middle age Archives - Page 119 of 205 - Adulting: Second- Half

Adultiest Adults

I love this tweet. Never has this fact been more evident than throughout this damn pandemic. Right??? Here are some of the Comments to go along with this tweet:

“Peak adulthood is realizing that your parents were just winging it, too.” -@mjonesonline

“Oddly comforting, isn’t it?” @allisonching1

“Middle age is looking around for an “adultier adult” and realize everyone else is doing the same but they’re all looking at you. Because you ARE the adultiest adult present.” @getoffmylawn585

I recently did some self-reflection on this annoying thing that I do to my kids lately. It’s not charming, or “loving mommy” of me at all. (but honestly, I don’t see myself quitting it, anytime soon) Whenever my kids (ages 17 and up) have to do something exasperating that I used to do for them, such as calling customer service lines, and then waiting in the queue for 3.8 hours, and then having to speak to someone who doesn’t seem to understand English, and then being afraid to complain about this fact because it might get them “cancelled”, I just say this, with a quirky little smirk on my face:

“Welcome to adulthood!!” (and then I do this irritating laugh)

When my kids have to pay for something ridiculous, like paying an extra fee and some taxes for a permit for something that is required for a class that they’d rather not have to take in the first place, or when they complain about having to pay for things such as “batteries that aren’t included”:

I reliably chirp, “Welcome to adulthood!!”

Talk about being forced into a club that you never really wanted to join in the first place. And then looking around and going, “Wait, these are “the adults”?!? Seriously?!?”

On our walk last night, my husband and I were having a conversation, trying to make sense of the new round of COVID variants/mask rules/vaccine requirements/infection rates/school and work plans, etc., that seem to be all new, just for this week. Detaching and listening to our conversation, I had to giggle. We were repeating “news”, “conspiracy ideas”, things that we had “heard” in grocery store lines, work mandate memo updates, rumors from friends and neighbors, things that we had read on social media, etc. All of what we were saying to each other was completely convoluted. All of it contradicted each other. All of it was overwhelming and scary and frustrating and maddening. And of course, we both said all of it, with an air of solemn, all-knowing authority.

Welcome to adulthood.

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

Lions and Hawks

A Lion Doesn't Turn Around When a Small Dog Barks - The Agent Unleashed — (African Proverb)

When we were walking our dogs last night, we noticed that our neighbors were walking their dog on the opposite side of the street. The neighbors were staring up at something perched in the branches of the tallest tree, by the sidewalk. The “something” that had our neighbors mesmerized, was an incredibly beautiful, majestic, large and regal hawk. We are fortunate enough to share our neighborhood with more than a few of these incredible birds.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?!” We yelled over to our neighbors, as they took several pictures of the hawk. No matter how many hawks you see, you never lose the desire to stop and to stare at them. They are mesmerizing members of the raptor realm.

“Yes. She was just being harassed by a bunch of mockingbirds,” our neighbor told us. Apparently this is a relatively common phenomenon. Mockingbirds, and other smaller birds often use “mob mentality” in order to try to harass and to scare the larger predator birds away from their nests and their own self-proclaimed territories.

The neighbors and my husband and I all laughed at the audacity of the mockingbirds. This incredibly striking and magisterial hawk could have easily taken out, one or more of the mockingbirds, in just one easy swoop, or by one swift swipe of her sharp talon. She could have chosen to do this, if for nothing else, than to make an example to the rest of the birds, that they had best quiet down, and respect her stealth capabilities and power.

But the hawk didn’t do anything. She didn’t feel the need to prove anything. The magnificent, confident hawk did not seem the least bit concerned about the noisy, angry mockingbirds. The hawk stayed in her calm, regal, elegant pose, and nonchalantly let all of us snap pictures of her, as we basked in her utterly staggering and awe-striking presence.

The hawk knew who she was, and she understood the force of her own presence. She calmly and serenely stood her ground. She didn’t let herself be bothered by the noisy chatter, coming from the flock of intimidated, and puffed-up mockingbirds. Hawks are wise and brilliant creatures. They carefully conserve their energy, only to extend this energy on the things that truly matter to their living experiences. Giving attention to a bunch of defensive, chattering, angry birds simply wasn’t worth it, to the intelligent, focused, dignified hawk. Her feathers remained unruffled.

A hawk isn't afraid to perch high; not because he trusts he won't fall, but because he trusts he can fly. | Animal spirit guides, Spirit guides, Perched

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

Your Soul is Whole

“Every soul is whole, no matter how wounded the mind is.” ~ Native American (credit: Native Red Cloud @Native3rd, Twitter)

Your soul is whole, baby, and it is always, always with you. Your soul has been with you since the beginning, and it will be with you until the end of time. How do you get out of your overthinking mind, and into your ever-peaceful soul? Here are some ways:

Take five deep breaths and notice the inhales and exhales.
Think of five people, places, pets, or things which you are grateful for, and notice what gratefulness feels like in your body. (for me, it is a buoyancy in my chest, and an overall feeling of relaxation and relief, much like floating safely in a swimming pool)
Do a body scan. Start at your toes. What are the sensations in your toes? Work all of the way up your body, to noticing the sensations at the top of you head.
Say a prayer to your Higher Power, with just these words, “Let me hear what you have to say to me.” That’s it. Just sit with that prayer, and if your mind starts to wander on to other things, or you find yourself wanting to get into “talky” mode, repeat the listening prayer. Let the peace wash over you. (this is a sort of prayer and meditation, all in one.)
Pick up one object that you like, say a “cherry”, and notice everything about the cherry. What does it look like? What does it sound like? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? What does it taste like?
Think of someone who you love, like you love no other. Imagine hugging that person and transferring all of the love that you hold in your heart, to that person. Now imagine both of you covered in that swirling energy of love. Feel what that feels like. Gift that feeling to the next person you think of, imagining that person all of the sudden getting showered in the beautiful, powerful energy of unconditional love.
When driving and passing people in their cars or on the street, think to yourself, “I love you and I bless you.” (this gives your mind and your heart a good job to do, without getting distracted by worries, or by anger about errant drivers. Your mind is just like a German Shepherd. It’s smart. It needs a job, all of the time. Give it a good job.)

Now if you prefer to stay in your overthinking, judgy, “stressed to the gills” mind/ego, here are some good ways to stay totally in your mindstate:

Think of everyone and everything that annoys you (in detail) and think, with an air of superiority, about why you are right and they are wrong.
Try to control everyone and everything going on around you, and sit in the feeling of utter, quickly growing frustration during this continuous, never-ending lesson in futility.
Think of your own worst fears and worries and think of all of the worst case scenarios that could happen from your worst fears and worries. Obsess on these outcomes. Let them grow exponentially. Use your imagination.
Spend at least two to three hours with Dr. Google, after experiencing a slight, but unusual pain in your neck.
Keep the news on, in the background 24/7, and check other news stories, compulsively on your phone at the same time, just to make sure that your mind is getting fed all of the negative news that is available to you, right in the moment.
Spend a good deal of your time beating yourself up for not being thin enough, or productive enough, or kind enough, or stylish enough, or smart enough. Be your own worst critic. Be creative with your harshness. Add a lot of sarcasm, just to be clever and cruel.
Replay in your mind, every past experience that has already happened, and start making harsh judgments about the whole event. Cut down and criticize yourself, others, and all of the players who you can think of who were involved in the situation, until you are depleted and exhausted. Stew in your gripes. Be sure to be extra nit-picky and passive aggressive. Repeat on a never-ending cycle.

“Every soul is whole, no matter how wounded the mind is.” Your soul is whole, baby. Pick your soul every time. Your mind is just like a German Shepherd. It needs to be redirected to do helpful things for you, in your overall life. Your mind isn’t bad. It just likes to have a job, and to work all of the time. So give your mind some training. Make your German Shepherd mind an excellent working dog that does good, helpful work for you – work that supports you, and guards you from harm (especially from yourself). On the other hand, your soul doesn’t need any training. Your soul is the glorious, holy resting place for you, and your German Shepherd mind. Give your mind lots of breaks, just letting it relax in the whole of your soul. Your soul is whole, baby. It is your source of life, love, peace and replenishment. It is the perfect part of you, and it is available to you, forever.

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

Soul Sunday

Sundays, on the blog, are devoted to poetry. Writing in prose feels like communicating with others, whereas writing poetry feels like communicating with oneself. When I write in prose, I am trying to express myself in a way that I better understand myself and my feelings, and I hope that this expression, clearly communicates what I am thinking and knowing and feeling about anything or any circumstance. Prose desires validation and attention and clear articulation. On the other hand, poetry is really the most private form of writing. It is always open-ended, and deeply affected by individual interpretation. Prose is like a portrait painting, and poetry is more like abstract art. Write yourself a poem today. You deserve one. Here is my poem for today:

Sometimes, some days a poem just doesn’t happen

The riddle of where it is, is like a mermaid’s fin.

It prefers to stay a mystery below the surface,

An unhealed wound, without a kiss.

Bringing it to light feels too harsh and too soon.

So the sweet little poem, grows safely in its private cocoon.

So today, when you arrived here, you did not get a poem.

Instead, you got the poet.

She is here, not because of her words, but because of her love for you,

I hope that you deeply know it.

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

Just Bloom

I’ve mentioned on the blog that I love my plants and jardinière. Yesterday evening, I looked over at my lovely figurehead lady, who has probably adorned our lanai for at least seven or eight years. (And in that time, she sure has weathered some storms.) She has housed a few different plants during all of these years, but never, ever, has her hat of flowers looked more fabulous and ornate and celebratory than right now. I smiled because it reminded me of a news story I read recently. An 82-year-old Oklahoma woman dressed up, and she wore a hat for her Zoom church meetings, 52 weeks in a row, during this terrible pandemic. Bloom where you are planted, right? We don’t always have a lot of control about what goes on all around us, but as we weather our storms, we do have a choice to do it in style and flair, and in hope.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/03/31/sunday-virtual-church-outfit/

Stylish woman dresses up for Zoom church every Sunday

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

Little Spark of Friday

Good morning, friends and readers! Happy Friday!!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! On Fridays, I forget about delving deep, and instead, I list three favorite things, or songs, or websites, or whatevers, that have added some zest to my everyday life. I strongly encourage you to add your favorites to my Comments section. Isn’t life wonderful when we have a lot of wonderful things to experience and to enjoy and to celebrate?

Jeff Allen, comedian – I’ve been a little under the weather the last few days. (It’s nothing serious, don’t worry. I think that I’m just a little worn out from all of the atypical activity going on in my life, since about mid-April.) Anyway, I believe that laughter is the best medicine. So yesterday, I stayed in bed, and I watched comedians all day long. There are so many great comedians out there, but Jeff Allen makes me howl with laughter. He’s a clean comedian, and he is hysterical. (If you like to keep it clean with your comedy, check out any of the Dry Bar specials on YouTube.) If you need a big dose of laughter medicine, here’s a clip:

Evian Feed Your Mind Water – This is Evian water in a can! And yet the can is so sleek and elegant looking, you still know that you are drinking Evian. This mineral water is tasty, thirst quenching, zero calories and it is infused with both magnesium and zinc, which have been my go-to supplements since this whole COVID mess started. The Feed Your Mind collection features three different flavors of water. Splurge on this line of Evian. You won’t regret it.

Best Grilling Tip – I recently saw a clip on the internet about putting ice cubes in your burgers when you start grilling them, because it keeps the moisture all locked in and the meat is good and juicy, when it is ready to be eaten. It works! I even tried “the ice cube tip” on a tenderloin that I broiled in my oven and it still works!!! If you prefer not to break your teeth on your meat, get out your ice cube tray.

I hope that you have a lovely, enjoyable, awe-striking, yet comfortable and peaceful weekend, my friends!

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

Good Times

There’s a stand-up comedian, Dusty Slay, whose catch phrase is “We’re having a good time.” He says that most comedians leave the overall atmosphere up to chance, or up to the critical opinions of others, by asking their audiences, “Are you having a good time?” Dusty decides just to manifest it. Throughout his set, he makes a point of throwing in the decisive statement, “We’re having a good time.” The way that Dusty says it sounds so reassuring and light, and it comes across like, “Chill out, man, we’re just having fun.” You can’t help but agree with him.

I’ve decided to keep Dusty’s friendly voice, with its catchy, southern twang, in the back of my mind, for times when things seem just too serious (or for when I make times too serious in my own mind, which is an unfortunate tendency of mine). I repeat to myself, “We’re having a good time.” I figure that even if it isn’t a particularly good time, I’ll at least get a giggle out of it. Like yesterday, when I was driving home from helping my youngest son move some of his stuff to a new apartment at his university, and then having to drive back home through the pouring rain, with a huge load of some of my son’s other stuff rolling around in the car, while the usual crazies on the slick highway, were weaving through 18 wheelers and oversized loads, as if it were an Olympic sport. I just repeated to myself, “We’re having a good time.” “Good times, we’re going for gold!” The statement makes me smile to myself, every time I think about it. I am sure that Dusty would be happy to let you use the phrase liberally, in your own life, too. “We’re having a good time.”

It’s Thursday. It’s summer. It’s late July. It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s bright. We’re alive. “We’re having a good time.”

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

We All Fall Down

“We see these athletes do superhuman things. They are still just human.” – Adam Rippon (discussing Simone Biles, choosing to pull out of the Olympics gymnastics finals)

“As much as I’m disappointed, I know that when I step on the track I represent not only myself, I represent a community that has shown great support, great love … I apologize for the fact that I didn’t know how to control my emotions or deal with my emotions during that time.” She added, for her fans, “Don’t judge me. I’m human, I’m you. I just run a little faster.” – Sha’Carri Richardson, runner who was disqualified for the Olympics due to failing a test for marijuana in her system

“I know it might not make sense that someone who writes for a living, literally, could find herself so unable to say what needed to be said. But that’s the truth. I was wounded, & I waited too long.” – Best-selling Christian author Shauna Niequist, answering critics as to why it took her a long time to speak out about her father having to step down from a Chicago mega-church, due to many allegations of sexual improprieties

Shauna is human, too. We are all human. That doesn’t excuse or explain away our mistakes. Most of us ended up paying some sort of consequences for our mistakes. And the truth is, most of us are so much harder on our own selves than anyone else is, when we disappoint ourselves and we disappoint others, by not living up to the standards which we have created for ourselves. Mistakes are part of being human. Imperfections are part of being human. Falling down sometimes is part of being human. Not living up to our own, or to others’ expectations all of the time, is just one part of our being human.

Not being able to finish the Olympics, dashing the hopes of yourself and so many others, or not being able to even attend the Olympics and represent your country, due to an emotional slip-up, or being a wordsmith and yet not being able to find the right words to say about your father (and pastor) being publicly disgraced by his own egregious misdeeds, are all tough, “on display” events that most of us will never, ever, even come close to experiencing. The old saying goes, “The higher you climb, the harder you fall.” The most amazingly talented people among us, have put fear aside, to see how far they can climb with their passions and their abilities and their aspirations and their strengths and their powers, and we are so inspired by them. Yet we also put them on these gilded pedestals, as if they are emotionless statues of perfection. Still at the same time, how quick we are to judge these colossally talented people, and to deride them when they fall down from their great heights, and lie broken. We forgot that they were never statues. They are humans.

Perhaps it is easier for us to see wildly successful people as other-worldly superheroes. “I’m not that talented. I could never do that.” “He was born with all of that ability. It’s easy for him.” “She had a leg up. She’s naturally beautiful, or a genius, or from a rich family.” Schadenfreude is the German word for pleasure felt when someone else experiences misfortune. Don’t worry or be ashamed about having felt schadenfreude. Everyone has felt schadenfreude one time or another. It’s only human to do so. Sadly, we most often feel schadenfreude towards those who have roused us to our own great heights, by being amazing examples of all that humans are capable of doing and of being.

Perhaps what we are mostly upset about when someone doesn’t live up to “the hype”, is the very real reminder that we are all human, even those humans among us who seem more like other-worldly superhumans. Maybe that scares us or disappoints us about ourselves. Maybe when the mighty fall, we have to come to the realization that perhaps we ourselves are just too scared to test the heights of our own strengths and powers. When we see that someone is human, by having fallen down, we also realize that it was this very same human who did some incredibly amazing and difficult achievements, in the first place.

We will all fall down at times, and we will rise again. It’s the human in us. We all have our own unique abilities that we get inspired to explore, and to grow, and to hone, because of the others who have shown us the way, by making the utmost of their own special skills and talents and gifts. As humans, we have a choice, we can sneer at the fallen, or we can offer a hand of compassion, to pull them back up. Our deepest shared humanity is always inclined to extend a hand.

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

Important to Repeat

Friends, I woke up this morning with a bad cold, which is utterly shocking. With all of this mask wearing and social distancing, I can’t tell you the last time that I have had a cold. I almost forgot what it feels like to be sick. For reminder’s sake, it’s yucky.

Also, this morning I woke up to the sad news that one of my favorite people/pups on Twitter, Rex Masters, lost his beloved sister to her death this morning. My heart aches for him, and I have never met, nor conversed with the man, in my life. I feel like Rex might be out there on my blog space, or a fellow fan of his might be out there because I wrote a blog post about him one time, over a year ago, and today somebody looked at it. Rex, I am so, so sorry for your loss. Here is the post that I wrote about Rex Masters, a while ago:

Me and Dog Named Rex

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

Monday – Funday

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

I love baloney. There are times in life that just call for a fried baloney sandwich. Facts. I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. There is a famous restaurant there, that puts french fries and cole slaw on top of all of their sandwiches. I would always get the fried baloney version, topped with cheese and french fries and cole slaw. Heaven on bread. (Pittsburgh also perfected/invented? the steak salad, which is a giant pile of steak, french fries and loads of cheese, on top of some lettuce. By the time you finish the toppings, you never even get to the salad part, but at least you can say that you had “a salad” for dinner.)