Tag: meaning

Soul Sunday

Hi friends. Happy Sunday. Sundays are typically devoted to poetry on the blog and most music is actually poetry. Last night, my husband and I were sitting outside by a fire and at first, we played some background music from foreign countries. We didn’t understand any of the lyrics because the were being sung in foreign languages, and yet the music still made us feel, the music still made us sway, the music still made us share its beat. Music truly is the universal language in this world. (I recently read that there is a sea lion who can bob along perfectly with various percussion beats better than most humans.) We ALL feel vibration. We ALL feel energy. We ALL feel the most unified when we are listening to music that everyone can appreciate. After a while, my husband wanted to get back to his favorite country music playlist and he played Zach Bryan’s Burn, Burn, Burn. I’ve heard the song many, many times, but I never really paid much attention to the lyrics. Last night I really listened to the lyrics. Last night I heard the lyrics. Last night, I felt the lyrics. Let this song be your poetry for today:

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

Crooked Spine?

I had my eyebrows waxed the other day at a shop I had never been to before. The aesthetician who worked on me, I later found out was in her late forties, and she had only been an aesthetician for less than a year, but she did a great job and she clearly had a passion for the work. I asked her what she had done before this job and she said that for years she had been a server at high-end restaurants in Miami. She made a lot of money doing this, but the physical and mental stress was a lot, so during this time, she started taking credits for obtaining a nursing degree. About three quarters into schooling, the aesthetician realized that she did not want to be a nurse at all, so instead she went to school to become an aesthetician. The aesthetician was really personable and easy to talk to (she said that she honed this skill while waiting tables all of these years) and she answered all of my questions about skincare with obvious deep knowledge. For instance, she said that most skincare such as exfoliation or dermabrasion or laser treatments, are really about alerting/tricking/stimulating your own skin (the largest organ we humans possess) to “heal itself”. She excitedly told me about a vast array of products and what works and what doesn’t and the science behind it all. The aesthetician said that her classmates in beauty school were in awe of everything that she already knew about muscular structures, and skin, and nerves – things that they were just learning about. (She said that the Anatomy and Physiology courses that she took in nursing school finally paid off for her.) While conversing with her, it was clearly evident to me, that this woman was in her element. She had finally found her true calling.

At one point, the aesthetician said that she knew that she would lose all of her credits if she didn’t go back to nursing school and finish. She said that she felt like she had wasted a lot of time and money.

“But you found out that you don’t want to become a nurse, right?” I said. “I can see where it would be good to have something to fall back on, but you clearly love what you do. And from what you’ve shared, everything that you did before in your professional life, has brought you to this point, and enhanced your ability to be great at what you do and love, now.”

She smiled and nodded.

Nothing in our lives is in vain if we learn from it. I’ve been reading a lot lately about the importance of being in alignment with yourself and your OWN values – not your family’s values, nor your friends’ values, not society’s values, but to be in true alignment, you must be true to thine self.

Being out of alignment does not feel good. (That’s why there are chiropractors on every corner.) When you are out of alignment, nothing goes smoothly and easily. You always feel a little bit “off.” You feel your intuition pinging you constantly to get back on course, to be with your own true calling and nature. Alignment goes deeper than ego. When your ego is satisfied, it’s often a fleeting thing, that constantly needs another stroke from outside sources, in order to feel good. When you are in alignment with your values and your calling, you are in a state of peace, so that even when that peace sometimes gets rocked by things out of your control, it easily gets back to its familiar state of equilibrium and equanimity.

Are you in your alignment with your true self? If you are living “the shoulds”, or if you are living for “applause”, or if you are looking for things like money and beauty and material items and even relationships to fulfill you and fill all of your holes, then chances are you need an adjustment to get back in alignment with your one true self, in order to feel your best, and to be your best, and to give the rest of the world the best version of you, that only YOU can offer it.

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance. “ – BrianTracy

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

A Must Addition

I know that these reflections of Pope Francis are circulating widely on social media, but I have always looked at my blog as a thought museum. These beautiful reflections are A MUST for the archives here at Adulting – Second Half:

“The walls of hospitals have heard more honest prayers than churches…
They have witnessed far more sincere kisses than those in airports…
It is in hospitals that you see a homophobe being saved by a gay doctor.
A privileged doctor saving the life of a beggar…
In intensive care, you see a Jew taking care of a racist…
A police officer and a prisoner in the same room receiving the same care…
A wealthy patient waiting for a liver transplant, ready to receive the organ from a poor donor…

It is in these moments, when the hospital touches the wounds of people, that different worlds intersect according to a divine design. And in this communion of destinies, we realize that alone, we are nothing.

The absolute truth of people, most of the time, only reveals itself in moments of pain or in the real threat of an irreversible loss.

A hospital is a place where human beings remove their masks and show themselves as they truly are, in their purest essence.

This life will pass quickly, so do not waste it fighting with people.
Do not criticize your body too much.
Do not complain excessively.
Do not lose sleep over bills.
Make sure to hug your loved ones.
Do not worry too much about keeping the house spotless.
Material goods must be earned by each person—do not dedicate yourself to accumulating an inheritance…

You are waiting for too much: Christmas, Friday, next year, when you have money, when love arrives, when everything is perfect…

Listen, perfection does not exist.
A human being cannot attain it because we are simply not made to be fulfilled here.
Here, we are given an opportunity to learn.

So, make the most of this trial of life—and do it now.

Respect yourself, respect others. Walk your own path, and let go of the path others have chosen for you.
Respect: do not comment, do not judge, do not interfere.

Love more, forgive more, embrace more, live more intensely!
And leave the rest in the hands of the Creator.”
—Pope Francis 🙏

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

Seven Rocks

picture credit: CNN

Later this evening I will be travelling up to Virginia to reconnect with my seven best friends from college. We used to be really good about having a yearly reunion, but the last time we have had this reunion (or GW as we call it, “Girls Weekend”) was January 2020, when the coronavirus was just this weird virus happening over in China, that none of us knew anything about.

So more than three years later, all eight of us will finally reconvene, in person, again. And I am so excited. I have known these wonderful women for 34 years, since I was 18 years old. Imagine it – eight, 18-year-old ladies, just coming into early adulthood, connecting in college, and sharing funny, crazy college-age adventures together. (and yes, there were other friends along the way, but none of them seem to have “the sticking power” over the three decades that the eight of us magnets seem to have held on to, despite all odds) It is not lost on me, that as I am early entering into this next stage of my adulthood, I will be with seven of the women who helped me to enter into my first stage of adulthood, and who were there to support me, and to moor and anchor me, and to remind me who I am at my core, as I waded into the murky waters of becoming the adult woman, wife, mother, friend, and the overall person who I am today.

As anyone who has lived a life knows, none of us ladies knew what was in store for us, when we launched each other into the first halves of our adulthood. We had inklings. We had dreams. And all eight of us have experienced amazing, wonderful experiences, and also devastating events in our individual lives. This is just the way of life. But what isn’t always the way, is that not everyone has seven constants on their shores. Not everyone has seven giant rocks and pillars of support who have witnessed all of your milestones throughout your entire adulthood. Not everyone has seven people who know you intimately, and have decided to stick with you, and to focus on your lovely qualities and to mostly ignore your flaws. Such kind mirrors, long-time friends can be! Something in our friendship experience feels divine. Something about reconvening with these ladies right at this early empty nest period of my life, feels divine. Why wouldn’t anyone cling to the people and the experiences in your life which feel divine? There are seven strong pillars waiting for me to unite with them. We have survived storms and waves and calm and sunshine and even some battering among ourselves, and no doubt, we will continue to do so. Our shared friendship has withstood the test of time, and I believe that this combined friendship will help to see me (and us) through all of the next set of adventures in this next stage of adulting, and all the way through to the end of our journeys.

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

Epiphanies and Curiosities

Yesterday, I was checked out at my local Walgreens by a man who resembled Cousin It. His long, dark curly hair was almost completely covering his face and he also donned a black mask, so it appeared that only one of his eyes was partly visible. I asked the clerk how he was doing and he solidly stated, “I am perfect.”

This made me hesitate. I had never heard the answer, “I am perfect” to “How ya doing?” in my whole life, and I told him that fact. The clerk asked me how I was doing and I answered, “Well, I’m not perfect, but I’m doing pretty well.”

Without a beat, and completely deadpan, he said, “Well, maybe you’ll get there someday.”

Since then, I’ve spent way too much of my time contemplating this two minute interaction. Here I am writing about it on the blog. Was this guy just strange? Was this guy goading me? Was this guy actually perfect? What’s the secret to being perfect? Are we all actually perfect? Was Cousin It supposed to reflect “perfection”?

So, in further insights to my overthinking mind, I read a viral essay by a college student who claims that the “study abroad experience” is horrible and overrated. This student, who was studying in Florence, has the right to her opinion, of course, but I’ve known many people who have studied abroad, including our eldest son, and they all have claimed this experience to easily be in their top ten events of their lives. What was more interesting to me, is that Amanda Knox, the American woman who, in 2007, was falsely imprisoned for murder in Italy, while she was studying abroad, commented on this woman’s essay on Twitter. She said this: “Girl, what are you talking about? Studying abroad is awesome!” 

Now, much like the “I’m perfect” statement, I don’t know in what context this statement by Amanda Knox was being made either. Was she being funny, sarcastic and ironic? Has Amanda evolved and healed enough to truly believe that her own experience in Italy was “awesome”? I honestly don’t know. However, it piqued my interest enough to go to Amanda Knox’s Twitter, and to read her introduction. (A quick update on Amanda Knox: She was acquitted for the murder in Italy in 2015, after spending four years in jail. She went to jail in Italy when she was 20. Amanda Knox now lives in Seattle with her husband and her child and she hosts a popular podcast.) In part of Amanda Knox’s introductory tweets, she says this:

” After I was convicted of murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison, when the earth dropped out from beneath me, and global shame rained down on top of me, I had my first ever epiphany . . . . My epiphany was this: I was not, as I had assumed for my first two years of trial and imprisonment, waiting to get my life back. I was not some lost tourist waiting to go home. I was a prisoner, and prison was my home. I’d thought I was in limbo, awkwardly positioned between my life (the life I should have been living), and someone else’s life (the life of a murderer). I wasn’t. I never had been. . . . .The feeling of clarity, though, was in realizing that however small, cruel, sad, and unfair this life was, it was *my* life. Mine to make meaning out of, mine to live to the best of my ability. There was no more waiting. There was only now . I was alone with my epiphany. I tried to explain it to my mom, but she couldn’t hear me. She thought I was depressed and giving up. She could not, and would not, accept that *this* was my life. She was going to save me, and she just needed me to survive until she did.I told her I would, and it wasn’t a lie. I *would* survive. I knew that, deep in my bones. But I knew that precisely because I had finally accepted that I was living *my* life, whether I was eventually found innocent and freed, or not. I allowed myself to begin to imagine alternate realities. What if I had been home that night, not Meredith, and Rudy Guede had killed me instead? What if I was acquitted and freed in five years? In ten? What if I served my entire sentence, and came home in my late 40s, a barren, bereft woman? What if I killed myself…I imagined all of those futures in vivid detail so that they no longer felt like shadows creeping over me from the realm of unconscious nightmares. And that allowed me to see my actual life for what it was, and to ask myself: How do I make *that* life worth living? That was a big question, one I couldn’t answer in its grandest sense. But there was a smaller version of that question: How can I make my life worth living *today?* I could answer that question, repeatedly. That was entirely in my power. So I did that. Doing sit ups, walking laps, writing a letter, reading a book – these things were enough to make a day worth living. I didn’t know if they were enough to make a life worth living, but I remained open and curious to the possibility. And while my new emotional default setting remained firmly stuck on sad—I woke up sad, spent the entire day sad, and went to sleep sad—it wasn’t a desperate, grasping sadness.It was a sadness brimming with energy beneath the surface, because I was alive with myself and my sanity, and the freeing feeling of seeing reality clearly, however sad that reality was. . . .The abyss never leaves. It’s always there. And anyone who’s stared into it, as I have, knows the strange comfort of carrying it with you.“

Our greatest suffering comes not from what actually happens to us, but our long-term suffering comes from how we think about, and how we react to what happens to us. Whenever I, or anyone I care about is going through a tough time, I repeat the mantra, “One Day at a Time,” all day long if I have to do so, for my own comfort. As Amanda Knox states, if we just concentrate on making our individual days worth living, this will likely add up to a life worth living. If we can work to find meaning and strength in all of the events of our lives, we can springboard from them, instead of wallowing in, and resisting the “unfairness” and the abyss of it all. If we can reach a point of epiphany in our own lives, that no matter what is happening and no matter what we are doing, we can believe that this particular moment, in this particular time, in this particular body, is perfect, then we have peace. And peace is what is perfect, isn’t it? Peace. Perfect. Maybe I’ll get there some day . . .

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

What Is

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee is happening in the United Kingdom right now. At age 96, Queen Elizabeth is the first British Monarch to have achieved 70 years of service, given to her country. There are all sorts of celebrations and activities happening in the United Kingdom to mark this occasion, all over their country, throughout this weekend.

I happened upon a recent monolog by Bill Maher making fun of some of the rules and customs surrounding the British monarchy. Apparently there is one Earl whose only job is to carve the queen’s meat, and when having a meal with the queen, the minute the queen stops eating, everyone else is required to put down their utensils and stop eating, as well. To many, this seems ridiculous, particularly since monarchies are created by birthrights, and are not actually merit based. Still, even in recent years, when there has been quite a lot of scandal surrounding the British monarchy, a large majority of people in the United Kingdom support keeping the monarchy in place, and they take pride in its long, stable tradition. Many British citizens believe that their royalty brings a lot of interest and tourism to their country, and that it unites the people in their shared heritage. In all fairness, I can’t go grocery shopping here in Florida, without seeing pictures of some members of the British monarchy on our magazines, at any time that I am there. It’s safe to say that the fascination with British royals is a worldly thing.

I think that a vast majority of all of us people, like our traditions and our pomp and circumstance. We like the feeling of unity and pride and meaning, with the recognition of our shared rituals. Any decent comedian could rip apart any of our celebratory ceremonies for their apparent silliness, and unnecessary steps, and regulations, and uniforms, and accoutrements. Having just gone through my daughter’s high school graduation ceremony with the mortarboards and the robes, I am sure that if I were an alien visiting from outer space, I might quizzically consider this societal custom, with perhaps even a giggle. And of course, when observing other country’s and other cultures’ traditions and ceremonies, these events often seem so foreign and unfathomable to any of us who are used to thinking that our own traditions and celebrations are what is “correct.” If we are honest and aware, a lot of our current ceremonies and traditions and rituals, whether they be religious, or of the military, or educational, or governmental, could easily be poked fun at by any person with sound thinking abilities. In fact, many of our traditions have been changed throughout history (even in our own lifetimes), due to the realization of the impracticalities and absurdities and even dangers of any particular custom or tradition.

My thoughts on customs and traditions and rituals, is this: Be conscious of what you are doing. If this tradition brings you pride, happiness, positivity, connection, enjoyment, contentment, and it doesn’t hurt or harm anyone else, then it is a good custom for you, and for your loved ones to enjoy together. Who cares if it seems silly or extravagant or outdated or pointless to others? If it is beautiful and meaningful to you, and to others, then it is a lovely creation, worth holding on to and sharing, in your life’s experience. If this custom, tradition, or ritual is harmful and used for control and manipulation and entitlement, that brings harm to others, then be honest with yourself, is this tradition one that you want to continue celebrating in your life? Is this tradition meaningful to you, or is this something that you have been unconsciously doing, by just going through the motions due to the expectations of others, or out of an irrational fear that has been imposed upon you?

When anything is considered in life, it always comes down to the same thing, doesn’t it? Awareness. Notice what is, and contemplate what is, and decide if you want to be part of what is, or if you want to change what is for the better. And at the same time, allow this same courtesy to others, even if their traditions are different than yours.

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