To those of you who are about to embark on the empty nest, do not worry. They come back. They come back more than you would ever expect, even. Our daughter brought home a houseful this past weekend, and after they left, our youngest son arrived here right afterwards, almost like clockwork, to help us eat leftovers and watch football. And while he and his dad were watching the game, I handed them the big, warm pile of towels and sheets out of the dryer, for them to fold. Déjà vu.
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:
1716. What wild animal scares you? (One of the young women visiting here this weekend is from Connecticut. She insisted that they have no dangerous wildlife in Connecticut. They only have robins and squirrels and chipmunks, apparently. It took a long time for this lady’s mother to get comfortable with alligators being on campus. It was also shocking for her mother to find out we also have deer in Florida. Well, I suppose that the alligators have to eat . . . . 😉 )
Happy Valentine’s Day!! Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! I hope that you will enjoy the day, no matter what your relationship status is, currently. Love abounds all around us, in all shapes and sizes, in all forms and mostly in the form of just being completely and fully alive. Love is what we are made of, so please make this Valentines Day all about celebrating Love. That’s all. Please just celebrate wonderful, beautiful, awe-inspiring, life-giving Love. Earlier this week, Think Smarter on Twitter posted a post that said, “Don’t tell anyone ‘I hate you’ directly – Say ‘You are the Monday of my life.’ ” I thought to myself, that could be made into a more positive statement. “Don’t tell anyone ‘I love you’ today, just say ‘You are the Friday of my life!’ ” Now that, my friends, is true love! Another good quote that I saw on Twitter today from FofF, “There are people you haven’t met yet who will love you.” Hold that truth close to your heart today. I love all of you. I cannot thank you enough for your support and validation. Please feel my love.
New readers, Fridays are reserved for favorites. Typically I list about three favorite things, songs, books, quotes, whatevers, etc. and I strongly encourage you to share your favorites in the Comments. Please see previous Friday posts for more favorites I have shared. Today, I am going to be in “cheesy Valentine mode” and list some all-time favorite romantic quotes from great chick flicks. Hope you enjoy! Have a lovely day and a fabulous weekend!!
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.” ~ Moulin Rouge
“You had me at Hello.” ~ Jerry Maguire
“I wanted it to be you, I wanted it to be you so badly.” ~ You’ve Got Mail
“It doesn’t matter if the guy is perfect or the girl is perfect, as long as they are perfect for each other.” ~ Good Will Hunting
“You make me want to be a better man.” ~ As Good As It Gets
“I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental—like on a breeze—but I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there’s anything you need, I won’t be far away.” ~ Forrest Gump
“It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together … and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home. .. only to no home I’d ever known … I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like … magic.” ~ Sleepless in Seattle
“You’re the first boy I ever kissed, Jake, and I want you to be the last.” ~ Sweet Home Alabama
“Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it.” ~ On Golden Pond
“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.” ~ The Notebook
“I wish I had done everything on earth with you” ~ The Great Gatsby
“I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” ~ When Harry Met Sally
And on a personal note, “Dear wonderful, amazing, incredible, awesome, kind, handsome, gorgeous, generous, smart, funny, athletic, dedicated, successful, husband, best friend, lover, life partner, father of our four beautiful children, love of my life ~ I am so incredibly grateful that you are the one I call My Valentine. Forever, I love you, with all of my heart!”
P.S. – Fortune for the day –“There is in the worst of fortune the best chances for a happy change.” – Euripedes
Fortune for the day –“Never blame your neighbor until you have been in his place.” – The Talmud
I’m struggling with some writer’s block this morning. Nothing is particularly striking out at me, to write about, or stirring up in the inside of me, to write about. I feel kind of “meh” and listless today, if I am going to be perfectly honest. So, I googled “What do middle-aged women want?” What I got back was a whole bunch of rants (albeit some them very poignant and funny) about how we middle-aged women are ignored. We are ignored by the beauty and fashion industry, in the corporate pay scales, by entitled children (except when they need something), etc. etc. One article was even complaining about the fact that middle-aged women are even ignored by sexual harassers. So then it seems, we middle-aged women get hurt and pissed by being largely ignored, and thus, we get grumpy, indignant and stand-offish. And who doesn’t want to stay clear of a grumpy, stand-offish, hormonal, middle-aged woman with a resting bitch face that could stop a tiger in its tracks? So essentially, we are made to feel that it is our fault that we are ignored. And that really gets our goat. Thus the vicious circle has us trapped. I don’t know what the answer to this is, ladies. I just write it as I see it. Sometimes it is easier to watch, than to engage.
Happy Friday, friends and readers!!! Happy almost weekend! New readers, Fridays are dedicated to frivolity here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I typically list things that make the Material Girl side of me, sing. I strongly encourage you to list your favorites in the Comments section and please also check out previous Friday posts for more favorites to delight in.
Earlier this year, my husband and I were out to dinner with another couple and I started bragging about the fact that I rarely catch viruses. The minute those words came out of my mouth, I wanted to bite my tongue off. I started crazily knocking on anything, within arm’s length, that even resembled wood. I knew that, in that moment, I had instantly doomed myself. So, of course, the chickens came home to roost, after my trip last weekend. (despite bingeing on zinc lozenges throughout the trip, as if they were Hershey kisses) On Monday, I felt that fun little tickle in my chest that kept insisting on popping out of my mouth, coughing style. I felt the familiar exhaustion that comes at the beginning stages of a cold. So, that’s when I doubled up on Vitamin C, continued with the zinc and also added Umcka ColdCare chewables and Trace Minerals Max Hydrate Immunity effervescent tablets to the mix, and I can tell you this, that virus didn’t stand a chance. It got suffocated under all of my supplemental bombardment. I can’t tell you what worked best out of all of the mix, but all that I can say is that the virus was very short-lived. Bye, Felicia! Don’t let the door hitcha on the way out, dumbass virus.
Today’s favorites (the cold remedies were an extra bonus. You are welcome.):
AKC breed beanies – I was perusing the AKC site, most likely for dog training tips, and of course, I quickly gave up and ended up at the AKC store. (story of my life) There, I found these wonderful beanie hats with embroidered patches that look exactly like our dogs (a yellow Labrador retriever and a tri-color collie). I bought the beanies for our entire family. It’s like we are our dogs’ fan club. (but they already knew that) The beanies are top quality, come in all different colors and the yellow lab patch looks so much like our dog Ralphie, that my family thought that I had the hats custom made.
Anthropologie Block Letter Monogram Necklace – I’m not sure why exactly, but lately I’ve been getting a thrill out of wearing my monogram. It’s like lately, I’ve given myself my own stamp of approval. These necklaces are particularly nice quality and the letters are HUGE. Your friends will not have to put their readers on to see your letter, hanging from your beautiful monogram necklace. Laverne from “Laverne and Shirley” would totally approve. My friends and I were watching the HGTV channel and we noticed that a house searcher had two of these necklaces on (perhaps she and her husband’s initials?), which could be a very nice Valentines idea. Buy yourself two necklaces as a romantic gesture for your husband. Win. Win.
Vivino App – My friend introduced me to this wonderful app. All you have to do is take a picture of the wine label from the bottle of wine that you are considering buying, drinking, giving as a gift, or even chugging. All of the information that you ever wanted to know about that particular wine will pop up, as well as users’ personal ratings. Apparently, the app will start to recognize which wines you seem to favor and suggestions will pop up, catered to your tastes. Cheers!
Fortune for the day: “The more one meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be one’s world and the world at large.” – Confucius
Fortune for the day – “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”- Albert Einstein
The time has come for another “No Horse Pucky” story. I haven’t recounted one of these types of stories, on the blog, in a long, long time. This story is from long ago. I wasn’t even married when it happened. I was engaged to be married, though.
It all happened in an ugly, green minivan. That particular minivan ruined minivans for me, for the rest of my life, despite a minivan’s convenient nature, which would have come in quite in handy, for a mother of a large brood like mine. You see, I was 23 years old and the ugly minivan, was an all expense paid company car. I had inherited the minivan from the previous textbook sales representative, a middle-aged family man, whose position I had taken over, after he left to go to a different company. I had sold my Barbie car (as my Dad liked to call it), a bright red, zippy Miata convertible, and I was now sporting around town in an unsightly, lumbering hunter green minivan. Blech!
Anyway, one evening on the commute home, being stuck at a long traffic light, I got distracted. I got distracted by my new, shiny, lovely engagement ring. I am, admittedly, a highly distractible driver. (My sister once said that I drive like it is an afterthought to everything else that I am doing.) I decided to take my engagement ring off, to admire it from all different angles, while waiting at the stoplight. While I was gazing adoringly at my new bauble, the light changed, and the rightfully irritated driver behind me, blew his horn loudly and long-ly. It startled me and I jumped, which made my engagement ring fall out of my hands, slide down the steering wheel column, down into a crack where the steering wheel connects into the dashboard.
At the next traffic light, I decided to use a pen to try to pry the crack open a little bit, so that I could slide my ring back up into my hands, to put it back onto its rightful finger. I pried the crack open so wide that the force of gravity swiftly swooped in, to teach me a lesson and the ring fell down into the crack, now disappearing from my sight. I started panicking, imagining that perhaps the ring had fallen out on to the road, as if the minivan was a bottomless car, the type driven by Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble. (the van was pretty bad but not THAT bad) In my hysterical state, I cut off three lanes of traffic to take a sharp right turn into the nearest service station that happened to be right there, like a lighthouse, a great beacon of hope, in the desert of my despair.
“Help me! Help me, please. My engagement ring fell behind my steering column!” I shouted out to the man in the back corner of the garage. The man, covered in grease, eyed me up and down, suspiciously and motioned for me to pull the minivan into a stall of his garage. He dismissed my silly fears of the ring falling onto the highway and told me to go calm myself down, in his small, dumpy waiting room.
About a half hour later, the man sauntered into the waiting room, holding my engagement ring. He informed me that he had to remove the steering wheel, to retrieve my poor ring, which had been like a small, innocent, pretty animal, waiting patiently, yet desperately, at the bottom of a dark, smelly well.
“Ma’am”, he addressed me with a stern scowl on his grease-marked face. “Let this be a lesson to you. This is why we DON’T take these things off.”
Fortune of the day – “In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is acquired. In pursuit of wisdom, every day something is dropped.” – Lao Tzu
In case you are wondering how to say Lao Tzu, it sounds sort of like this, “Lout Za”. I always forget and I have to look it up all of the time. One of my absolute favorite features of the internet is the pronunciation videos.
Happy Friday, my dear friends! Happy Favorite Things Friday! New readers, Fridays are simple and on the surface. On Fridays, I list three favorites of mine and I encourage you to do the same in the Comments section. One can never have enough favorites. Please also check out previous Friday listings for more favorites that I have shared in the past. I’m sticking with my favorites!
Today’s favorites:
Viridian Bay – If you like interesting, eye candy objects in your garden, you will love this website. They have so many cool garden accent pieces, like statues, and wind chimes and lanterns. I think that their prices are pretty reasonable, too. Even if you are “just window shopping” the internet, Viridian Bay is a really nice, relaxing website to peruse.
Quaker Instant Grits – I love grits! One of my favorite dishes is shrimp and grits. (I also love Quaker instant oats.) I don’t think that the rest of my family are as nearly into grits, as I am. That’s why these individual packets are so great. I can get my grit fix and give the rest of the fam, the usual rice and/or potatoes. The jalapeno flavor absolutely pops! Get yourself a box, if you are hankering some southern comfort food, in an instant.
Naturium Multi-Peptide Eye Cream – I read an article recently that stated a good eye cream must have peptides, in order to help soften the wrinkles and to tighten the crepey skin that comes with aging eyes. I purchased this cream on Amazon. It is reasonably priced and while I am not seeing miracles, I do like how it makes my skin feel. Until I find something better, this has become my daily go-to under eye cream.
Friday: Well, hello! I’m right here for you. Right here. Right now. We are going to really enjoy the day together. We’re going to laugh, we’re going to have fun and we are not going to take anything too seriously. Let me wrap you into my big, warm, comfortable arms and you just sit back and enjoy the ride!
Today is a day to just exhale. Whether your Christmas was busy, and crazy and fun, or solitary and sad, or a little bit of both, exhale. Let it go. Whether Christmas zipped by and you wonder where it went, or whether it crawled by, and you just wondered when it was ever going to be over, exhale. Just be. Whether you loaded Christmas with a bunch of expectations or you went into it with an observant curiosity, just relax. Exhale. Whatever you are feeling right now – sad and disappointed that Christmas is over for another year, relieved and joyous that Christmas is over for another year, or a little bit of both, that’s okay. Observe the feelings and then set them free. Exhale. You are enough. You are lovely. You just experienced another big holiday season and whatever that does to you – energizes you, depletes you, inspires you, depresses you, fills your heart, frustrates your heart, puts you in a fog of memories and quietness, or puts you into action of cleaning and orderliness, it’s all okay. It’s all good. Exhale. Just breathe. Just be.
My husband’s colleague texted him from another state. He and his family are staying with their extended family this week for Christmas. He said that the house is crazy and chaotic, full of kids and dogs. He told my husband that it must be like living with our family.
We started having kids less than two years after we were married. We had four children in the span of eight years and we’ve always had at least two dogs and other pets, in the mix, throughout the years. This past fall has been strange and surreal, with it being just my husband, myself and my daughter at home, with the two fur babies, who are at least, out of their puppy stage (sort of) .
The three of us have become accustomed to a fair amount of “quiet”, only having to go to the grocery store once a week, laundry always being clean and hung up, and jugs of milk actually going sour before we drank/used it all. I better understand now, why people have always said to me, “I don’t know how you do/did it.” With the college boys home the last week or so, and the grown son coming home tonight, the quiet moments are sparse, the grocery runs are daily, the stinky laundry is piling up at a monumental rate and we’ve run out of milk more than once, already. We are all whizzing around in different directions and it is hard to keep up with everyone’s comings and goings, as hard as I try. The dogs have seemed to pick up on this whirling energy and they are behaving like two furry toddlers, way too hopped up on sugar. It is chaotic. It is crazy. And it is love. It is us. This is us. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The wise do not attach themselves to the ups and downs of life, but stay above them.” – Rumi
I recently read an excellent book that came to me, at just the right time. As an avid reader and a dedicated over-thinker, I believe sincerely that this is how our book connections happen. It so happens that the president’s daughter recently quoted a poem by Rumi, the ancient poet and philosopher, which reminded me that I had purchased a book about Rumi’s writings earlier this year. So, I looked for it and I read it over the past weekend. The book is called Rumi: Tales of the Spirit – A Journey to Healing the Heart, by Kamla K. Kapur. It turns out that even though Rumi is often known for his poetry, he was also an ardent story teller. In this book, Kapur translates twelve of Rumi’s stories which read more like parables or even sophisticated fairy tales, and then she explains the deeper depth of meaning, that she believes that Rumi is trying to convey. It is one of those books that you think about long after you have read it. It is a book that you keep for later reflection. It is one of those books that will find you, again.
The parables of Rumi that struck me the most were the ones talking about our need to let go of attachments. When your children start leaving the nest at a clip pace, and you have reached middle age with an acute sense that everything in your physical world is aging along with you (your things, your relations, your body), it becomes painfully clear of all of the strings that need to be cut. Just how attached am I to my children and the futures that I envision for my children, and the beliefs and mannerisms and ideas that I think they should have, to match my narrow vision? Just how attached am I to my main identity that I have taken on as my children’s mother and caretaker? Just how attached am I to all of the physical things that we have accumulated along the way to support our family and the life of our family unit? ( You may recall that I recently blogged about, while sobbing, just how hard it was to sell a family car that long had been part of our family history.) Just how attached am I to the relationships that I formed to teachers and coaches and friends, because of the connection to my children and their activities? Just how attached am I to my fading youth, and the vitality and beauty that flows away and starts to just trickle, as I age? Just how attached am I to the way things were, when the focus of our lives was this budding, growing family? Just how attached am I to all of the ups and downs, the exciting roller coaster of feelings that raising a family inevitably brings with it?
In the book, Kapur describes attachment this way:
“Attachment is something or someone we grasp desperately for our own survival; something or someone we think belongs to us instead of thePower that made it. . . . .Attachment to our opinions, prejudices, judgments and beliefs also imprison us.”
Recently my husband and I attended a dinner party at the home of a very wealthy man. He had vast collections of everything you could imagine. He had several gorgeous antique cars (and another warehouse somewhere else, apparently, full of more of them), beautiful paintings everywhere, rare hood ornaments, a brown liquor collection, a wine collection, a cigar collection, several antique sculptures, and he had so many Persian rugs, that they even surrounded his large, indoor pool. Many of us party goers asked him fascinated questions about his many beautiful objects. We asked him if it made him nervous, having everyone milling around and touching his things.
He looked at us incredulously. “No, I love to be able to share what I have found joy in,” he said.
We asked him if he rolled up the antique Persian rugs when his grandchildren came over to swim.
“No! I like the rugs to keep their feet comfortable,” he said, earnestly.
When we asked him what his favorite thing was, out of all his vast collections, he answered, without missing a beat,
“My marriage,” he said with a sweet smile.
Rumi says that detachment is not saying that you should own nothing. It is saying that nothing should own you. This man, who hosted the party, was a testament to this wisdom that Rumi extols.
The author includes one of her favorite Aboriginal proverbs, in the chapter on detachment. I’ll end this post with it:
We are all just visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. We are here to observe, to learn, to grow, to love and then to return home.
(For more reading on detachment, I also highly recommend Karen Casey’s Let Go Now – Embracing Detachment)
Above are pictures of charts that I took from an interesting book that I read over the weekend. The book is called The Happiness Curve WhyLife Gets Better After 50 by Jonathan Rauch. The author is an award winning journalist, who set out to do some research as to explain what used to be known as the “midlife crisis”, which the author himself prefers to call a “slump.” The book sets out to show the interesting fact that in a time period in life where people have achieved a fair level of success in everything that they had set out to do: their careers, their families and relationships, hobbies, etc., many of us midlifers seem to feel a confusing, unexplained level of dissatisfaction. As shown in the above charts, our life satisfaction ratings are at the lowest that they will ever be, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a real reason for it. As the author writes “I’m dissatisfied with my life right now because. . . .(yet) there is nothing after the because.” The author starts the book offering these heartening statements:
“First, midlife slump (not “crisis”!) is completely normal and natural. Like . . . adolescence, it is a healthy if sometimes painful transition, and it serves a purpose by equipping you for a new stage of life. You may feel dissatisfied, but you don’t need to feel too worried about feeling dissatisfied.
Second, the post-midlife upturn is no mere transient change in mood: it is a change in our values and sources of satisfaction, a change in who weare. It often brings unexpected contentment that extends into old age and, yes, even into frailty and illness.
Third, by extending our life spans, modern medicine and public health have already added more than a decade to the upturn. . . . . Some sociologists call this new stage of life encore adulthood. Whatever you call it, it is a gift the likes of which mankind has never known before.”
What I liked best about the book was the positive reassurance. The book reassures us that it is normal and natural to feel that way that we do (science shows that even primates go through a midlife slump), during such a huge transitional time period in our lives. Just like we give a little more understanding to our teenagers, knowing they are going through a lot of big changes all at once, we have to offer that same kind of leeway and comfort to ourselves. While the book showed all of the research proving that this time period is an emotionally fraught period, it also showed the research that proves that this tough phase passes into something that is reportedly to be, many people’s most satisfying life periods ever. While we are in the trough, the author recommends that we normalize our feelings by opening up to spouses and partners and friends, who are likely feeling the same malaise, to interrupt our internal critics and stop with comparisons, to take care of our physical bodies with good nutrition, exercise and rest, to practice staying in the present moment, and to step (do NOT emotionally leap) into changes that you are wanting to make. He says in order to avoid impulsive moves that you might regret, you should make lateral moves in an incremental, constructive and logical manner. However, the author says that “the most important wisdom of all” is to wait and to sit in the knowing that it gets better. He says this:
“In the Voyage of Life, you are a plaything of forces larger than yourself, borne upon a stream you cannot control. So relinquish control. Trust the river. Trust time.”
The author speaks of walking with a fellow writer, a man whose life and work he had always admired. He was shocked when his friend admitted that he, himself, had experienced a midlife crisis/slump. His friend had this to say:
“Midlife crisis begins sometime in your forties, when you look at your life and think, Is this all? And it ends about ten years later, when you look at your life again and think, Actually this is pretty good.”
The author ends the book on this hopeful note:
“If I had to explain the upside of the U in just three words, the words I would use are these: Gratitude comes easier. That is the hidden gift of the happiness curve.
