+ I once fell in love with a slouchy, soft, voluminous leather handbag and I promptly bought three more of them (in slightly different colors and variations) to have waiting in the wings. At that time, I told myself I have reached the age when I know what I like, and there is nothing better than a large, butter soft handbag, especially with all of the stuff that I (and my family) tend to jam into my purses. Then, one day, I saw a super stiff, shiny, molded handbag, but it was in the perfect, jaw dropping shade of aqua blue, with red accents. And aqua blue is my second favorite color, right below red. (True Confession: I once purchased a bottle of perfume that I didn’t really even enjoy the scent, because it had an aqua blue bottle with a red lid on it.) I couldn’t resist this purse. Now the truth is, I hate putting my hand in the back pocket of this stiff, inflexible bag, to retrieve my lipstick, because the bag is so hard that my hand tends to get a little cut up from the zipper as I try to carefully and slowly and strategically slide my hand into the pocket, but still . . . . the color. I honestly get more compliments on this purse than any purse I have ever carried. And it turns out that it is easier to find my stuff in a rigid, ungiving purse. My soft purses are almost like infinite, dark, dank caves, where you dip your hand in and you just never know what you might pull out of it. These slouchy bags are almost like snake charmers’ bags. So what’s the point of my story? I don’t know. Variety is the spice of life? Everything has its merits and its flaws? There’s good in being in soft, and there’s good in being firm? Maybe I should try to find a soft leather bag in aqua blue, or just stop wearing lipstick? Maybe this is an example of the ridiculous amount of time I spend over-thinking about things, that in the scheme of things, really do not matter? Who cares, right? You are probably thinking, “Wow, I just wasted a few minutes of my precious time, reading your nonsense about nonsense, Kelly. Do better.”
+ I was spending an infinite amount of time standing in a post office line the other day, so I got to talking to the woman in front of me, in line. She appeared to be around my age and it turns out that her two kids were around some of my kids’ ages (early to mid twenties). She was saying to me, that she was concerned with this pandemic happening that her kids have become too reclusive and too sensitive to noise and to boisterous activity. Having worked from home for this long, her kids can’t stand crowds and commotions. She had taken them to a chic, popular, food market type eatery for dinner the other night and they couldn’t take it. Her kids suggested leaving the hotspot immediately, and getting take-out from Chick-fil-a instead. I said, “Well, at least you got off cheap,” but inside I was starting to wonder if my family was having the same distress and discomfort with noise and action. But my concerns were easily put to rest last night, when all six of us, surrounded by our three boisterous dogs were playing a competitive game of Farkle around our dinner table, and at that moment, I wondered if we were going to break the sound barrier. I wondered if our windows were going to start cracking. I wondered if our neighbors were going to call the police with a noise complaint. And at that moment, I realized that for all of the things that I worry about in regards to my family, worrying about any of them, not being able to handle loud noise and melee can easily be crossed off the trouble doll list. Half the time my family is the noise and the melee. We are usually the ones causing visceral pain to everyone else. And right about now you are probably thinking, “Ugh, is this story your idea of “doing better”, Kelly??? Get out of your head. Go walk your dogs.”
+ “I don’t know why, but all the strangers I met today were extra nice and that can make a day so much brighter.” _ Erica Rhodes, Twitter
I read this Tweet this morning and I thought, “That’s how it seems to go in life. People, on any particular day, are either especially nice or on other days, all people seem to be especially grumpy.” There never seems to be much of an in-between. And then I thought about how many times I have heard the proverb about “seeing people not as they are, but as you are. . . ” and I thought, “Wow, I must have some heavy pendulum, menopausal mood swings.”
You: “Enough. Shut down your thought train, Kelly. Shut down your computer. Go take your hormones.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.