blaming someone else for doing what we have actually done to ourselves. It’s not selfish at all to lovingly care for yourself. In fact, sometimes it’s the most selfless thing you can do.

Socially Repulsive

First of all, a huge shout out to my awesome daughter, my dear friend and to Taylor Swift! The concert could not have been more amazing!! I’m still in awe thinking about everything and all of the energy that was put into that show. Taylor Swift is a woman who loves her craft and loves her fans and it shows!! Lifetime memory!!

On that note, I just read an article that Berkeley University recently came out with a study that found that sleep-deprived people are “socially repulsive.” That doesn’t bode well for me today. I will be keeping this blogpost “short and sweet.”

Today is a cleansing day for me in the fact that it is Recycle Day. I don’t know why, but I get great satisfaction out of getting our three overflowing recycle bins emptied every week. I think it symbolizes starting fresh, starting anew and it feels really, really good, every week. I mentioned this to a friend of mine, a few Recycle Days ago and she told me that she feels the exact same way about Recycle Day. It feels so good to connect that way with someone, to feel understood and related to – not alone. Taylor Swift talked about that last night. Taylor loves that she can connect with her fans in the way that they relate to her lyrics and thus understand and relate to her feelings.

Which brings me back to the study on sleep deprivation – apparently, exhausted people are more likely to feel lonely, which makes them send out an alienating vibe to other people. This unfortunately sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t want to send out the wrong signals. I just want to get some more sleep or at the very least, some more coffee. Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you tomorrow so that we can connect in a positive sense. 🙂

TS

I’m taking my daughter to the Taylor Swift concert tonight. She and one of my best friends from college are going together. We got the idea from two other best friends from college who recently did the same thing in another city. I’m so excited!

This will be my daughter’s first time at a music concert ever. I’m so honored and pleased to share that moment with her. I’ll never forget my first music concert. It was Olivia Newton John’s Physical concert. My awesome, hip, glamorous Aunt Beth took my sister and I to it. She bought us the big fancy concert magazine. I held on to the magazine for years until it got tattered. However, the fond memory of being at the concert will last a lifetime.

I don’t know a whole lot about Taylor Swift, but from what I have seen and heard, I like. She’s obviously extremely talented and a wonderful businesswoman. From all reports, Taylor puts on a fabulous show for her fans who she seemingly truly appreciates. She is charitable and classy. I think what I like best though is that Taylor Swift seems to be so unapologetically herself. The older I get, the more I appreciate authenticity. It’s a rare quality. It seems Taylor Swift is authentic. Oh, and she’s a Sagittarius and I’m a Sagittarius, so there you have it. Icing on the cake!

I think this will be a great first concert experience for my daughter. I think this will be a great memory for all of us. Mostly though, I hope that my daughter will take this Taylor Swift quote to heart and be true to it the rest of her life: Just be yourself, there is no one better.

Baby Goes to High School

My youngest child, my only daughter started high school today. She showed the same kind of nervous excitement she had when she started kindergarten and then middle school. She has always been full of energy and excitement. When I would drop her off at her elementary school, she would literally skip into the school. Today her older brother drove her to school. I doubt that they will be skipping into the doors, but I could tell that there was a kick in her step.

She got up very early. Her hairstyle was the prettiest of all of the different styles she has been practicing for the last couple of weeks. Her outfit had been laid out for days. I wish I could have laid out a magic invisible shield for her to wear, too. The shield would protect her innocent little girl’s heart from the inevitable growing pains that come along with the high school years. Hopefully, our love for her will serve as that shield. That and her protective big brother, the senior who has been through the ropes, will be her strength when her confidence gets clouded from peer pressure and academic stress.

My daughter has to worry about all of the things I did when I was in high school, but nowadays it seems taken up a notch. Bullying has a whole new realm with so many different social media options. The academic pressures are ridiculous. My two older sons graduated from high school with a year’s worth of college credits under their belts and that was the “norm”; nothing outstanding. And then there is the fear of violence. My teacher friend just underwent two intense days of school shooter training, required to be taken by everyone in the district, even substitute teachers. Dating has to be even more confusing in a day and age when exposure to every walk of life is just a click of a button away. The sports competitions are intense. I can’t believe how many of my kids’ friends have sustained serious sports related injuries requiring surgeries before they have even graduated from high school.

It is not my nature to be negative, nor is it my daughter’s. The trick is to balance hope with practicality, I guess. Today, I try to put a cloak of faith around everyone I care about with an extra prayer that they use the good sense and the intuition that they were blessed with to make wise decisions. The first day of school for all of us mothers is a day of Let Go and Let God, and also, where is that extra box of tissues?

Normal Days

Normal day, let me be aware

of the treasure you are.

Let me learn from you, love you,

bless you before you depart.

Let me not pass you by in the

quest of some rare and

perfect tomorrow. – Mary Jean Iron

A couple of my younger girlfriends are sending their first babies to kindergarten tomorrow. That will be an extraordinary day for all parties involved. That will be a day that their families will never forget.

Most days don’t fall into the “extraordinary” category, though. Most days are not particularly fabulous or extremely awful. That is why we remember those significant days so well. Big lessons and big blessings roll in on the rare “stand out” days. Thankfully, most of our days fall into the category of “ordinary” or “normal.” If they didn’t, I think our nervous systems would be shot!

Sundays tend to be calm, relaxing days for me. I have learned to treasure the “normal” days. Drama free, schedule free, go with the flow type days are the cornerstones of our lives. They equip us with a centering that we can lean on and hold on to, when the unusual days of high highs or low lows, take us on a surprising ride full of twists and turns and surprises. The “normal” days are a gift that is easy to take for granted. That’s why I appreciate the poet so much to remind me to treasure what is solid, steady and reliable in my life. This is not just in my days, but in the dependable people I love and rely on, the stores and services and systems that I never worry won’t be available to me, and in the very air that I effortlessly breathe without thinking about it.

I am grateful for normal days.

Sleeping In

I slept in this morning. It was delicious. Why do I feel guilty, lazy and un-American for saying that? I love sleeping in and I love when I have the choice to get up whenever I want to, whenever the urge to get on with the day supersedes the warm, slumbery comfort of my bed. I love when the room is semi-light and the morning sun is peaking over the dark curtains reminding me that it’s always there for me when I’m ready. I love giving in to my body and respecting its need for the feeling of complete, deep relaxation after a busy, stressful week. I love morning dreams. They are so vivid, close to the surface and easy to remember. I love my hazy morning thoughts, when they are so slow, I have to question whether I am still dreaming. I love the feel of when my feet hit the cool floor and I feel like I should tiptoe to keep the energy of stillness and peace still surrounding me and my household. Sleep is a wonderful gift given to us by our Creator, sleeping in and savoring our sleep is a wonderful gift we give to ourselves.