Blog - Page 196 of 234 - Adulting: Second- Half

Full Bloom

I had my annual physical yesterday and my doctor has a wipe board in her waiting room. One of her staff wrote this quote on the board in fancy letters:

“Be Patient with yourself. Nothing in nature blooms all year.”

I thought that was such a nice reminder. We are such tough task masters on ourselves. Also, sometimes I think that the qualities about ourselves that we take for granted, other people marvel about. I know that I am so impressed with people who really think ahead and seem to be so prepared for anything, like good scouts. Another quality that I just marvel at, is people who can pack up a suitcase or trunk of a car, so it fits about eight times the amount of stuff you think should be able to fit in there. I love people who put you at ease right away and make you feel like you have known them since you were born. The point that I’m trying to make is that we all have some really special traits, beyond our obvious talents that we use to define ourselves, such as art or music or sewing or number crunching. Just because it seems easy and innate to us, doesn’t make it any less special. Our gifts are the gifts that we share with the world, that in turn, makes the whole world move in symbiosis.

So please today, know that you are special, needed, and gifted, even when you are not in full bloom.

Favorite Flora Friday

Hi readers! Happy Friday!!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! New readers, on Fridays we discuss STUFF – the material parts of life that make living grand. On Friday, I mention three of my favorite things, songs, websites, books, etc. etc. and I ask you to add some of your favorite STUFF in the Comments section. Please check out previous Friday posts (there are a lot of them by now), for more favorites.

I grew up in Pennsylvania. In the summertime, in Pennsylvania, people have flowers galore. It is truly lovely. I spent my thirties in North Carolina. Carolinians enjoy beautiful flowers in the summer time, too, but due to the heat they don’t plant quite as many of them, as the northerners do, in my experience. When I lived in NC, I fell in love with the Crepe Myrtle bushes/trees. Carolinians plant those beauties everywhere! Then in my forties, we moved to Florida. I was shocked to see that people didn’t plant a whole lot of the traditional flowers that I was used to seeing. You see, Florida is just too damn hot in the summer and delicate flowers like impatiens, just wither and fry down to nothing, unless they are connected to a drip, containing gallons of water. And even then, there are no guarantees. However, tropical flowers bask and thrive in the Florida sun and grow at exponential rates, so much so, that soon a machete becomes a much needed gardener’s tool.

Above are pictures of three of my favorite Florida Loving Plants. Here is why:

Bromelaid – I bought one small bromelaid with its gorgeous pink flower, a few years back, to support breast cancer awareness. Well, now we own about 18 of these beauties from that one small plant. These plants put rabbits to shame in the field of reproduction. Their flower is so dramatic, and bursts with color and energy and it blooms for a long time. I love, love, love this plant!!

Musical Note Clerodendrum – This plant is fabulous. It’s blooms are white puffs that look just like musical notes. It constantly blooms as if it is constantly singing. Ours really took off when we planted it in a flower bed, by the small lake that we have out back. It looks delicate, but it can’t help but thrive and bloom and burst with its song, in our tropical environment.

Chenille Plant (red-hot cattail) – I have this plant in a jardiniere (remember that word from last week, friends??) by my front door. It just grows and flows like a little waterfall full of pink, fuzzy caterpillars. It does just fine in hot Florida, although it does require a fair amount of watering. (I sometimes pour a little ice in it, and it seems to appreciate the effort while it withstands the sunshine)

Enjoy your weekend, friends! As always, thank you so much for your support and validation!

Luck With a Capital F

Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit. Happy August!

I bought tickets for my husband and I to see an upcoming Elvis Costello concert. Much like the response that I got a couple of years ago from a young coworker when I mentioned that I was going to Hall & Oates that weekend – “Oh, cool! Is that an island?”, my youngest two kids (the brown haired ones) were initially confused (two famous Elvis’, how can that be?), then bemused, and finally, convinced that their father would not be excited about my impulsive plans.

Ha! I explained to my children that my husband (their father) always sprinkled a couple of Elvis Costello songs on to mixed tapes that he made for me, when we were dating in college. I then went on to remind them what mixed tapes were, and I laughed as I thought about the “fun” we had when the tapes accidentally turned into unwound, knotted up messes.

Anyway, I firmly believe that my husband is even more excited for the concert than I am. I think Elvis Costello appeals to my conservative husband’s secret side – the rebellious poet. Here are some interesting thoughts/quotes from the sometimes controversial, but decidedly talented Mr. Costello:

“I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.”

“I wish you luck with a capital F.”

“Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?”

“There are some things you can’t cover up with lipstick and powder.”

So Much Sense

Image result for funny tortoise pictures

I learned a new word this morning. I get a daily email from word genius and like an annoying, smug, little know-it-all kid in your honors English class, often I look at the “word of the day”, that comes on this email and I say to myself, “Oh, phhhh, I already know that word.” Well, lah-ti-f-ing-dah! (that one is not actually a real word. It’s not likely to be featured on word genius any time in the near future.)

Today’s word is a lovely word. I absolutely plan to add it to my vernacular. Today’s word is Senescence, pronounced Sa-ness-scents. It means “the aging process.” Now if you are thinking, “Oh, phhhh, I already know that word,” to you I say, “Well, Lah-ti-f-ing-dah!” I personally don’t recall ever hearing the word, senescence, and I think it sounds a hell of a lot better than the totally annoying, abrasive, constantly overused word “aging”, that seems to be coming at me at all angles, these days. Doesn’t Senescence Home sound like somewhere you’d actually want to got to, versus “Old Age Home”? Even “Anti-Senescence Cream” makes me want to put the cream back on the shelf, saying to myself, “Maybe I actually want some senescence. It sounds mysterious, sensual and sophisticated.”

Us second half adulters have earned our senescence, which to me, seems to really mean “the essence of sense.” We have so much sense now that we have matured, that we have lengthened the word “sense”, to “senescence”. I’m proud of my hard-earned senescence.

word genius likes to give you fun little facts about the “word of the day”. Today we read that tortoises have what is called negligible senescence, meaning that with proper care and exercise, tortoises can live indefinitely. I think that I might come out with a whole new skin care line. (because we don’t have enough of these products, right Ulta? Ha!) I will call it “Tortoiseshell Luxury Shield Cream – for elegant people who only want to experience negligible senescence.” Anyone offering seed money for this promising enterprise?!?

You’re OK

I’m getting “back to normal” (whatever that means) today, after a busy day of appointments and being out of the house, all day yesterday. For reasons that I cannot fully explain to myself or to others, I have been in a particularly “feeling good”, centered, calm, “go with the flow” kind of a mood, the last few days. (Take that, middle aged hormone fluctuations!!! You can’t keep me down!!!)

I read one of my online meditations today. (Think Smarter – I just can’t get enough of these tweets). I really liked the last line of it. I think this is something that we all need to hear, to know, to absorb, to feel, every single day of our lives. Here goes (you are going to want to enlarge it, print it and keep it somewhere cemented in your mind):

No need to worry just live and let be.

You’re OK and everything will be OK.

Hanging or Holding

I am sure that I have written about this before, but it is so striking to me that the first half of adulting seems to be so much about building things up, attaining, creating and while there is still some of that momentum going on in the second half of adulting, a new, greater emphasis seems to be on the “letting go.”

One of my meditations this morning talked about the difference between perseverance (hanging in there) and just holding on. When we are just desperately “holding on”, sometimes we are not letting go of a situation or a person or a lifestyle or a job title, etc., that has long passed its expiration date. That’s not perseverance. This type of holding on can turn to desperation, and an inability to move on with our lives.

Anne Wilson Schaef writes this:

“Perseverance is continuing to work at something for as long as there is value in working at it. Perseverance is being appropriately related to ourselves, the situation, and others involved. It is the commitment to seeing something through to completion and the ability to recognize when the completion has been reached.”

I think a lot of us are really good at the stubborn, “dog-on-a-bone”, toughly hanging on, aspect of perseverance, but the understanding when the time has come to let go, is actually the much harder part for many of us. We have been taught not to be quitters, and to always have hope. But I think sometimes we are confused between the real conclusion to something, versus the happy ending that we are deeply attached to, in our minds. Or, sometimes, coming to an ending of something is difficult for us because it is just our individual time of conclusion, in a particular happening – kind of like the passing of a baton, in a long race. It is hard to comprehend that when we are a part of something, that we won’t necessarily always be the ones to see it through to the end, if there really even is a true ending. We have a hard time seeing ourselves as just one part of a long story or journey or adventure. We fear missing out.

It’s interesting to me that when we are blessed enough to reach the second half of our adulting, a time when we have hopefully gained a lot of experience, and the wisdom that comes from all that experience, life shows us that sometimes the hardest lessons often aren’t about the determination to attain something. The dedication to achieve a worthy experience of living, and the moxie, and the stamina, and the steadfastness it takes to even make it to our second halves, while all very important, has all been building to what is sometimes the biggest challenge of all. The hardest lesson, that which we have prepared for, with all of this spunk and all of this persistence, is really the ability to know when a particular lesson, experience, and/or adventure in life, has been exhausted of all that it was meant to teach us. It has been wrung out and we have to take the exit sign, on to our next, new journey. The upside of this, is that we can transfer our hard-earned perseverance to our new focuses in life. When we allow ourselves to surrender to the conclusion of an old adventure, we realize that the immense relief that we feel, frees up new, vital energy that we can put towards new, exciting adventures, making us feel more alive than ever. And, at this second half stage of the game, we now have the wisdom and confidence of knowing that we have the perseverance to see the new experience through to its end, and we also have the knowing that we have the strength to let “it” go, once that ending has arrived for us.

Love In Motion

My two eldest sons are spending the weekend in NYC together. There is nothing that warms a mother’s heart more than her children choosing to spend time together that has not been forced upon them or scheduled for them. Seeing my sons’ adult relationship bloom and flourish makes me smile as I write this. I hope that their relationship continues to satisfy them both so much, that they continue to choose to share spontaneous adventures throughout their lifetimes. Because who else better can look into the excited, awe-inspired gaze of an adult on an adventure, and purely see a glimpse of the once known, thrilled, beaming child that lives on underneath the adult exterior?

Brave New World

Once upon a time . . . in middle America, a middle-aged woman got the understanding as to why nostalgia is such an acute emotion, at this stage of her life. She watched Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood with her husband, and they both completely recognized the 1960s/1970s hair styles, the cars, the clothes, the mannerisms, the music and the complete lack of technology – things that were depicted in great and careful detail, in the movie. The woman and her husband came to the understanding that they had reached a stage of life where they had once lived in a world, that looks almost nothing like the world that they live in today. They had reached the age where they could now see that they were no longer in the long stage of growing up and evolving from one time period to another, but that so much evolution had happened, that it was pretty clear that they had lived in two completely different worlds, just in their lifetimes. “How many utterly unique worlds do you experience in an average lifetime?” she wondered. “And why does it sometimes seem so much more acutely obvious, at some times versus other times, that so much change has occurred?” She understood that change is the only constant. She often spouted that tome to anyone who gave her soapbox attention. “But why don’t we see it happening on a regular basis?” she asked herself. “Why does it seem that we have woken up from one dream world to an instant other world with only a hazy idea of how the transformation happened? And only a foggy inkling of how much change has occurred inside of us, to match the now entirely different outsides of us?” It was a lot to think about on a Saturday morning. It was kind of exhausting pondering this deep realization, and there were chores to be done and kids to be picked up and meals to be made. She would have to put this line of thinking to rest, so that she could just live. She would just “do the experience” of another evolution and perhaps she would reach another stage in life where she would become breathless with wonder, realizing that she had yet again, entered a whole new world.

The Face of Friday

Then I would love it even more â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸

I couldn’t resist this one, guys! I am going to see Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood tonight and I am looking forward to some great acting! New readers, there is nothing but surface stuff here on Fridays, at Adulting- Second Half. On Fridays, I pick three of my favorite items, foods, songs, books, etc. and I encourage you to share your favorites in my comments section. Please see previous Friday postings for over a year’s worth of my favorites!

Today’s favorites:

The Original Make Up Eraser – This is a miracle cloth. I have sensitive eyes, so most make-up removers tend to burn my eyes or make them swell. This item is just a cloth that you dampen slightly and it removes your eye make-up in an easy couple of swoops. I am shocked that it works as well and as easily as it does. It is sort of like a slightly shaggy washcloth, that can be thrown in the clothes washer to clean it. Love it!

SouthEndGirlArt (etsy) – I bought a small woodblock piece of artwork from this artist’s adorable collection and I adore it. The artist, Tiffanie Seiler suggests that their small size is perfect for closets or other small spaces. I actually keep mine in my car, so that every time that I get into the car, a beautiful, whimsical, spiritual looking woman smiles at me with the word NAMASTE resting beneath her ethereal presence. The artist has actually licensed her whimsical mermaids and little girls and cute animal images and they have been featured at Trader Joe’s and even on a wine label. Pick out your own one-of-a-kind piece at her etsy store!

Jardinière – I took Latin, so I just learned this word last week. It is the French word for gardener, in its feminine form. I bought a wonderful, old, interesting vintage flower pot adorned with two dragon handles from a cool retro store in the artsy end of town, last week. The tag had this word on it and I thought that it referred to the actual artist or maker, but I was wrong. Jardiniere refers to any fancy variety of pottery used to house plants. There are a lot of collectors of Jardiniere in the world, and I just discovered that I am one of them and that I have been one of them for quite some time. There is nothing more delightful than a beautiful flowering plant, housed in a unique, eye-catching pot – the house that the plant deserves and where it will be happy to flourish and bloom. Don’t just settle for generic terra cotta pots – you and your plants deserve more! Jardiniere it, baby!

Heart Ocean Happy Friday days friday friday quotes friday images best friday quotes

Nine Inch Turnaround

I was reading the reviews of Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which features the time in Hollywood leading up to the infamous Manson murders. Of course, the internet being what it is, so chock full of information- pertinent and not, that I ended up spending a fair amount of time this morning researching some of even the minor details surrounding Sharon Tate and the horrible, terrifying, mortifying events that stunned America for so long. These Manson murders are so evil, that I have known and heard about the Manson murders for my entire lifetime (they occurred a few months before I was born).

Sharon Tate’s sister has been an advocate for victims’ rights and has been dedicated to keeping her sister’s murderers in jail, for the rest of their lives. She also brought a very important “aha” moment to Trent Reznor, lead singer of the band Nine Inch Nails, who had rented the home where the murders took place in 1992, nicknamed it “Pig” and shot a video there. (For the record, the home was finally demolished in 1994.) This is what he had to say:

My awakening about all that stuff came from meeting Sharon Tate’s sister. While I was working on Downward Spiral, I was living in the house where Sharon Tate was killed. Then one day I met her sister. It was a random thing, just a brief encounter. And she said: “Are you exploiting my sister’s death by living in her house?” For the first time the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, “No, it’s just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I’m in this place where a weird part of history occurred.” I guess it never really struck me before, but it did then. She lost her sister from a senseless, ignorant situation that I don’t want to support. When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, “What if it was my sister?” I thought, “Fuck Charlie Manson.” I don’t want to be looked at as a guy who supports serial-killer bullshit.

I went home and cried that night. It made me see there’s another side to things, you know? It’s one thing to go around with your dick swinging in the wind, acting like it doesn’t matter. But when you understand the repercussions that are felt … that’s what sobered me up: realizing that what balances out the appeal of the lawlessness and the lack of morality and that whole thing is the other end of it, the victims who don’t deserve that.

With all of the information thrown at us these days, it is so easy to get desensitized to it all. Even if we all aren’t perpetrating any evil ourselves, it’s so easy to rationalize looking the other way. Life is complicated. It is hard to figure out what hills to die on. Still, I suppose looking at everyone we come across with a little more empathy, trying to really do the mental walk of “a mile in their shoes”, might be an excellent way to start towards the journey of more benevolence, understanding and humaneness.