middle age Archives - Page 174 of 206 - Adulting: Second- Half

Love Better.

Love better

Love is the most important thing in our lives, yet we are taught very little about it. One Love is on a mission to change that. We educate young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships, empowering them to identify and avoid abuse and learn how to love better.

The above entry is from the One Love Foundation. (joinonelove.org) Last night, I was reading an article about the CEO and the background of this foundation, and I thought to myself, “Oh, I’ve got to save this for Favorite Things Friday. This is a great website.” The Ted Talk, lead by the CEO of the foundation, Katie Hood, is an excellent watch.

Honestly, I planned to make this website one of my Friday favorites, mostly for myself, as a saved resource for my daughter and for my sons, and for my friends’ children, and for the girls whom I mentor, and for you, my readers and your children. Sometimes, I see a great resource or website or an article and then I forget about it, or where I saw it and I try to find it again in the massive mountain of information piled on the internet, and it is sadly, Mission Impossible to do so. My blog has become my treasure trove of what strikes a chord in me, and thus, hopefully, it can be helpful to others, as well. Still, I woke up this morning, thinking about this foundation’s mission and I thought, “This can’t wait until Friday. It’s too important.”

One Love was created by the Love Family. In 2010, a University of Virginia lacrosse player, Yeardley Love, was violently killed by her ex-boyfriend, also a UVA lacrosse player, right before they were both to graduate from college. In retrospect, all of the signs of a dramatic, unhealthy, abusive relationship were there, waving their red flags. Unfortunately, though, a lot of people (even smart, educated people from loving families) are colorblind to red flags in relationships because as the above statement says, we as a society, don’t do a whole lot to teach young people about love. We don’t do much teaching about what is healthy and what is not healthy when it comes to love or any other type of relationships.

Yeardley Love, was a beautiful, athletic, talented young woman who came from a loving, prosperous family. I remember in college joking that there was an obvious inverse curve when it came to relationships. Often, the prettiest, most ambitious, most campus involved, women with the highest GPAs, who I knew – the women who seemed to have “their sh*t together in every other regard (pardon my French), would often have the least healthy relationships out of all of us, with really toxic men. Yeardley and her boyfriend would have proven that hypothesis. It’s not really a funny joke, though. Obviously.

The old model for love relationships has kind of been a try, experience and learn, without much direction from anybody. But too often those experimental relationships turn deadly or leave lasting scars that color all future relationships to come. I really like what One Love is on a mission to do, in terms of educating young people and giving them some insight and direction.

That being said, I think One Love needs to add a precedent to these videos and lessons about relationships with other people. I think, we as a society, have to teach and model to our young ones how to learn to love themselves and how to have healthy relationships with themselves, first. I copied this quote into my notebook recently by Melanie Tonia Evans:

“Most of us won’t stay in relationships in which the level of love is below what we feel for ourselves.” Evans then goes on to say this:

“We have as yet not become a solid source of love, approval, survival and security for ourselves and we hold other people responsible for meeting our needs.”

Narcissism is a huge buzz word these days, but it is still largely misunderstood. People equate self-love with narcissism, but nothing could be further from the truth. True narcissism is a personality disorder, usually formed at a young age as a defense mechanism from abusive or neglectful experiences. A true narcissist has no sense of true self, and can only find his or her reflection and sense of self from others, hence often being called “energy vampires.” A healthy person with good self-esteem and full of self-love and who is capable of self-care, has absolutely no need to take anything from anyone. They are brimming with confidence and comfort, that comes from within themselves. A healthy person understands the bounty of their own grace and the grace bestowed on others.

Often, especially in a competitive society such as ours, our children think that they need to do special things, to be high achievers, or to stand out in some form, in order to be noticed and to be loved. They are searching for love and approval from outside sources. They have put conditions on whether or not, they are worthy enough to be loved.

If we are honest with ourselves, what kind of love are we modeling to our children? Do we love ourselves unconditionally? Do we treat ourselves with kindness, understanding and respect at all times? As a mother of four children, I have seen again and again, that children are much more likely to model what we do, than any lecture we give to them.

Love better. It is such a good mantra. We can only love better when we fully understand what true unconditional love looks like and what it feels like, when we choose to embody it. Better love is there, inside of each of us, ready to come out into action form, for ourselves and for others. People like the Love family understand that, as they are turning this horrific tragedy into a revolution of change in the ways our young people approach love, and life, and relationships. If that isn’t the deepest form of love, I don’t know what is . . . . .

Gummy Cubs

This week I purchased a couple of bags of teeny tiny gummy bears from The Fresh Market. They are like baby gummy bears. They are gummy bear cubs. These little cubbies taste amazing . They taste way better than regular sized gummy bears. Why is that? I hate that baby anything tastes really good – veal, chicken eggs, grapes before they turn into raisins. It’s just not right. But who doesn’t pick out the raisins from their oatmeal cookies? Let’s just be honest.

Have a silly Sunday! See you tomorrow.

Jumping to Conclusions

If you really want to test how positive or optimistic a person that you really are, watch your reaction to someone, who you love, not texting you back quickly, or not showing up immediately to a planned get-together.

Image result for over reacting when someone doesn't text back right away memes

My friends and I had a hilarious discussion about our overreactions to everything. I have very smart, creative, imaginative friends, but like all things, being smart and creative and imaginative, can be a blessing and a curse. A friend of ours was meeting a mutual friend, but when she showed up, the friend wasn’t there. She texted the rest of us and said that the friend wasn’t responding to texts or calls. We all started reassuring our friend for about three minutes, but then the texting wildly veered into questions of car accidents, heart attacks, amnesia, early onset Alzheimer’s, passive-aggressive behavior from someone who secretly doesn’t like you, etc. etc. . . . . Turns out, a few minutes later, there was a text back to my friend and it was all just a very explainable miscommunication. Yawn.

Why do we go to over-reactions so often? Any time that I lose something and I can’t find it, before you know it, I am convinced that a very stealthy, clever robber (who probably lives in my attic) has stolen it. It never fails, I find the nail clippers or the pizza cutter, soon after my mind goes to crazy-land. In this particular situation, I know why I over-react. I’ve conditioned myself to believe that when I start blaming other people (real or fictitious) for my own foibles, the Universe will send me a lesson. I’ll find my object (yay!), but I will have the right dose of guilt and shame to punish myself for believing that someone is out to harm me. It’s a lesson that I’ve never fully learned and digested, because I do it to myself, again and again and again.

I wonder if we over-react for the adrenaline rush – the excitement, the flush the that comes to our cheeks, with our hearts pounding. I wonder if we do it to ourselves, because our otherwise normal, day-to-day life seems somewhat routine, dull, and boring. If we over-react, our lives are seemingly filled with mystery, intrigue and diabolical characters, just like the movies.

I always feel stupid and annoyed with myself when I realized I pushed my own panic button. I preach to myself (and to others, if I am honest) to stay in the moment, live in the now, deal with things as they come, but actions speak louder than word, right? I am also annoyed with how my mind always goes to the worst case scenario. Maybe, as a self-professed optimist, I need to take baby steps. I’ll allow myself to still over-think, and to over-hypothesize, but this creative over-reaction must always lean to the positive.

Instant Bake Oven

I purchased a few boxes of those “cake in a mug”, single serving cakes and brownies that you just add water to the mix in a mug, microwave and “Voila!” I bought them mostly for my daughter who loves to bake and who wishes that we kept more bake goods around the house. Unfortunately for her, I have virtually no self-control when it comes to sweets, so I can’t have them around (especially now that I no longer have to compete with three teenage boys, for whatever is in the pantry). I have to rely on my laziness to not want to get into the car, put on some lipstick, drive in the car, park and go into a store, in order to buy any goodies and other irresistible temptations that are likely to fall into my cart, especially if they are buy-one-get-one. And if I am too lazy to do that, certainly I am not up to getting out the mixer, the ingredients, the bowls, the spoons, preparing everything, baking, cleaning everything up, all for a plate of cookies that is going to last two minutes, tops, in physical form, in our household, and inevitably add six pounds to my waistline by the end of the day.

So, I thought as a nice gesture, I would buy her these single packets, as her busy school/activity schedule doesn’t allow for her to do much baking either.

“So, how are the instant mug desserts?” I asked my daughter, smiling hopefully.

“Eh,” she said. (In some weird way, while I was bummed for her, I was sort of relieved. If she said, “Great!”, before long I would have wandered into the kitchen, picked out an extra large mug and at least two packets of the easy bake oven mix, as I’ve never been good at following recipes to the T. Then, I would have nuked up my own sugar bomb in the microwave, in seconds flat. And then, one to two hours later, I would have repeated the process, maybe even saving some time and just eating the batter. It just occurred to me that these mixes are the descendants of the Easy Bake Oven family, but instead of the anticipation of a light bulb SLOWLY cooking your food, like all things today, you get much more instant gratification, with the seconds flat microwave option)

“You know,” my daughter said. “They over-simplify things these days. I would have more than willing to crack an egg, just for something just a little bit more satisfying.”

How refreshing to hear a 15-year-old complain about today’s world being too focused on immediate gratification! There’s hope for us yet.

“We’ve become so addicted to instant gratification that we’re blind to the impact it has on our lives.”
― Frank Sonnenberg

“We want instant lunch, instant cure, instant miracles, instant salary, instant success— instant everything. This instant civilization, we have obsessed with, has made us grow a tad too impatient in virtually everything about life. And, of course, that doesn’t serve us so well.”
― Boniface Sagini

Shiitake on Gossip

On the way to school this morning, my daughter and I were discussing one of her classes that bores her to tears. She said, “You know, Mom, I just don’t give a shiitake mushroom about it.” That got us into a fit of giggling. I think that captures the Monday morning sentiment for most of us. My husband wondered aloud this morning, “I wonder how many people consider Monday their favorite day of the week.” We all agreed that these people would have to be very rare birds. (or mushrooms)

As you know, I am not above perusing gossip columns. (at least I own it) I check out Perez Hilton, radaronline, TMZ, etc. once in a blue moon, or if I am honest, once in a moon of any shape, size or color. I look at these websites to stay light and bemused (and probably to scoff in a tone of superiority – “Why are these people so famous? This is ridiculous” and then I say to myself, “Well, it could be because even middle-aged people like you, who can’t put a name to most of these young celebrities, read these stupid columns for ?!fun?!”). I, of course, go into my reading of the gossip, with a cynical mindset. My shadow side likes to read the Comments to the gossip the best, for the snarky, witty amusements. I, of course, never expect to glean any wise insights from these Comments which more often than not, take any stupid Hollywood gossip straight to the dark, divided road of political and racial issues. So, anyway, imagine my surprise when I actually found the need to write a Comment to a gossip story down in my special, precious wisdom notebook, to ponder myself, and to share with you, my friends and readers.

The story in question which I was perusing this weekend, was gossip about Justin Bieber’s and Hailey Baldwin’s upcoming nuptials. Now I, like a lot of the world, thought that these two were already married, but honestly, I don’t care enough to find out the true backstory. (as if finding out a true story about anything is actually even possible these days – it’s funny to me, that at a day and age of information onslaught, when nothing is seemingly secret or sacred, we know less truth about anything than ever before, but that’s for another blog) The Comments section about this Buzzfeed story, was abuzz with wiseacres putting bets on to whether this relationship would last more than two years. Some romantics really like these two celebrities, and were hoping that the Baldwin/Bieber marriage would last “forever.” Here’s where the wisdom popped out of the Comments section, like a huge gold nugget, in a gold pan otherwise filled with useless silt (or shiitakes gone bad). It was written by the sage user named “violinfemmes” (no “t” on purpose, I guess) Violinfemmes wrote:

“A word to the wise: When you focus on forever, you forget about now, and in a marriage, when you forget about now, you lose your chance at forever.”

Damn. I should ask violinfemmes to be my guest blogger. I believe that this astutely written wisdom, applies not only just to marriage, but to life in general. Damn. Do you know what I took from this experience? I am proud that I take the time to read the gossip. It is like panning for gold, and deeply challenging panning, at that. You know, in the end, I guess that I give a shiitake mushroom about what’s happening in this crazy world around us. Shiitake can be very appetizing and satisfying to devour. Frankly, I’ve always been the weirdo who loves mushrooms.

Dirty Laundry

I have proven to myself once again that I am a strong woman. I am capable of rising above my strong sense of smell and my acute gag reflex. My three man-children are home this weekend and all three of them took me up on my offer to do their laundry. My eldest son paid to fly in a extra large bagful for the occasion. The smells, a pungent mix of sweat, dirty shoes and mildew and God know what else, layered together in piles of clothes and towels that probably hadn’t see the light of a clothes washer in quite some time, were nothing short of overwhelming. The dubious, edgy t-shirts gotten along the way, I decided not to ponder about too much. I asked them to empty pockets beforehand so that I had no mysteries to unravel and stress about, long after they head back to work and college. Luckily, they complied.

It’s funny how your perspective changes on doing chores, like laundry, for your children, once they are out of the home. I actually, in some weird way, kind of enjoyed the experience (clothespin on my nose and all). And my sons’ warm appreciation for it was certainly at levels I wasn’t used to experiencing when they were all living at home. Old fashioned family days, with all six of us together, just doing our thing, swimming, eating and drinking, playing with the dogs, eating and drinking, playing games, playing pool, eating and drinking, teasing each other playfully, watching movies, eating and drinking, falling asleep on the couch, are just so far and few between now. Those types of days that felt like they would go on forever and ever, are now such a novelty and a gift. I was filled with so much love, and pride and gratitude for this family, that my husband and I created yesterday. Maybe that is the blessing of our children growing up and creating their own adult lives. We all just seem all the more acutely aware of the mutual appreciation that we have for each other now, and for the blessing of our many happy family times and memories. The grumbling about the chores and the expense and the worries and the exhaustion, that abound when raising a large family, gives way to allow gratitude and gratefulness and mostly a quiet thankful awe of it all, to rise to the top and to see everything, even smelly loads of laundry, in a beautiful, new light.

All of the dirty laundry is clean and refreshed now. The adventures my sons are experiencing in their new lives, sometimes far away from us, will be encapsulated in the new rounds of foul-smelling laundry that they will inevitably bring home next visit. And I will welcome it all, with open arms, gladly and giddily.

Babes in the Wood

Happy New Moon! I know a few people in the world who are seemingly innocent, naive, wide-eyed, unsuspecting “babes in the wood.” Everyone who is kind, worries about and prays for these people. Everyone who is prone towards evil, preys on these people. Still, in my observing experience, these darling people do life, just so well. Nothing gets them down. Nothing blocks their sunshine. Things seem to always work out for them, in such serendipitous ways, even as we hold our breath watching them innocently walk into, what we perceive, as the jaws of doom. Sometimes we even try to “save” them from themselves.

I like to think that God wanted these open lambs here as reminders to let go of all of that cynicism, worry, guarded-ness, and negativity that we think protects us from the dangers of the world. Whose really naive, us, with our often pointless, rigid control tactics and hard armor, or those who walk in bountiful faith in Life and in themselves?? I sometimes wonder if these people know that they have been born with a glorious, spiritual army, protecting their every turn on the road of Life and that is why they can experience life so openly and sincerely. I think if I would bring this up to some of these beautiful, childlike people, they would say, “Don’t you think that we all have great spiritual protection – angels on Earth and angels unseen?” And then they would happily go on their way, and the rest of us would watch them in sheepish wonder.

Fur Babies

I have two dogs. They were born on the exact same day in May, exactly one year apart. Ralphie, our Dudley yellow Labrador is a little over two and Josie, our tri-color Collie is a little over one. They are both wonderful creatures.

Ralphie is over-the-top, in your face exuberance and intensity. He is smart as a whip, lead hopelessly by his bear-sized nose, and constantly on the move, unless he is entirely passed out. Still he keeps his fervor going by swimming in his sleep. When he gives kisses, they are full, wet and all encompassing. His huge tongue is like a wash cloth you would use to wash your car, and with a few passionate licks, he has managed to cover your whole face, your ears and your neck. He is not at all protective, he would definitely have the “flight” tendency in a “fight or flight” scenario. He is so absolutely and completely in-tuned to us, his family and to himself. Every night, he comes to the couch, where my husband and I are sitting, to remind us that it is his bedtime by lying his head on one of our knees.

Josie is elegance, sweetness and perkiness all wrapped up in the package of a beautiful, warm, fluffy dog. My daughter calls her the teddy bear. I liken her to a giant Pomeranian. She is a cuddle-bug, with a capital C. Her licks are dainty, with her small gentle tongue barely darting out of her mouth as she “cleans” your hands, much like a cat. She lays with her front legs crossed, very lady-like, even when she is deep in sleep. She is always alert to dangers, warning us, dependably, of the impending doom of the Amazon delivery person or the pack of squirrels living in our trees.

Walking the dogs every night is interesting. Ralphie always has his nose to the ground. He is on a mission and seemingly unaware of anything other than what he is tracking with his stoutly snuffer. Josie, being a herding dog, has her head on a swivel, only occasionally indulging in the scents on the ground which Ralphie is likely to roll around in, if he feels any slack in the leash. Josie always greets the other dogs, ducks, and deer that we see regularly, pertly, prettily, excitedly, with her beautiful, fluffy tail swishing elegantly as she gives each and every creature we meet, a delighted, buzzing look as if to say, “Isn’t life just grand?!?”

The dogs are a perfect yin yang to each other. Josie loves playing life guard to Ralphie, as he does his Navy seal routine, treading water and swimming in our pool tirelessly. She runs around the pool, watching him, barking warnings when she thinks that he is too tired and should get out of the pool. Josie is the first to bark warnings of impending visitors to our home. Ralphie loyally follows behind her, looking confused and bewildered, hackles up, sounding out the occasional deep “Woof!” to back her up (to which fight he is not at all sure), his formidable size and intense stare, enough to sometimes get people to forget, that he is just a big, goofy Lab, easily won over to anyone who offers a pat or a treat.

We adore our dogs. Our sons are all coming home this weekend, all with the same sentiment, “We miss the dogs.” Our dogs are so uniquely themselves. They don’t try to change or to be something different than who they inherently are to the core. They don’t try to be like each other. They adore our family, each other and life, sharing toys and playful romps with exuberance and yet restraint. Animals have so much to teach of us about living life. Ralphie and Josie, are my friends, companions, inspiration, comforters, protectors and mentors, and not necessarily in that order.

Not So Dull

When you have a rough start to your week, when everything feels a little bit off the track, getting back to the mundane, “dull” routine, feels wonderful. Laundry, sorting mail, dusting shelves, watering plants, driving to tennis lessons, walking the dogs, planning meals – all of these things are actually a delicious relief and activities to look forward to doing and to completing. When I am emotional, I tend to want to chuck it all, bring it all back to ground zero, quitting everything extraneous and just cling to the basic necessities. That says something about the “necessities” right? Despite considering myself a spontaneous person, I love the structure of my life. I love to scratch things off of my to-do list. Perhaps that is the main point of life’s little emergencies. Perhaps they are nothing more than reminders that the ordinary days are not as banal, and meaningless and non-stimulating as they feel sometimes.

I’ve mentioned before that my new TV addiction is Outlander. In almost every episode, the major characters face huge, yet unique “life versus death” obstacles, suffer major injustices and devastating losses; they go through and yet prevail from serious abuses of power, and at the end of it all, they still manage to look gorgeous and to celebrate with a delicious romp in the bed with each other, making all the right moves and saying all the right words to each other, after experiencing more troubles in just one episode, than anyone in real life, can expect to face in one lifetime. Why do I like the show so much? You would think it would bring up serious questions of my inadequacy. Or maybe getting lost in the fantasy of it all is part of my delicious, conventional, everyday routine? I’m not sure. But for the rest of this week, I am sure that vicarious thrills are quite enough.

Image result for quotes about ordinary routine days

Da-na-na-na-nana-nana

Hey friends! Please don’t worry about me. It’s just that the week has started out with me having to put out a few small fires (not literal ones, don’t worry!). My time is being sucked into the vacuum of necessary, immediate attention. I hope to be back to regular form by tomorrow. In the meantime, as seen in a couple of flower pots: