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Stand Back or Get Close

“Being impressive makes people stand back to take you in.  Being vulnerable brings people closer to take you in.” – Holiday Mathis

I read the above quote recently.  I thought how true a statement it really is, in many ways.  We work so hard to impress people sometimes, but that really does keep other people at a distance, at arm’s length.  If we want to keep everyone at an admiring distance, we can try to stay impressive.  But if we want to experience real closeness, we have to be brave enough to be vulnerable and show our cracks.  As Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

I read once that some of the most dangerous “drugs” to get addicted to are:  approval, appreciation and attention.  When we are dependent on these things, we are not being ourselves. We are being what we think we have to be, in order to get others to like us.  Living to impress others, living to get others’ approval, appreciation and attention, never allows us to truly get up-close and personal with people.  It keeps us in a state of loneliness, even if we are receiving applause.

When it comes to friends, I always tell my children that it is better to have four quarters than 100 pennies.  To have a few people in your life, who know you truly and love you deeply, cracks and all, is one of the greatest blessings in life.  When you hold yourself back in a state of always trying to impress others, you miss out on true intimacy and the beautiful, real reflection of yourself from the eyes of someone who truly knows the core of you and loves you for it.

“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel.  That is the purpose of life.” – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

 

 

 

Funky Florida

I wasn’t surprised at all that the guy who ended up sending all of those bombs through the mail was from Florida.  I can say that.  I live in Florida and I love living in Florida, but so do a lot of freaky people.

Before we moved to Florida seven years ago, whenever we would see any crazy news story, my husband and I would look at each other and say, “I bet that happened in Florida.”  About 90 percent of the time, we were right.  A lot of wacky events happen right here in the Sunshine State.  We still say that to each other whenever a jaw dropping event occurs.

Why is it that a lot of people are probably nodding their heads right now agreeing with me about all the bizarre stuff that happens here in FLA?  I think it is because of a lot of things.  Florida is the third most populous state in the country.  Someone once told me that Florida is just a small microcosm of the whole United States.  We have people from every state and country in the world residing here.  Rarely do I meet people that are actually from Florida.  Most people who come here usually have had one winter too many and just can’t take it anymore.  I do have one friend who grew up right where we live in Florida.  I said to him, “Wow.  You’ve never lived anywhere else??”  He said, “Why would I want to?”

So, Florida has a huge, diverse population.  It’s an attractive place to live, due to it’s tropical nature, mild winters and beaches galore.  We don’t have state income taxes, we have a lot of big professional sports franchises, amazing theme parks and great universities.  Maybe even the crazies are sane enough to know that it’s a pretty good place to live, albeit being very hot and humid.   There are some studies that show that heat does amp up irritability and aggression.

I hope that there aren’t readers out there going, “Oh, now I get it.  Her writings are very interesting in a little “off” kind of way.  But, hey, she’s from Florida.”

TGIF TGIF TGIF

“Thursday doesn’t even count as a day, it’s just the thing that’s blocking Friday.” – anonymous

We got past our blocks!!!  Happy Friday!!!  New readers, I keep it very Friday on Fridays.  Meaning, I don’t go heavy and deep.  On Friday, I discuss three favorite things of mine and explain a little why I think that these items are so fantastic.  On a different note, although participation has been spotty, I do encourage my readers to comment about their favorite items in the comment section.  Recently, someone dear to me, apologized for commenting on my blog and said that she didn’t realize that the comments were public. What?!?  Why?!?  I LOVE COMMENTS!  I see the numbers and stats of people reading my blog.  I know you are out there.  I would LOVE to get to know you better!  I would love discourse and new perspectives on my quirky thoughts.  Please don’t ever, ever hesitate to comment.  You can even disagree.  I can take it.  I’m tough, especially on Fridays.

On to Favorite Things Friday:

ELLE magazine – As beautiful as the fashion layouts are in this magazine, I don’t subscribe to it for that reason.  I don’t wear $4,000 blouses.  I love to leaf through all that beauty and style, quickly, to get to the reason why I will always subscribe to Elle.  I love the advice column by “Auntie E” – E. Jean Carroll.  Her answers to fascinating questions are always so sure, confident, illuminating and inspiring.  I’m pretty sure there is no one in this world who has more moxie and panache than E. Jean.  She’s 74 and appears to be one of the most “hip, with-it” ladies this side of the Mississippi.  She’s hilarious, kind, direct and on-point.  E. Jean Carroll has a great website covering her column, as well, and has created other businesses along the way, like a game app and a dating service.  I’m a huge fan of Auntie E.

Think Smarter twitter feed – This is like getting your daily mantra for life, every day.  Each day, whoever created this amazing feed, finds one totally amazing thought-provoking post that just makes my jaw drop.  I typically think about the post for the rest of the day, in a good way.  If you think you already know all there is to know about life, follow this feed and you will be humbled.  “Think Smarter” is the perfect title for it.  Love it!

Digest Gold – It makes me nervous to suggest dietary supplements on my blog.  I think I should add a disclaimer to talk to your trusted doctor about anything you ingest.  That being said, if you have digestion issues, this over-the-counter supplement made a world of difference for me and so, I recommend that you try it.  No matter what age I have been throughout my life, my stomach has always been geriatric.  I think I have probably had IBS since I was about 8-years-old.  I would do anything for a harmless, painless needle that I could use intermittently to pop my gut and let all that air out, ideally quietly and discreetly.  Anyway, Digest Gold has made a big difference for me in the ways of comfort and relief.  I take it daily.

” ‘I’m so sad it’s Friday.  I wish it were Monday already’ said No One in history ever.” – anonymous

You Can’t Handle the Truth

There has been so much in the news these days about dishonesty, “fake news”, spin doctors, and distorting the truth.  I found a couple of quotes about lying that made a lot of sense to me:

“Truth is completely spontaneous.  Lies have to be taught.” – Buckminster Fuller

“The advantage of telling the truth is that you don’t have to remember what you said.” – Rita Mae Brown

The older I get, the more important the absolute truth has become to me.  Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie A Few Good Men, famously shouted, “You can’t handle the truth!”

But honestly, that just isn’t true.

The truth always comes to light.  What is done in darkness, always comes to light.  So when we lie, not only does the person or entity who we lied to have to “handle” the uncovered truth, they also have to “handle” that they trusted someone who lied to them.

“Every lie is two lies – the lies we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it.” – Robert Brault

I feel like a sick-in-my-stomach teenager just writing this post.  There are few things in the world that make you sicker to your stomach than lying and/or being lied to by someone you trust.  We all probably can remember that feeling when a parent or an authority figure or someone we loved deeply looked at us with grave disappointment and stated that they did not know when they would be able to trust us again to tell them the truth, after we told them a careless, hurtful lie.

“Telling lies and being deceitful takes so much more energy than being honest and sincere.” – Stephen Aitchison

I wish that we all had to the courage to live our truths, be our truths, and honor our truths.  Everyone is so concerned about what other people think about them, how they are being perceived and what persona to take on, in order to get the things they think that they want in life.  Lying is a natural outcome when we are living other people’s ideas of who we should be.  If we are living in truth, emboldening the truth, then it follows that lying would not be possible.  Truth and authenticity would be our only way.  Frankly, there are many people who we don’t particularly like in life, but we respect and trust them because we know firmly where they stand.  I would rather be a respected and trusted person, than a popular false persona whose choices and thoughts change on the whims of others’ impressions of me.

“A liar will not be believed when he speaks the truth.” – Aesop

How to Branch Out

I have written before about the fact that I have started a game that I call Family Hashtag.  Every day my immediate family members post a hashtag and a word or a phrase that reflects the kind of day that they are having, to a family chat.   It is my sneaky way to get comfort in the fact that they are all alive and breathing and still interested in connecting with the family unit.  We have quite a streak going now, of not missing a day when we all have posted to the chat.  My daughter posted this the other day:

#Let’sGetThisBread

My sons immediately connected with it and they knew exactly what she was talking about.  As it seems to be the way of things these days, I had to “look it up” for my husband and I to get caught up on the knowledge.  Apparently it has become quite a popular meme in the last week or so.  It means (from a good source on the internet):

The term itself is nothing new – it’s just a sort of encouragement to work hard and get the rewards that the work brings.

I had the feeling that’s what it might mean but I didn’t want to use it in the wrong sense and embarrass myself and my family (it’s happened before).  Apparently, I’m not the only person in my generation who was a tad confused.  I read that when one man got the same “Let’s Get This Bread” text from his son, he offered to stop at Costco after work to buy a loaf.

This is such a weird stage of life when you feel like you are straddling two cultural entities.  One of my feet is sitting comfortably in the nostalgia and familiarity of my slightly outdated tastes in music, manners and the comfort of rooms in my house that reluctantly need to be updated.  The other foot feels like it needs to step forward and stay relevant and interested and connected with the things that are striking a chord in my children and the members of their generation.  Sometimes I look at my dogs wistfully and think, “Damn, it would be a lot easier to be a dog.”

We are getting quotes on updating a bathroom in our home that is very retro 1980s style.  We’re not sure whether to hang on long enough knowing that it very soon may turn into a valuable antique relic room that we could offer tours and charge money to see it.  Recently, while shopping, I saw a game called “90s Nostalgia Game”.  I thought to myself, “Wow, if we are starting to get nostalgic for the 90s, that can only mean everything that I have from the 1970s and 1980s has to be museum quality.”

Anyway, we have been gathering quotes.  The first man who came out to give us a quote on updating our bathroom was the age that I am starting to see in a lot of authority figures around town, like police officers and teachers and store managers.  He was probably about 30, just slightly older than my kids.  He looked aghast when he saw the bathroom he had to work with and essentially gave me the idea that we would probably just have to blow up that entire corner of our home.  The second lady to come out to look at our bathroom was my around my age.  I was drinking a Green Vibrance Smoothie and we connected over that, comparing how much flax seed we both add to our smoothies these days.  When she looked at our bathroom, I think we both got a little misty-eyed.  I thought she might put her arm around me and we would bond over the overdone, yet strangely charming opulence of the 1980s.  I honestly liked and connected to both of these designers very much.  I think they both had very interesting ideas and points of view.

Perhaps it is a blessing to be in this stage of life where you have to expand and grow to be able to communicate and relate with your children and younger colleagues, yet you are still able to relate to the older generations and to retain an appreciation for the footing that they have provided.  Perhaps this time of life is actually the most expansive we’ll ever be.  If you look at a horseshoe curve, the middle part is the big bend.  It is pulled in two directions, so it is the longest stretch.  The middle part of the horseshoe curve has the biggest curve in it.  It must be like the seasoned branches of a tree that are able to be bent, but they are green enough so they don’t break.  Branches like this are old enough and long enough to be bowed, but still have enough vitality and youthfulness in them to not be too old, and brittle, and stuck; to just break and splinter and disintegrate.  Today, I consider myself a blessed, curved branch in this Tree of Life.

Why Shouldn’t You Love Yourself?

I love the voice of the singer Norah Jones.  I played her Come Away With Me album so much, I fear that I may have turned the rest of my family off to her.  But I think Norah Jones has one of the most gorgeous, soothing, silvery singing voices I have ever heard.  The other day I was listening to her sing the remake of the Hank Williams song, “How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart?”  It is a great remake and an easy song to sing along to, but then I got to thinking about the lyrics.  We are supposed to feel sorry for the singer who has repeatedly been hurt by a straying lover.  And you can’t help but feel sorry for the singer, to a point . . . . . . Then, after a while, if you were a good, true, honest friend to the singer, you would probably have to say, “Stop being a victim.  Stop being complicit in your own pain.  Take back your power.  Love yourself.”

That may sound harsh, but it is true.  When we stay in victim mode, we give away our power.  When we stay with repeatedly abusive people and unchanging abusive situations, we start to fall into the realm of self-abuse.  All abuse is wrong.  Self-abuse is abuse.  Accepting abuse is self-abuse.  Again, all abuse is wrong.

We’ve been conditioned to love others, take care of others and to be “selfless.”  But the truth is, we can’t give our best love to others without truly loving ourselves first.  Hurting people hurt people.

“If the nasty voices in conditioned mind are allowed to be cruel to us, it will follow as the night, the day, that we will be cruel to others.  That’s just the way it is.  We can’t be with anyone else in ways that we are not with ourselves.” – Cheri Huber

I was discussing the above quote with friends and a few of them didn’t agree with it.  They felt that they could be loving and kind to others and still be incredibly harsh to themselves.  And that may be true to a point, but if you are unfailingly loving to yourself wouldn’t it all but guarantee that you would only know love as a way of being?  If your only way of being is the the way of love, then it follows that it wouldn’t be possible to be anything but loving to yourself and to others.  Why should loving yourself not be a part of the equation?

“The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself.  And if you have that, any other relationship is a plus and not a must.” – Diane von Furstenberg

If you learn to love yourself the way that you want to be loved, you are fulfilled.  In that sense, when you enter into any relationship you are bringing a fulfilled, whole person into the partnership or friendship or relation.  There is not neediness or expectation, just the joy of shared love, commonalities and experiences.  In healthy relationships you are enhancing each other’s lives, bringing fullness and excitement and mutual interest to each other’s experiences.  But you are not dependent on the other person to create that fullness, excitement, and interest.  You are multiplying it together.

Charlie Chaplin said, “As I began to love myself, I freed myself of anything that is not good for my health- food, people, things, situations and everything that drew me down and away from myself.  At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism.  Today I know it is Love of Oneself.”

 

 

 

What is Your One-Hundred?

Today is my 100th day of blogging!  It’s been 100 days since my eldest little birdie took off from the nest to start his own adult life.  This is post number 100.  Thank you so much for being there with me, as I have navigated my confusion and grief and curiosity about my changing role in this middle-age stage of life.  Thank you for helping me to establish this blog and supporting my voice and validating what I have to say.  I have heard many reports that this blog is “relatable.”  I appreciate that.  I’m glad that I am not alone in my observations.  I hope that you will stay with me for 100 more blog posts because I’m just at the starting block of this Second Half of Adulting.

Why is 100 such a benchmark number?  I remember when my kids were in kindergarten, they couldn’t wait for the 100th day of school.  On that day, they brought in their magnificent 100 penny posters, designed any way that they liked with the pennies glued into all sorts of designs.  They dressed like little old grannies and grandpas with baby powder in their hair and they wore scratchy cardigan sweaters.  The 100th day of school was a very special day for them.

I looked up the significance of the number 100.  This is what one site said:

The numerology number 100 represents energy that’s self-determined, independent, and has infinite potential.

100 can be seen as a practically unlimited number 1.

The urban dictionary said this:

one-hundred
a one-hundred means what is your motto for life. you are 100% you and you live by this.
“What is your one-hundred?”

 

So 100 seems to refer to “your best” – giving 100 percent to what you do.  Some websites referred to a century, saying that what happens in 100 years is the most significant breakdown of time and history for human beings.

 

I looked up advice from centenarians (people who have lived for 100 years) for this post.  A lot of the advice contradicted other centenarians advice, such as drink three whiskeys every day to don’t ever drink alcohol.  The advice that did seem pretty consistent from all of them was:  don’t worry, be loving and lovable, be interested and interesting, and just do your thing.  In other words, they were saying, You Be You.  Just be and enjoy it along the way.  I think it was best summed up this way by one centenarian:

 

“Take one day at a time, and go along with the tide.”

Warning: It’s Obvious That You’re Not Listening

“The biggest communication problem is we don’t listen to understand.  We listen to reply.” – Stephen Covey

I wish this statement wasn’t true for me, but it is, unfortunately, very true.  It’s like when someone starts talking, key words that they are saying start pinging and all of my experiences that have anything to do with those key words come to the forefront of my mind, banging loudly and insistently, to get out into the open.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I said, “I don’t mean to interrupt but . . . ”  I wouldn’t need to buy Mega Millions lottery tickets.

A friend in a book club of mine was a psychologist who studied group dynamics.  In order for group communication to be effective, she said that you should let at least three other people speak before you speak again. I wonder if waiting that amount of time makes you finally start listening to others or if it just means you are better formulating in your mind what you are going to say next?

I guess not being a good listener kind of makes you a “know-it-all.”  It means you must think that you have already heard it all, seen it all, processed it all and it is only you there needed to spout it all out.  It is like arrogantly believing that the person you are talking to hasn’t gone through meaningful life experiences that you could gain any knowledge from.  It’s assuming that they are just lumps of clay there to absorb all of your thoughts, explanations and stories without believing that they have anything interesting or insightful to say.  Ugh!  When you look at it that way, you realize how much you miss out on by not really being present to what someone else is saying.  By devising your next soliloquy while the other person is talking, you are cheating them out of an attentive listener and you are cheating yourself out of absorbing some possibly truly important wisdom and delightful observations.

“You can’t fake listening.  It shows.” – Raquel Welch

Corny, But True

I’m in love with Nebraska’s tourism campaign. “Honestly, it’s not for everyone.”  How pure and real is that!  I’ve never been to Nebraska, but if the people there are that down-to-earth, I want to go there.

I looked up more of their tourism ads.  One talked about something Nebraskans do called “tanking”.  They float down slow moving rivers in giant, metal livestock tanks.  So, in essence, they are like live, people-sized apple bobbers.

That particular tourism ad, that mentions tanking, reads, “In Nebraska, we believe that only boring people get bored.  So we invent our own fun.”  So, Nebraskans are creative, fun and down-to-earth.  Now, I really want to go there.

When our middle son was 18-months-old, he still hadn’t started walking.  So like all good, relaxed parents, we compared him to our first child (we ignored all of the child psychologists who say never to compare your children). Our eldest son walked right on time according to the baby books, so we completely freaked out about our second son.  We took him to a prestigious child development unit at a renowned Children’s Hospital.   He checked out as completely normal and healthy.  One of the doctors said to me, “You know, it is often the sign of the most intelligent people, who can entertain themselves right where they are without needing to go anywhere.”  For the record, my middle son is now a Biochemistry major in college with plans to go to medical school.  And he holds track records at his high school.  Mamas, keep calm and carry on.  Your babies are fine!

That doctor who advised me about my child must have hailed from Nebraska.  Only boring people get bored.  Now that we have our magical mystery cell phones, I guess all of us can easily stay in one place and not get bored.  I wonder, though, how well we would do without the entertainment of the phone?  Would we be good at inventing our own fun?

I think I am going to try to be more Nebraskan in my every day life.  No, I’m not going to eat more corn.  It gets stuck in my teeth.  However, I am going to try to be more “real”, and try to take myself less seriously.  I’m going to try to make the most of exactly where I am in the moment and I’m going to try to see all of the possibilities that are right there in front of me, without chasing “some perfect somewhere else”.  I realize that this exercise is “not for everyone”, but for me, I’m seeing the value of walking like a Nebraskan.

Frinally!

“If Friday had a face, I would kiss it.” – Empowered Partnerships

Happy Friday, my friends!!  “Frinally!”- Empowered Partnerships (again)

I can’t kiss anything today, actually.  My lips won’t pucker due to the tooth/gum surgery I had yesterday.  It’s like a flashback to the traumatic time back when I was a teenager and I had my impacted wisdom teeth removed.  I look like Alvin’s or Theodore’s girlfriend.

Friday always puts me in a good mood, in a good mental space, but today is more of a low-key, chill, good mood.   It might have something to do with the pain meds . . . .

New readers, first of all, thanks for reading!  I love all of my readers.  You make me feel so happy and heard.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Fridays, I stay at the superficial level and write about three favorite things such as products, songs, twitter feeds, etc. that just make my life a little more peachy!  Please check out previous Fridays for ideas.  There are so many Favorite Things Fridays now, it might as well be a catalog.

Here goes today’s favorites:

Rubbermaid Animal Stopper Garbage Can – I don’t like writing reviews on Amazon, but this garbage can is so effective, I think that I did take the time to write a review about this one.  We keep our garbage cans on the outside of our house.  We had a giant raccoon who decided to become a next-door neighbor to our garbage cans.  He felt like he had hit the jackpot and our garbage became his nightly buffet, like he was on a cruise or something.  His ability to spread garbage on our lawn was legendary.  Every morning, we wondered what kind of mess we would be waking up to and we would fight over who got to clean it up that day. We tried all the different anti-animal sprays on the market.  We tried all sorts of bungee ties and different garbage cans and this is the only garbage can that actually worked!  Ranger Rick finally moved on.  There are claw and teeth marks all over our garbage can and it was tipped on its side a lot of days, but that masked bandit could not get this garbage can lid off!  Worth every penny!

Lancome Advanced Genifique Yeux Light-Pearl Eye Illuminator –  Yikes, try saying that three times while chewing some peanuts.  I really wish I didn’t like this under-eye treatment.  I’m all about being able to get away with drug store brands if I can, but this stuff is really good.  I have never found an eye serum I have liked until now.  Now, no cream is a miracle when you are approaching 50, but this is the first one that I saw a marked difference in the skin under my eyes within a few days of using it.  Pricey, yes.  Worth it, yes.  The Lancome counters at the department stores and at Ulta, carry samples of this, so ask for some samples first to see if it works for you.  Then, break open the piggy bank and treat yourself.  It’s Friday!

Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse Thin & Crispy Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies – When my husband and I first got married, we lived near to a Pepperidge Farm Outlet.  That place made me as happy as our friend the raccoon was, before we got the Animal Stopper garbage can.  I love all things Pepperidge Farm, but this particular flavor of cookie is over-the-top yum.  It’s a new-ish addition to the Pepperidge Farm Family of All Things Delicious.  A bag of these cookies doesn’t last a hot minute in our household (unless you find a good hiding spot for the bag.  SHHHH!)  Come on, moms, don’t pretend like you don’t have your own little hidden hideaways for “treats for harried heads of household.”

Okay, time to get back to icing my cheeks.  Feel free to send sympathy and love to me via the Comments section and add favorite things of your own while you’re at it.  I won’t mind at all.

“May Today Be The Fridayest Friday That Ever Fridayed.” – Lilybels.Co.Uk