middle age Archives - Page 167 of 209 - Adulting: Second- Half

Bait Fish

Fortune for the day – “Luck never made a person wise.” – Seneca

My friend’s husband made a wonderful, easy to visualize analogy the other day. He said that this is one of those times of the year that many of us start to feel like bait fish, with a thousand little have-tos, annoyances, self-created problems and projects, appointments, trips to plan, work issues, tax issues, health issues, house issues etc. etc. nibbling at us, tearing us apart, one teeny bite at a time. If you look at those poor bait fish in the picture above, they certainly aren’t faring that well, at all. I suppose the same could be said about us, when we let our lives swim out of control.

Similarly, I once read that if you dream that you have little bugs crawling all around you or on you, you are having one of those bait fish moments, in your life. (or if it’s a really lucid dream, check your bed closely, for bed bugs) These types of dreams signify that you probably have too many things on your mind, too many things coming at you from every direction possible, and your subconscious is trying to get your attention to simplify, using a dramatic, disturbing, creepy, crawly bug dream to wake you up to your living reality that is currently just too much to handle, right now, for you.

Peter McWilliams said this, “You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want . . .. . Living on this planet has some down-to-earth limitations. First we can put our body in only one place at a time. Second there are only 24 hours a day, 365 (or 366) days per year. Third, the human lifetime is only so long (150 years seems to be tops). . . . The limitations become even more severe when we consider the time we spend on maintenance: sleeping, washing, eating – and some of us even have to make money to pay for all of that.”

He also said this, “You can have anything you want. Pick what you want most and if it’s available, if it doesn’t already belong to someone else (who wants to keep it) – you can have it. . . . The catch? The more unobtainable the “want” you want, the more you must sacrifice to get it. It’s not that you can’t have it, it’s that you’ll have to give up many and maybe all other things.”

I am seeing this phenomenon happening with my middle son right now. He aspires to go to medical school. He is a junior in college. He is trying to balance keeping his grades up, studying for the MCAT, making money being a teaching assistant, keeping a healthy relationship with his girlfriend, and still trying to stay physically robust and strong. He lamented to me recently that this has been his least favorite semester in college. He has had to forgo almost all of his social life with his fraternity and unlike most of his friends, he is coming home for his spring break, to focus entirely on studying for the MCAT, the test that largely determines, if and where, you will attend medical school. There are no guarantees, at this point. My son and I talked about how his dreams and his future are worth this sacrifice, as hard as it is to “miss out” right now.

As McWilliams states, “At a certain point in most everyone’s life – rich, poor, organized, or scattered – the wants outnumber the available hours in the day. At that point, a want must go a-wanting. . . . The solution is preventative: choose carefully at the outset. Be grateful that, although you can’t have everything, some very nice anythings await your selection.”

Perhaps if you are feeling “buggy” or “bait fishy” right now, it is time to become more selective and choosy as to where you are putting your time and your energy. There is always time for brief pauses to breathe, to reflect, to let go, and to reset. If you don’t take those pauses for yourself, those pauses of consideration, those pauses that are making sure that you are living your priorities, then sometimes major pauses, will be forced upon you, by a worn out body, or a neglected partner, or a frustrated boss, or a mental breakdown, etc. etc. Be a healthy fish. Swim in clearer water, with a vision of what you want your place in the pond to look like – the place that is perfect for you. Let go of the rest.

Soul Sunday

Fortune for the Day – “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa

Good morning, my dear friends and readers. I hope that you are well today. New readers, Sundays are dedicated to poetry here at Adulting-Second Half. Please share your poems in the Comments. Soul Sunday, has quickly become my most popular, “read” day on the blog. That tells me that poetry moves many souls, in many ways. Share your poems, friends. When you share your poems, I think that you share your most intimate, less “crafted” self. And that is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself and to the world.

Here is my poem for the day:

Cleaning Out the Garage

There’s a heap of our family life,

Unceremoniously dumped on the curb of the drive.

A litany of sports played by the kids,

starting with small plastic bats, moving on to helmets.

Helmets for everything – bike riding, lacrosse, softball.

Old suitcases, cracked and weathered with age and wear,

But once the housers of our treasures and trinkets as they witnessed,

The grand adventures of our chaotic family vacations.

The suitcases are piled on top of the piles and piles and piles of rags.

Rags, that once started out as the nice, fresh, new towels,

Only to brought out for guests, but after years of use,

Relegated to the rag pile in the garage, best used to wipe down cars.

No one has taken the electric scooter yet,

The in-line skates are past their prime.

The bike baskets are charming, but faded and crumbly.

It takes a great deal of fortitude to clean out the garage.

Most especially, emotional fortitude.

A small piece of my heart is faintly beating,

Underneath the heap of our family life, lying by the road.

Sexy and Alive

Image result for yazemeenah rossi — This is Yazemeenah Rossi, a 63-year-old top paid model and photographer. She didn’t even start a modeling career until her late forties. Below is an excerpt from an interview that she had with a London magazine called *Sweaty Betty*, I’ve highlighted the parts of the interview that **really struck a chord with me**.

What’s the secret to a healthy lifestyle?

Happiness is what makes you glow, not just the healthy food you put in your body. It’s not a question of hair, makeup or clothes. We have to realise that the beauty of it is that we are all different.

What is happiness to you?

Water. Yoga. Fresh, organic food that I cook myself. To live in a peaceful place with light and a view of the ocean. To live at my own pace, doing what I want, when I want. These are my basic needs.

Can you tell us your beauty secrets?

There is no big secret, all I have ever done is eat organic food long before it became trendy. I also love olive oil, I rub it on my skin every day. Aging is an organic, natural process that I have no power over — unless you count the power of letting go.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I never give advice, I give information. Be free and don’t judge yourself. Take advantage of how you are. As I’ve got older I’ve realised sexy means alive. I’m alive.

Fancy

Fortune for the Day- “The winds of grace are always blowing; it is for us to raise our sails.” – Ramakrishna

My two middle boys belong to the same fraternity, at the same university. I am delighted that they invited me to “Moms’ Weekend”, coming up here in a few weeks. I just spent about an hour, scouring the internet and making phone calls to find the absolute, very last hotel room available, in decent proximity to the fraternity house for that weekend. Turns out, I’m going to be paying for 5-star accommodations at a 2-star hovel. I guess that it just wouldn’t be proper to crash at the fraternity house. (Was it ever proper for me to crash at a fraternity house??) It turns out that weekend also has some popular events going on in town, such as an anime convention, a food truck rally and “IndiaFest.” I have a feeling that there is going to be quite the interesting crowd in their college town that weekend. I should have a lot to write about. Stay tuned . . . .

Image result for funny quotes about bad hotels

3 Good Things

Warning: This scene requires a very accessible box of tissues. I don’t watch the TV show “New Amsterdam”, but this scene was recommended for me to watch, by a friend. I was overwhelmed. I then passed it on to a group of friends. After watching the scene, we kind of all spontaneously told each other why we loved each other, and we all talked about things/traits/characteristics that had NOTHING to do with what we do for each other. It was a poignant, vulnerable, yet amazingly wonderful, beautiful time in our friendships’ history.

Too often we all think that we have worth in other people’s eyes, only for what we do (or can do) for them. We think we only have value for what we can provide for other people and thus, we get all of our self-worth externally, which is so unhealthy. Think about it. Often what we love most about the other important people in our lives, are their quirks, their unique personality traits that make them shine, their talents, their way they go about “doing life” that is so very particular to that one individual, yet so inspiring to the rest of us. We love and appreciate the kindness and the vulnerability that the people who we love show to us, by sharing their very real, core selves with us.

On our girls’ weekend, a few weeks ago, one of my friends said something to the effect that she has NO idea what her friends think of her. At the moment, no one was in a sappy mood, so the comment probably got met with some snarky, clever sarcasm and we all probably got a big laugh out of it all. Still, the truth is, it is so much easier to poke fun at our friends and loved ones, than to bare our souls, and to bravely tell them, honestly, why they are so incredibly special to us. But maybe, just maybe, the people whom we love, deserve to hear that lovely truth about themselves every once in a while. It would make me sad to think that my husband, my children, my relatives and my friends (and even my pets) would think that I only love them for what they do for me.

When I was a third grader, I had an incredibly kind teacher. She’s one of those teachers who will stand out to me, forever. She was a life-changer. Her name was Mrs. Simmerman. Every week, she would put one of our names on the Bulletin Board and throughout the week, we students would write anonymous, yet kind words and statements about what we thought was so special about that particular classmate. When the week was over, Mrs. Simmerman would read all of the kind, loving, interesting things written about the student and then, the student got to take home and to keep that particular poster, listing all the amazing traits about themselves. Whomever’s week it was to be focused on/loved on, seemed to have an extra spring in his or her step, and a little bit of a puffed out chest that week. Being cared about and being really noticed and seen and appreciated, made not just that particular student, but all of us students, very, very happy.

I think all of this mushy mush, is just a great reminder that we truly LOVE people for WHO they are, not just for what they do. We are all just unique enough to add a ray of life and color and thread, to this world which we are co-creating, that no one else even has the capability to match. We are all indispensable to the whole, and sometimes it is nice to be reminded why we are invaluable to this Life which we live, and we create together. As you think about why you love the people whom you love and you cherish, remember that they feel the very same way about you and your gifts to the world, in just you being, uniquely you.

Fortune for the Day – “When you possess light within, you see it externally.” – Anais Nin

Slow and Steady

Yesterday, my husband, my daughter and I swam with manatees. The one pictured above is one of many manatees who we met on our adventure. I have been wanting to swim with manatees since we moved to Florida almost nine years ago. They are the sweetest, most docile, gentle giants you could ever come across in the wild. This experience was one of my most favorite adventures in nature that I have ever experienced and I have done a lot of wandering around in nature, in my forty-nine years. What I learned from this is, don’t let your life just pass on by, without making sure you are getting everything that you want out of it. Take the time and energy and resources, to plan in the bucket list items. Life is fleeting. I forgot my little bag of fortunes, so today’s fortune comes from a manatee magnet in the gift shop:

“Slow and steady wins the race.”

Soothing Sunday

Fortune for the day -“They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them.” – Bhagavad Gita

Good, beautiful Sunday morning. It’s a lovely day here. The sun is shining, the lake is still, the air is calm. It’s like the day is quietly, patiently inviting us to become part of it. Sundays are soulful here at Adulting – Second Half. Sundays are our poetry workshop days. I share a poem and I ask you to share some of your poems in the Comments section. A few of my braver readers have shared such gorgeous poems in the past. Please share yours, too. In the words of Peter McWilliams:

One of the great joys of life is creativity. Information goes in, get shuffled about, and comes out in new and interesting ways. . . . It doesn’t matter that you don’t know how to do it “perfectly.” . . . Does it give you joy? Does it give you satisfaction? Is it fun? Does it make you feel more in touch with the creative flow of life? . . . . Then do it.

Here’s my poem for today:

The Lake

The lake is like watching a reflection of my emotions,

Sometimes so quietly still, almost to the point of solid nothingness,

Sometimes so turbulent, I dare not venture too far in,

Sometimes a surprising disturbance, the unexpected jumps out,

Creating ripples, not in great haste, to disappear.

The lake appears so very deep, yet it has its shallows.

The lake houses a lot of life in its teeming depths,

It’s not nearly as placid as it seems, underneath it all.

Whether tranquil or churned up, the lake is truly beautiful.

The lake is complicated and simple, all at once.

Being, reflecting, moving, idling, housing, holding, drowning.

Sometimes a sanctuary, sometimes a death trap.

Always there, but never the same.

The lake of my emotions.

Attendance Excuse

Fortune for the day – “With true friends, even water drunk is sweet enough.” – Chinese proverb

My daughter stayed home from school yesterday. She wasn’t sick. She didn’t have anything special outside of school, to attend. She wasn’t ill-prepared for a test. My daughter is not a senior and it was not a “senior skip day.” My daughter stayed home from school because someone had made a shooting threat to her high school, over social media. We live in Florida and the demographics of our high school are very similar to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the horrific Parkland shootings occurred two years ago on Valentines Day. Despite our school principal sending an email of “assurance” that there would be extra police protection on campus, a lot of parents made the same decision that we did, and they, too, kept their children home from school. My daughter’s friend texted her that there were four kids in her first period class. Thankfully, blessedly, no incident occurred and supposedly arrests have been made, concerning the threats made on social media, but sending our children to school was not a risk many of us parents were willing to take. It’s hard to walk the fine line between not living in fear and anxiety, yet accepting the cold, hard realities of today’s world. I don’t know the answers to this terrible violence problem that we have in our country, so for me, right now, this problem remains solidly in my prayer box. And in the meantime, I will control what I can control. My daughter stayed home from school yesterday, for no other reason than we feared for her life and for her safety.

“There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.” – Napolean Bonaparte

“Violence isn’t always evil. What’s evil is the infatuation with violence.” – Jim Morrison

“In violence we forget who we are.” – Mary McCarthy

“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolute night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands.” – Ernest Gaines

The Honey On Top

I told my husband that football season is over, and thus, it is “movie season.” We have watched a movie practically every night this week. I love it. My husband kindly goes along with it, as I did, watching a lot of football, this past fall. The other night, we watched the heart-wrenching film, Honey Boy, based on Shia LaBeouf’s childhood experiences with his alcoholic father. It’s a tough watch, but it’s a good one.

What a like about books and movies is that almost always, besides being entertained and/or emotionally engaged, I also glean some sort of practical knowledge, to put into my proverbial tool box, which I carry around with me, while experiencing my life. So, the handy dandy tidbits that stuck with me from Honey Boy, are two items that the Shia-based character learns in rehab. One, is to hug yourself. I know, it sounds silly. It looked silly in the movie. I remember hugging myself as a kid and moving my hands up and down my back, as a prank, making it look like I was making out with someone, when I was viewed from behind. I don’t know about making out with yourself, but apparently, hugging yourself is a “real” thing. There is scientific proof that hugging yourself releases “feel good” hormones that help to ease your current pain or stress. Go ahead. Give it a try right now. No one is looking. Awwww! This is soon to become a habit, right?

The second tip is that when you feel yourself emotionally overloaded, a quick way to get back to center, is to force yourself to name four things in the room or area that you are currently in. It’s a quick and easy way to stop your mind from racing with escalating thoughts, which in turn, are provoking turbulent emotions. It’s your own personal “time out”, when you feel yourself losing emotional control. Desk. Candle. Clock. Screen. So easy, so simple, so useful.

These two suggestions were worth my time and money spent on the movie, even if I had not cared for the movie, at all. Everything has its worth, if we look for it. Here’s the fortune for the day:

“Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.” – Colette

Template for Being

My friend sent this to our group chat this morning. I am going to make this my “template for being”, for the rest of 2020. This is the perfect year to become your own best friend. One time when I was muddling around with a tough decision, one of my dear friends said to me, “What advice would you give to me, in this situation?” That was a huge perspective changer. I am much softer, kinder, more compassionate, forgiving and understanding with my friends and my family, than I tend to be with myself. We work hard to be “good” in relationships, but we often leave the most important relationship out of that equation. Our most important relationship is with ourselves. No one will be with us longer, on this Earth. And if that statement still feels/sounds/seems too “selfish” understand that it follows that we cannot love others any better than we love ourselves. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. I am guessing that Jesus wanted us to love our neighbors a whole lot better, than the conditional, demeaning, cold, harsh way that we sometimes treat ourselves. It also follows that if we don’t learn to love ourselves, we are starving for love, so we try to suck it dry from other people/things/experiences outside of ourselves. We soon find that our neediness, or that “giving to get”, doesn’t work in the long term, and we start resenting the very people and objects we claim to love, and thus, a vicious cycle continues.

Be your own best friend for the rest of this year. Make a Valentines pact to fall in love with yourself. When you listen to your inner critic, ask yourself, “Would I speak to my best friend this way?” When you make a health/life/relationship choice, ask yourself, “Would I advise my best friend make this choice?” When you give the gift of time, money or service, ask yourself, “Is my motivation to give here, clearly altruistic, or am I secretly trying to manipulate getting one of my needs met from outside sources (and if so, can I find a way to meet these needs myself)? Am I keeping expectations chained to this “gift”?” When you let other people dictate how your life should go/be/look like, ask yourself, “Would I want my best friend to give his or her power away? Would I want my best friend to be a victim?” People don’t realize that if we all experienced our own lives, acting as our own best friends, the world would be a happier, healthier, more loving, giving place than it has ever been before. The following verse from the Bible is read to us at practically every wedding that we ever attend. Try to look at it in the context of loving yourself. It takes on a whole, interesting new meaning and depth, doesn’t it?

No fortune for today, pure Love is our greatest fortune.