Tag: love

New Start Friday

Credit: Refinery29

Hi, friends and readers!!! I’m back. I’ve missed you, and writing the Adulting-Second Half blog, so, so much. But I just came back from a wonderful trip to London and other parts of England. (My husband and I just had to check up on our daughter who is studying there this summer. We knew that she missed us. Ha!) I had never been to England before, and I was so utterly pleased with what I experienced. I am not a city dweller. I love nature. I like to call myself “Snow White.” But if I had to live in a city, London is the most liveable city that I have ever travelled to, and I have been fortunate enough to have visited many cities in our own country, and abroad.

But before I bore you to death with my trip details, I do realize that this is Friday and it is a good one!! It’s the New Moon. We are officially, fresh-starting the second half of the year. What do you want for the rest of this year? It’s a perfect time to reflect, get your thoughts down in writing, and start taking steps towards what you want. My first half of the year has been amazing – chock full of adventures, travel, visits with family and friends, weddings, the birthday clump of our family members, holidays etc. etc. Honestly, it’s been delightful, but it’s also been a lot. I like the second half of the year because things don’t get too drummed up for our family, until the holidays at the end of the year. Things in my life never seem as frenzied during the second half of the year. I like spontaneity and the second half of the year seems to allow for more of it. But, I digress. . . . today is Favorite Things Friday on the blog!! Today my favorite is packing cubes. I had never used these before in my travels, but my daughter insisted that they make a huge difference in utilizing space in your luggage. I purchased a soft set of about seven packing cubes for this trip, and while I’ve never been good about rolling up my stuff like little sushi rolls (my husband, being a long-time military brat, is a master at this), I loved how organized these cubes kept my stuff. My tops were with my tops. My bottoms were with my bottoms. My hair stuff was all together and easily found. My suitcase was no longer the jack-in-the-box jumble that it usually is, when I am travelling. If you have never tried packing cubes, I highly recommend giving them a try.

Okay, for those of you who want my reflections on London and other parts of England, here they are, in no particular order:

+ England has excellent food. It is a mistaken thought that the only thing good to eat in England is fish and chips. (although, I had fish and chips and it was yummy) I had incredible food including delicious steak ale pies, delectable sandwiches, fantastic Indian food, superfresh and colorful greens and fruits and desserts from Borough Market . . . now you may think, “Well yes, you were in a major city in the world. There is competition and variety,” but I will tell you that the best food that I had on my trip was in a tiny pub, out in the country, near Salisbury, England. We had “Sunday Roast” there which was like a fabulous Thanksgiving meal. You could choose beef or chicken or steak pie, and then on top of each of these was a huge Yorkshire Pudding. Yorkshire Pudding was maybe my favorite item that I ate the whole time I was in England. Yorkshire Pudding is a delightful, doughy cloud that you dip in gravy. I adore it!

+ I kept describing London as the most “wholesome” city I have ever been to, and we went all over London. My husband and I averaged walking about 20,000 steps a day. (my kids were never a fan of our style of vacationing. “Some people like to relax on vacation,” was something which we often heard muttered by one, or by all four of our children, on our various vacations) London has wide streets, lower buildings, less traffic (the London Underground is safe, easy to navigate, quiet, and reliable – we took it everywhere), and lots of green spaces. The people are reserved, but kind and polite and eager to help you. It’s a wonderful place for “eye candy”: beautiful historic cathedrals and buildings, colorful flowers outside of every pub, gorgeous, multicultural people with smart, dressed-up, intriguing style. In short, London is everything it’s cracked up to be.

+ My husband and I saw King Charles being driven out of Buckingham Palace, quite by chance. We noticed that the gates to the palace had been opened, and a crowd was gathering around the road by the gates. My husband and I were curious, but having it be our first day in London, we instead decided to meander over to the fountain in front of the palace to see it more closely. The next thing we knew, a police officer stopped traffic on the road, just a few feet away from us, and a luxurious black car drove by with the white-haired king sitting in the back, his fingers in front of his body, held in a position, much like when you were a kid and you were playing, “Here is the church, Here is the steeple”. His fingers were in “steeple position.”

+ We toured St. Paul’s Cathedral, The British Museum, Southwark Cathedral, The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. All were interesting. I particularly liked the smaller Southwark Cathedral where Shakespeare is said to have spent a lot of time and I delighted in having the proper English afternoon tea experience (with a three stack tower of treats) at The British Museum while my husband satiated himself in Egyptian history. While all of the buildings and their historical significance were incredible, it struck me that Westminster Abbey was essentially an extremely enormous fancy mausoleum. And having spent most of our time in The British Museum staring at mummies and sarcophaguses from Egyptian tombs, it struck me that it is kind of sad and egotistical that many of the wealthy humans of our past were so fixated on the afterlife, and of being remembered by future people. (other than major historical figures and writers buried in Westminster Abbey, I knew very few of the names nor the significance of the people buried there) I honestly found the experience to be an excellent reminder that life on earth is NOW. And as happens on all of my travels, I was sincerely amazed how many millions of different people I was witnessing every day, all over just one city, on our great big Earth. (and as happens on all of my travels, there were plenty of Americans afoot. You just can’t escape us. There is a line from a song, whose band and name escapes me now, where the singer dejectedly and flatly states, “Oh, you’re all still here.” That line played in my mind a few times on this trip.) Anyway, what I felt deeply reminded of, when I reflected on all of the carefully planned, and elaborately and expensively made “death artifacts” is that our life’s experience is really mostly just consequential to ourselves, and to the few people in our inner circle. This realization is freeing. Stop focusing on making an impression on other people. Just be yourself, and be kind, and live each precious moment of your life fully and consciously. Don’t fear death. Focus on living your life.

+ My favorite part of the trip was being with family whom we don’t get to see often at all. (it’s hard, living across the pond, and all) They live by the sea in England, and we took a train out to see them, and even though we hadn’t seen each other in years, the love flowed fervently. We even met children that we had never met before and by the end of the night, we were all hugging and professing our love for each other. We “saw” each other. There is something so special and uncanny about “the family bond.” We even all went to Stonehenge together and I had honestly expected that to be the most spiritual experience of my trip. But it wasn’t. The most spiritual part of the trip wasn’t the cathedrals, nor the choirs singing in chapels, nor the mysterious giant rocks of Stonehenge. The most spiritual part of my trip was a reminder of just how beautiful and strong the elastic bonds of love, hold us all together. Great, loving arms enfold us all. This I know.

It’s great to be back. I love you. I missed you. See you tomorrow!!

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1488. Do you prefer sporty or academic members of the opposite sex? (Lucky for me, my husband is both.)

Monday – Funday

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”  – Anne Lamott

So, I’m not going to be writing the blog for the next week or so. I have some summer adventures planned and I want to put my full attention there.

I love to write. I love to write daily. But sometimes, you even need to take a break from what you love. It gives you fresh exaltation when you get back to it. When you find yourself missing what you love, you get really clear about who and what and where means the most to you. I hope that you will miss reading the blog as much as I will miss writing it, and that we’ll all be back together here in early July.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll take some time to read some stuff in my archives. I’ve written almost daily blog posts since 2018. There are some hidden gems in there.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

979. What would be the best exotic pet?

Boundaries 101

Boundaries got brought up in a recent discussion with friends. “Boundaries” is a hot word/hot topic these days, but there is often a lot of confusion around what boundaries are, what they mean, and also how to enforce them, and also how to respect others’ boundaries. I didn’t get completely clear on my own boundaries, around a lot of things, until I was middle-aged. I think this is the case for a lot of people, particularly women. We are conditioned to be the “pleasers”, the soothers, the facilitators, the mediators, the givers. So, with all of that conditioning, creating boundaries seems “mean” to us, and impossible to erect.

What is a boundary? A boundary is a rule that you make for yourself about what you will and will not accept in your life. People often get confused that boundaries are about making strict rules for other people to follow, for their own comfort. For example, “You will not yell at me.” “You will eat all of your vegetables.” “You will not call me after 8 pm.”, etc. Those rules are fine, but people are people. People don’t always follow rules. It’s hard enough to control our own selves, let alone trying to control others. Instead of stating your boundaries as rules for other people to follow, you restate your boundaries as what you will and will not accept, in your own life’s experience. So, the above statements, stated not as rules, but as boundaries become: “I will not allow myself to be yelled at by anyone. I will physically leave any situation where I am being yelled at . . . ” “If you are my child, I expect you to eat all of your vegetables, and if you don’t, here are the consequences . . . .” “I will not accept calls after 8 pm and I will mute my phone.” (Notice the difference. Boundaries start with “I” statements. Rules start with “You”.)

Boundaries aren’t just with other people. You can have boundaries around food. “I don’t eat meat.” “I don’t eat dairy.” “I only eat desserts on special occasions.” You can have boundaries around everything that you do: what and how much you drink, how much TV/social media you consume, how and how much you exercise, what kinds of movies you will watch, how late you work, what time you go to bed regularly, etc. etc. Again, boundaries are rules that you that you make for yourself about what you will accept in your own life and what you will not accept in your own life.

On top of making your rules for yourself, you also get to decide to change these rules if you like. And you also get to decide how rigid or permeable your boundaries are in every facet of your life. All of this is in your control. It is your right (and one might argue, your necessity) as a living, breathing human being, to create and to enforce your boundaries. Sounds simple, right? Then why is it seemingly so hard for people to create and to enforce boundaries?

Simply put, we have a need to be liked and accepted. We have a need to be understood. We have been conditioned to be “polite and congenial.” We fear being perceived as “mean” or “selfish.” We fear losing people and relationships if we erect boundaries. We dread conflict. And thus, people who do not respect boundaries, will run roughshod all over our boundaries. We give our power away to people who don’t want us to have boundaries. These people will test us and manipulate us to change our boundaries, and unless we enforce them, our boundaries are decidedly pointless. We all dread this process, but it’s a good process. Once you get good at protecting and enforcing your own boundaries, you earn self-respect. You learn to trust yourself. You become your own best friend. Your need to be liked and agreed with, becomes a lot less important than your desire to be respected. If you lose someone because you protected your own boundaries, is this a person that is healthy to have in your life, anyway?

A big mistake a lot of us do when stating our boundaries is that we JADE. JADE is an acronym for justify, argue, defend and explain. Our boundaries are what is right for us. When we start JADE-ing, we weaken our boundaries. We are needing others to agree with our boundaries, in order to enforce them. No one on this Earth is going to like and agree with all of the boundaries that we make for ourselves. Let’s be honest, you don’t like or understand a lot of other people’s boundaries, and that’s okay. You don’t have to like other people’s boundaries, but you do have to respect them, because if a person is good at protecting their own boundaries, you will suffer consequences for crossing their boundaries. “This is what is right for me.” “This is what works for me.” “This is what I have to ability to offer at this time.” This is all the JADE-ing anyone of us ever has to state about our own boundaries. You came up with your boundaries for a good reason for yourself. (You already did a lot of JADE-ing with yourself, in order to decide your boundary in the first place. Trust that fact. No one knows what it is you need, and what is best for you, more than you. No one.) When you JADE, you start showing weakness in the belief of your own needs and protecting your own needs, and the people who don’t like your boundaries, will try to chip away at them, by arguing with you and employing tactics like guilt-trips and persuasion. Don’t open the door to this with JADE-ing in the first place.

The best thing you will ever do for yourself and your boundaries is to lose the need to be liked. If you respect and honor and protect your own boundaries, you will like yourself a lot. You will attract healthy people into your life, who respect your boundaries and respect their own boundaries. (People who have healthy boundaries, are trustworthy, direct and upfront, and are usually good about respecting other people’s boundaries.) You will trust yourself with your own boundaries, and thus you won’t feel as fearful or untrusting of others, because ultimately you know that you can trust yourself to take care of yourself, in a predictable, reliable, nurturing, protective manner. If you are consistent with your boundaries, you may not be liked by some (who would rather you didn’t have any boundaries, for their own sakes), but instead, you will be admired by many. By practicing the protection of your own boundaries, you will become stronger and calmer than you ever knew was possible. There is no better feeling than being able to love and trust yourself. When you get to this level of self-respect, you get really picky about who gets access to you anyway. The need to be “liked” by everybody falls way down the ladder, naturally.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2426. Have you ever bought anything after an infomercial? If so, what?

Soul Sunday

Happy Father’s Day!! Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write your dad or your husband a poem today. They’ll get a charge out of it. You’ll get a charge out of it, too.

“Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, and singers of song.” – Pam Brown

“Superman”

When she called you “Superman”, she saw what I already knew

Not just to the broad shoulders and the handsome face, she was drew,

She saw the big heart beneath it all, the part that really makes you, you!

When it comes to devotion, rock solid reliability, and to your word being true,

Not many can even dare to compare, I imagine that there are very few.

You are my greatest love. My love for you will forever ensue.

For all the gifts you’ve given me, I am most grateful for our “crew.”

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

174. If you could be a bird, which would you be?

Monday-Funday

Yesterday, Holiday Mathis wrote about the fact that when you enter into relationships with people, these people don’t come “a la carte”. People are “package deals” with the people they have relationships with, as well. It’s like the old saying, “You don’t just marry the person. You marry the family, too.” I’ve never bought completely into that adage. I think you less marry “the family” but more so, you marry into your person’s relationship to their family and friends, and also your person’s chosen boundaries with said family and friends. So, for instance, you could like someone’s family and friends very much, but not want to spend every weekend with these people. And if your person wants to spend every weekend with these family members and friends, that’s where the conflict lies.

Along this same note, there’s a good expression that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person. If someone has really toxic traits that are mean or abusive or destructive, all the flowers and charm and sweet traits and talents, do not cancel out their abusive behaviors. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are a package deal. Don’t delude yourself with an abusive person, by saying that the “Mr. Hyde parts of him or her, aren’t really them. Dr. Jekyll is the ‘real’ person.” Unfortunately, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde is a package deal – one and the same.

“All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2410. What is your favorite sandwich?

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. I was inspired to write the poem below when I briefly skimmed some posts on X that said that a scathing article was written about Dolly Parton by The Federalist. I didn’t read the article, but I know that Dolly Parton has given millions to charities all over the country. She is beloved by her fans, all over the world. She has put so much good and happiness and beauty and creativity and acceptance and LOVE into the world that we all experience today. Roger Ebert, the movie critic said this about her, “In Dallas for the premier of ‘9 to 5’, I had an uncanny experience, and on the plane home to Chicago I confessed it to Siskel: I had been granted a private half hour with Dolly Parton, and as we spoke I was filled with a strange ethereal grace. This was not spiritual, nor was it sexual. It was healing and comforting. Gene listened and said, “Roger, I felt the exact same thing during my interview with her.” We looked at each other. What did this mean? Neither one of us ever felt that feeling again. From time to time we would refer to it in wonder.”

Do people float in your presence or do they sink?

Do you make people feel special? Do you make them think?

Do people feel loved by you or are you only courting love?

When people are with you, do they feel touched from above?

Do you focus on the good stuff or do you nitpick for the flaw?

After a time being with you, do people get a sense of awe?

And when I say “awe”, I don’t mean for you, I mean for themselves,

Like you’ve helped them lift their best selves, off from dusty shelves.

Some people are so well-loved because that’s all that they give away,

Love in every which direction, each and every day.

credit: @alioop326, X

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2530. What is your favorite soup?

Happy Pride Month

Happy Pride Month to all of my LGBTQAI+ readers!! You are loved and you have come a long way, baby. My kids are shocked when we tell them what it was like in the 80s/90s, where many of our gay friends, family, and colleagues felt the need to stay closeted for a myriad of reasons. (They also laugh at me when I say that my friends and I completely believed that George Michael was straight. We never even questioned it. My friend’s mom crushed on him hard.)

We all know the pain it feels when we are in a situation where we feel we can’t be our true, authentic selves. We all know that horrible, hollow feeling of betraying our own selves, at times. Our LGBTQAI+ friends have felt that situation in almost every single aspect of their lives. How painful! How wrong! And on top of that, the price of being true to themselves has included acts and threats of violence, family estrangement, being ostracized from their faith, and having to fight for every single right that we straights just take for granted. . . . . If you really believe that “gay is a choice”, why would anyone choose this road????

I support you all, my dear gay friends, family and readers and all who love you. I hope that you have a wonderful month of celebrating! Lately, I have been listening to the PRIDE radio station when I drive in my car and it’s made my errands a pure blast. It’s like having a dance club in my car. I don’t want to leave the car. The music played is so upbeat and fun. That’s something that I think the Pride movement has in spades – optimism, excitement, buoyancy, love, acceptance – despite all odds. Dancing through torrential storms will get you far, and it will take you closer to your destination, which is really the only destination any of us want to reach – pure and total Love.

“It’s always wrong to hate, but it’s never wrong to love.” — Lady Gaga

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2095. What is your go-to comfort food?

Soul Sunday

Good morning and what a beautiful morning it is here. I wish the same for you. Sundays on the blog are devoted to the talk of the heart and soul (poetry). Listen to your heart and soul today. Write yourself a poem. Make a beautiful connection with yourself. Here is my poem for today:

This is peace.

Light snore of dogs.

Sunlit pattern on the floors.

Easy breezes in the palms.

Lightly tinkling wind chimes.

Easy breathing, no aches or pains.

Unscheduled time.

Choices in the pantry.

Unconflicted mind.

Worries in faraway closed, dark drawers.

Seeping gratitude for all of the love in my life.

This is peace.

Peace is this.

Peace is noticing the good.

And soaking it in.

Becoming one with it.

Peace is truth.

I am peace.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

785. Do you believe in aliens?

Footsies

credit: posted by Joseph Fasano on X

This one got to me. ^^^^ I guess it always comes down to being the light that we wish to see in the world. I’ve also read that it is interesting that we never question the Heavens as to why we have all the abundance and beauty and goodness and love that we experience on a daily basis. Perhaps we are all a little more spoiled and negative than we believe ourselves to be.

On Thursday and Friday, I finally got started on a thorough clean-out process I’ve been meaning to get to, since our daughter and youngest child left for college almost two years ago. (yes, I have procrastinated) Lately, while experiencing the empty nest phenomenon, a lot of our friends and family have been moving and downsizing and changing lifestyles, and while we have no plans to do anything like that yet, I have been envious about just how cleansing it feels when you move, and how during those times of moving homes, you get rid of a bunch of energy-clogging stuff. (We’ve lived in our current house for ten years, which is longer than we have lived anywhere.) Anyway, I started with my personal clothes closet and yesterday, I got really real with myself, and I gave away almost all of my beautiful high heeled shoes to Goodwill. (and there were a lot of pairs given away. I LOVE shoes) I had a lump in my throat. I used to joke that I had “Barbie feet” – they didn’t go flat. But it’s been a long time since I donned any of my truly high heels and they were collecting dust and clogging energy. It is time for them to go to a younger Barbie. As I asked my husband to help me to put the bag of shoes into the car to take to Goodwill, he noticed my “quiet” and he jokingly asked me not to cry on him. Then he gave me a hug and told me how sexy I am. This Barbie has a really good Ken. Ken stays.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1219. What one trait do you have that would make you a terrible boss? (Impatience. I’m not known for my patience, but I’m working on it.)

Tuesday Muse-day

Happy Passover to my Jewish friends and readers!

+ I watched an Oprah special recently where she mentioned that an expert told her that when we enter the empty nest, we go from the role of “manager” to the role of “consultant”. It’s a tough transition, sometimes. When we were managers, our children had to take our direction, or face the “dire” (tongue-in-cheek) consequences. As their consultants, they can choose to follow our directions or not. As I have been transformed into a “consultant” for a while now (our eldest son is 28), I am often pleasantly surprised to see two things: My adult children actually seem to (sometimes) want my advice, and sometimes they even actually follow it. And even better: My children sometimes don’t follow my advice, and as the results show, their own decisions were the right ones to make. It’s good to see that my babies have good minds of their own.

+ I love this quote that I read yesterday. I think that it describes the idea of “free will” better than any other way I have seen it written or explained. “Somewhere inside we hear a voice. It leads us into the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether or not to follow.” – Pat Tillman (who left the NFL to serve in Afghanistan, where he died in 2004)

+ “Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Today’s a seriously serious Full Moon. It’s in Scorpio which is a sign that goes deep and gets real. It’s never afraid to look into the dark shadows. The ancients believed that full moons were times of deep transformation and letting go of what no longer serves you. Scorpio is associated with the phoenix rising from the ashes. This is a perfect day to figure out what needs to be let go of, or transformed in your own life. What activities and experiences (people, places and things) in your own life give you inspiring, loving life energy, and which of these things deplete your life energy and make you feel small? Perhaps making a list of your energy givers, versus your energy depleters will help you to get real with where transformation and change is needed, in order to fill your life with more that “fills” you. Listen deeply for that voice inside of you to shed light on the shadows. Then make small changes in the direction towards the person you wish to become.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

948. Do you spend too much time pleasing others to your own detriment?