And, Now, the Rest of the Story

So, I liked my last post. It was all very correct -

“age well, be wise, grow character.”

But sometimes, I wonder how honest it was. I mean, I know that I want to be that person, the one who whole-heartedly agrees with Julie Roberts when she says, about wrinkles,

"They're the story of our lives, 

and it shouldn't be a story about your drive to the doctor's office."

Yes. Agreed.

But aren’t we all, in the deep dark reaches of our souls where we don’t let the sunshine in, just a little jealous of those women who do drive to the doctor’s office?

Yeah… not jealous… angry.

I feel an underlying anger that I can’t be normal and fabulous all at the same time. I see those fabulous/surgically-altered women and part of me is pissed. Really, really pissed. I feel like they sold out. They gave into the pressures of society and sold out. Like, being a woman is so hard that we don’t need members of our sex reaching into the “not fair” box?

Maybe, I just want them to be more normal. I feel like they are ruining it for the rest of us. Like steroids on the baseball field, we should be able to “suspend” a woman for using unfair tactics. They set the bar so high that the rest of us should just crawl into a hole, somewhere. I want to stomp my feet, jump up and down and throw a fit: either we all get plastic surgery or none of us do. I vote for none. We should all be good enough just the way we are.

See, the truth is that I am NOT really so angry at the women who get surgery to be "fabulous."

I do get why they do it. I really do. I get it.

It's that I AM so angry at a society that makes them feel like they have to, at a society that defines "fabulous" in such  narrow terms. I am angry at the pressure that we all feel, that we have to work so damn hard to escape from that pressure and that we constantly have to work to strengthen our own feelings of self-worth because, if we don't, our society will rip us apart.

Ask a hundred women what they’d want to change about themselves and you’ll get, maybe not a hundred different answers, but definitely answers, they’d all have something that they’d want to improve -  hips, butt, boobs, hair, teeth, something. Mainly, because we are constantly being shown this standard of perfection that is not attainable. Even the very models themselves aren’t good enough, most of the time the pictures have been AIRBRUSHED or PHOTOSHOPPED - I once watched a fashion show thing where they were Photoshopping underneath the eyes of a FIFTEEN year old because they were too WRINKLY!

EEEEEEE-GADS!!!!

Lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. 

Wait! Keep the boobs!

Is it any wonder we’re all miserable?

Nothing that we are is ever good enough.

I am a very small woman
- thankfully, I have a husband who says he likes that -
but I want cleavage.

There, I said it.

And, I wonder where on earth I got the idea that a woman is a woman based on her cleavage. Well, don’t we all know the answer to that? The media -  which is what informs, and therefore shapes, our society is the answer to that.

( I knew, even as a little girl, that Wonder Woman’s true power was not in her magic bracelets or her invisible plane, it was in her Insta-Boobs.  I tried that maneuver a dozen times as a little girl- I’d twirl my little gangly body around in a circle and never, not once, did I sprout those Wonder Woman Insta-Boobs.  Something was definitely not right on my planet, I’ll tell you that much!)

“You need to buy a bra for your car 

because you sure don’t need one,” 

was one of many statements made to me in high school and I've never really gotten over the feeling that I’m somehow not good enough because of it. After several boyfriends, two husbands, and breastfeeding my kids, I’m still worried that my boobs, and therefore my self, aren't good enough. Obviously, someone found me attractive enough to have three kids with. It's not that I am not attractive, it's that I am not necessarily marketable. My personal "Brand" would need to be totally overhauled by a PR guy, no doubt.  (Oh, how I hate the idea that a human being should be MARKETABLE. Marketable??? I am a round, three-dimensional, complicated, interesting human being. Not some one-dimensional, flat, predicable, boring something that you can USE for your ends!)

Marketable. Yep, it all comes down to money. They want to sell us stuff (make-up, wrinkle cream, diet plans, magazines full of information, new clothes, etcetera AND etcetera) and they need for us to feel desperate to have it so that we'll fork over our money TO THEM to receive the promise that we'll all become a little more like the unattainable standard of perfection that THEY have fed us. Since it's unattainable, we'll never reach it and therefore we'll always need to buy their products. Good for them, huh?

Oh, how I HATE THAT.

I should be judged ALL THE TIME on who I am, not what I look like… and I’m not. 

Neither are you. 

Sucks, huh?

Here I am, stuck inside this body, a body that was dictated to me, in large part, by genetics. The real me is not what I look like but it is a lot of what I feel that I’m judged on. There is a frustration involved in that I feel like people make judgments about my worth that are not tied in any way to me, as a real person.

(And, shocked when the very thing that guys picked on me about so mercilessly as a teenager is now the thing that causes some women to be antagonistic toward me. Every time a total stranger comes up to me and snarls, “You are so skinny!” I am just shocked. Or, my personal favorite, sometimes spouted by people who are suppose to be my friends, “I HATE you for being so skinny.” Really? )

I was hoping that 40 would be the place that I reached where the answer to this was given to me. I was hoping that 40 would be the place where I realized my INTERNAL POWER and really quit caring what those shallow, egotistical/insecure, dumb people who’d judge me based on what I look like, thought.

And, I find that, it’s not.

I mean, those voices are much quieter than they ever have been before. In fact, I feel much sexier now than I ever have in my life...

(partly because I've realized that "sexy" is an attitude much more than it is a shape, partly because my husband is an amazing, SMART man who really does think I'm sexy as hell and partly because I am finally reaching deep down into my own soil of self-worth and finding that I can feed myself, thank you very much. I don't need to feed off anyone else's ideas of what makes me acceptable or not, anymore.)

...but I was hoping that 40 would be the time when I could shut them up for good.

Here’s hoping for 50.

Actually, my husband has an interesting theory. He thinks that we've all been duped. All of us - men and women - fall into peer pressure, admit it or not. He holds the opinion that men’s tastes are as varied as women’s bodies. He really does prefer smaller women. And, he says that admitting that is a little like saying that you don’t like football (he’s a big Ohio State fan.)

“What red-blooded American male,” 

he asks, is going to admit, 

'Hey, I don’t like football and I don’t like big boobs.”  

And, they won't admit it, not because it isn't true, but because even men have been force-fed this same steady diet of bullshit - that if they don't want a certain thing then they, themselves, are not acceptable. (Chill out, I know  a lot of men DO like big boobs. Look me in the eyes <giggle> and hear what I'm saying, don't get sidetracked by the boobs. )

And, it's not just the big boobs, I've heard from men who really like heavy-set women...or skinny women or tall women or short women or women with glasses, etc. (I've even heard of this elusive fellow who gets turned on by "chicks with brains." Oh, momma! There's a REAL man. heehee heehee)

Remember, "Baby Got Back," from waaaay back in the day?  Besides being a funny rap song ("...red beans and rice didn't miss her...")  it was the first time that I'd ever heard a guy say,

 "Forget what I'm supposed to like, this is what I DO like."

Thank you, Sir Mix-a-Lot.

So, then, if we really are okay the way that we are because there really is somebody for everybody - what in the big giant world is the fuss about?  Maybe, we should all just be who we are- surgery or not, diet or not, cleavage or not- and trust that someone will find us beautiful.

To hell with society's expectations.

Here’s hoping for 45 - with a guy like my hubby, my insecurities don’t stand a chance. Maybe, even 40 ½... maybe, on a good day, it’s really 39!

Thanks, K-Man, for reminding me that:

 Being 40 a woman is powerful.

 Being 40 a woman is beautiful.

40 is just a number.

And, that the stinkin' greedy media lies.


"Pretty"
by Katie Makkai

Click on link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0
(-no matter what blogger tells me, this is still the easiest way to post a video to my blog. And, if you're easily offended you might want to skip this, she drops the f-bomb. What am I saying?  If you were easily offended you probably wouldn't still be reading my blog... but nonetheless, you've been warned.)

Leonard Susskind says…

A-Girl Note: I missed a WHOLE WEEK. 

It seems my "Merry Christmas Cold" became "New Year's Bronchitis." 

I haven't been this sick in a LONG time. I can't believe how crappy I've felt. In fact, if I wasn't FORCING myself to do this today, it wouldn't get done. So, my apologies for missing last week...I'll make it up to ya. :)

(This is what Leonard says, right here:) 

“The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that entropy increases, is just a way of saying that as time goes on, we tend to lose track of the details. Imagine that we put a tiny droplet of ink into a tub of warm water. At first we know precisely where the ink is located. The number of possible configurations of the ink is not too large. But as we watch the ink diffuse through the water, we begin to know less and less about the locations of the individual ink molecules. The number of arrangements that correspond to what we see - namely, the uniform, slightly gray tub of water - has become enormous. We can wait and wait, but we won’t see the ink rearrange into the concentrated drop. Entropy increases. That’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Things tend toward boring uniformity.”-The Black Hole War, pg 132

So, I’ve been thinking about this:

Entropy increases…things tend toward boring uniformity.

And, isn’t that what we’re all afraid of anyway? That our great ink spots of youth will spread, depressingly, into the boring depths of middle age? That, we will become those men and women who we’d felt sorry for (and been a bit afraid of) when we were younger? Those minivan driving, mortgage paying, rule making, BORING people?

This fear causes some of us to go to ridiculous lengths to prove that we’re still interesting, still cool, that we’ve still “got it.”  Some of us tattoo our entire bodies, dump the boring responsibility ridden wife and kids for a younger, crazier someone, who makes us feel more “alive,” spend ridiculous amounts of money on silly toys, etc We do stupid things that have horrible consequences and by the time we realize that we don’t really like the consequences, it’s too late. We’re gonna spend most of our middle age, and into the next stage of life, trying to mop up the mess that we’ve made.

I’ve been divorced, I’ve spent money on toys, I’ve seen some tattooed bodies that look amazing -  that’s not what I’m talking about. For some people, a “mid-life crisis” really isn’t. They’ve just reached the point where they have some stuff that they’ve wanted to do and now they finally have the time and money to do it. Good for them.

For other people, it’s a knee-jerk reaction, primarily fueled by this fear that I'm talking about, it’s an “Oh, God!!!" moment to the nth degree. They’ve not learned a damn thing in life. They still think that they can BUY their way to happiness, that "cool" exists as something to obtain. They've missed everything worth knowing in life -that happiness is a choice that comes to fruition through hard work (it has very little to do with outside situations,)  that "cool" is just a fickle, transitory state that changes and means nothing, really.  (In fact, if being myself is not cool, I will very gladly be the biggest dork on the planet. Better to know who I am and be that than waste my time chasing something that is uncatchable. The coolest people I've ever known in my life were those who had the guts to be themselves. Everything else is a lie. And, to me, being a liar is extraordinarily uncool.)

The end results of both scenarios are the same; the causes are entirely different.

That middle-aged, balding, slightly pudgy dude sitting next to the pretty-young-thing in the convertible sports car is a beautiful thing IF he’s doing what he’s doing out of a zest for life and because he's really following his heart and NOT out of denial that he is losing his hair, that the beer belly IS a belly and out of a belief that the horsepower somehow proves that his sex drive is faster than the car.

His ink spot of middle age is brighter and even more interesting than his ink spot of youth was IF he’s let age teach him a thing or two...

(This is not limited to men. We all know that pitiful middle-aged woman who is never satisfied. She’s in a desperate race for one more Botox injection, one more diamond, a bigger house, better clothes, etc. to prove that she’s still young, beautiful and desirable. None of those objects to obtain are bad, in and of themselves, it’s what they represent to this someone that makes them so poisonous. These women are often known by their competitiveness through their daughters - pushing them to excel at harmful levels at “girly” things-the REALLY toxic ones compete against their daughters.
And, I have news for both these types - the man and the woman - life is terminal. Nothing they buy or do will change that. The only thing that really matters in the end is character, how they've lived the life that they had to live.)

...and, let’s just all hope that the pretty-young-thing is his daughter…that idea just makes me feel better, anyway!

There have always been hard times. 

There have always been wars and troubles 

- famine, disease and such-like - 

and some folks are born with money, some with none. 

In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, 

and none of those other things matter. 

It is character that counts.

 -Louis L'amour 

You Knew I was Gonna Do It, Right?

“A Visit from St. Nicholas"
by Clement Clarke Moore (1779 - 1863)


Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!


"Now Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!


He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"


The poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," also known as "Twas the Night Before Christmas," was written in 1822 and published in a newspaper, The New York Sentinel.


According to  http://www.carols.org.uk/twas_the_night_before_christmas.htm , "the poem, 'Twas the night before Christmas' has redefined our image of Christmas and Santa Claus. Prior to the creation of the story of 'Twas the Night before Christmas,' St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, had never been associated with a sleigh or reindeer."


Poetry, it changes things.

Happy Christmas!!!!

Almost as Good as CliffsNotes

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual
by Pamela Spiro Wagner


First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.


Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it. 


To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.


Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.


Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.


Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.


When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
and don't even notice,
close this manual.


A few years ago, when we lived in California,I joined a writing group at our local theater house. I had pages and pages of stuff written down but I felt like I was drowning underneath all the words. I was hoping that they could give me some direction and some much needed editing. On a whim, I’d stuck an arbitrary paragraph that I‘d written into my stack of junk to take with me to the meeting. When it was my turn to read, I introduced myself, gave a run-down on what I’d been writing and then read the arbitrary paragraph out loud.

“What is this?" I asked.  “It’s done, I don’t want to work on it any more, I've said what I wanted to say. I really like it…but WHAT is it?“

There was a moment of silence in the room and then a lady in a purple bohemian skirt smiled at me from behind her rhinestone glasses and answered, 

“It’s a poem. Honey, you're a poet." 

 I stared at her in disbelief, she might as well have just told me that I had a big blue daisy growing right out of my head with roots hanging, tangled and dirty, around my ears. But, after a few seconds, her words sunk in and I thought, Of course! and that initial conversation began a poetry friendship that spanned HOURS and HOURS of poetry. I’d email her a poem, she’d comment and tweak and encourage and then I’d email her another one. She became my “poetry-mother” and helped birth me as “poet.” I now have written, literally, dozens and dozens of poems.

What I find so amazing is the fact that I missed this about myself. I earned an English degree and learned to love other poets - Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, e.e. cummings, Shakespeare, among others. 

Well, actually, I know exactly what I did.
I made an assumption about poets
- that they are some sort of  mystical fairytale creatures,
like an unicorn or a griffin, that exist “out there.”
Poets don’t run late, lose their keys, stumble up the stairs,
curse the squeak of stroller tires and wipe baby butts,
do they?

Well, actually yes, they do.

They are normal everyday people who live in suburbia
-contrary to my romantic notions, very few of them actually live on mountain tops.
(They do manage to eek the mystical out of the squeaking hinges of doors, late at night,
while attending to children who won’t go to bed,
they do suck the magic out of the sound of the wind as it tumbles
over their rooftops on rainy afternoons and
they do gnaw on the meat of boredom but, mostly,)
They’re people like me and you
who just happen to love playing with words.

Part of the problem was also that I didn’t like most poetry -  actually, I was afraid of it. It seemed to be this high-brow thing that I didn’t understand and that I was afraid of “getting wrong.” I didn’t know that it could be accessible to people like me. Poetry that I was familiar with was too hard to read, harder to understand and I didn’t have time or energy to work that hard.

The truth about poetry, I’m finding out, is that it punches you in the gut. You don’t have to work at it. It speaks to you so deeply that there is no question what it means - to you, anyway. There are “tastes” to poetry. You don’t like ALL forms of music - country, hip-hop, rock, classical, bluegrass, etc -why would you like all forms of poetry? But you DO like some forms of music, right? In fact, I’d be willing to bet that you like some forms very, very much. Did we forget that all song is just poetry set to music?  And, the fact that it means something to you, that it speaks to you on some level - that is what makes it “good.”

Poetry is just the art of finding the divine in the mundane.
(A poet looks at a dirty shoe and sees more.)
It makes us more than human.
It gives a reason and a mystery to the everyday.

After I discovered that old, normal, boring me could be considered a “poet,” I began to find the courage to seek out other poets. I found poetry everywhere, it just needed to be acknowledged - songs that I heard, dialog in movies, phrases spoken between friends, whole books that I’d read - everywhere. A good quote is, to me, a great form of poetry. One of my favorites is,

"The pessimist complains about the wind;

The optimist expects it to change;

The realist adjusts the sails.”   

- William Arthur Ward 

Aaaah, this is painting with words.

It is a snapshot of an idea, of feelings.

And, that funky line lay-out
is just the way
that the author
establishes a rhythm
and a cadence.
It's a way of emphasizing
certain ideas
and
certain phrases.

:)


(Writing a poem in Word with that ridiculous "auto-correct" switched on, just about drives me BATTY!!! No, I DO NOT want to capitalize that letter! No, really! I'm serious! LOWER CASE, please!!! GRRRR!!)

Eventually, I've even gotten up the guts to attempt to read poetry books. I don’t like all of it but what I do like, I find healing and growth in. I find something that speaks to me on a profound level.

For instance, a poem that has really spoken to me and helped me to heal is Mary Oliver’s “The Journey.”


The Journey
by Mary Oliver


One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house 
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers 
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy 
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night, 
and the road full of fallen 
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn 
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly 
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save 
the only life you could save.


So, I shall share with you one of my poems.  I am still nervous about sharing most of my poetry.  I don’t feel like I have anything left to prove but no one LIKES to hear criticism. I mean, really, any mom may KNOW that her kid is ugly, but that doesn't mean that she wants you to point out the fallacies of lil' Junior Frankenstein's face. So, I’ll share one that won first place in our local poetry contest when I lived in California, it was published in a local anthology and people just seem to “get it.” So, here it is:

Ex-
by A(-Girl)

2nd wife.
Not the first.
Used up.
Youth budded.
Un-soul mate.
Marriage of convenience?


“No,”
he says without even
taking his eyes off
the highway, like
he doesn’t know 
that this subject 
is a bag of rocks
hung around my heart
keeping me from
breathing easily in 
our relationship.
“This marriage is a decision 
that I made after I was older, 
after I’d discovered who I was. 
After I’d figured out 
what I really wanted 
in my life
and what I really wanted
was you.”  


And I look at him
in the darkness 
of the wet night
as he turns on the
windshield wipers
and glances behind himself
in the rear view mirror.
And I realize that 
he doesn’t even 
know that he has
heaved every one
of my boulders
into the sea. 


It’s like that with us.



In my forties and beyond, I want to spend more time with my poetry (and other people’s poetry.) I want to continue painting companion pieces for my poetry (the picture below goes with my poem, “A Deserter in the Foxhole.”)

(…Now, unspoken words

lie buried between us

like land mines

and so, slowly and deliberately, I desert 

this foxhole, abandoning my pain

and leaving you

there in your frozen denial

-trapped within the gritty

walls of man-made dirt.

And you?

You carry the foxhole 

inside of you. You smell

of musty places, always…)

I want to get beyond my fear that if it doesn't make me any money (or fame) then it can’t be worth doing. I want to learn that it is enough, I am enough. Whatever joy and fulfillment that the day brings is, at sundown, enough.  I want to learn to be content with exactly where I am in my life and exactly who I am. I want my life to be a poem - full of passion and hope and substance where it really counts.

Oh, and :

1) Langston Hughes
2) Mary Oliver
3) Pamela Spiro Wagner
4) William Shakespeare
And,
5) Me, A-Girl

Hahahaha There ya go! I am no longer a “beginner.” :)

“To me a good poem 

is like a sacred mind-altering substance; 

you take it into your system and it carries you beyond your ordinary ways of understanding.”

-  Kim Rosen, The Sun, pg 5, December 2010

Yeah, That Sucks

A-Girl Note: It’s Dec16 and I have found that Grinch-Spot that most adults find about this time of the year, with a thousand and one things to do and only time for 1000. Yesterday, I heard myself growl “Get in the car!” at my late-on-the-morning-of-the-preschool-Christmas-play-kids and I  knew that I was beginning to cave to the pressure of “Happy Holidays!” Then, something like this happens and suddenly I am reminded of how very much I have and what is really important:

Okay, so I was in the grocery store very recently, behind a lady who bought a whole big load of groceries. Well, she was trying to buy them. She’d pick up a few items and watch as the cashier scanned them, check the total, hand a few more to the cashier, check the total, a few more. Finally, she was all done and she hands the cashier her credit card.

And, it won’t go through.

She’s standing there, a whole load of groceries and no way to pay for them. She discusses with the cashier how she’s going to go and get money and where can she pick up this cart full of groceries? Something about the way that she’s talking makes me believe that she won’t be back. That she’s having this conversation because it is just too painful to admit, even to herself, that she just doesn’t have the money to buy the food that they need.  I find this extremely difficult to watch. I am embarrassed for her, embarrassed for her pre-teen son and feeling helpless. What can I do, what should I do?

It is painful.

It used to be me.

I know all too well that desperate feeling of how am I going to feed my kid?


How am I going to get myself out of this horrible situation without bursting into tears?


How did my life get to this point? This is NOT how I saw my life happening.

My ex-husband was an OUT OF CONTROL spender. I won’t go into all the details, suffice it to say that I still - nearly a decade later, with a fatter bank account, and a dependable 2nd husband -  feel the panic when I go to the grocery store and I hand them my card. Please go through, please go through.  I still carry around a check book in another bag “just in case.”   I still grimace when I go to the mail box and my stomach still does the topsy-turvy whenever the phone rings and I don‘t recognize the number. Credit/Debit cards that refuse to go through, unpaid bills and bill collectors on the other end of the phone line still haunt me.

My sweet, caring hubby just doesn’t get this. He’s never been hungry poor, never had the lights go out because the bill wasn’t paid, never been terrified that he’d get sick ’cause there was no way to pay for it and no insurance to cover it, never DREADED Christmas because he had NO IDEA how he was going to buy his family presents. He’s never found himself dependent on the government and family to make it to the next paycheck. He’s never found himself the butt of callous people’s comments or had to endure their righteous disdain. 

I have.

It's easy to have a harsh, 

"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps," 

attitude if your own bootstraps 

have always been exactly the right length.

I once lost a friend on Facebook because I posted this as my status and he reacted with so much anger that I was forced not only to drop him as a friend on Fb but in my life as well. What is so offensive about this statement? It is true.

I think that people like to think “This is America, everyone has the same opportunity to make something out of themselves.” (It makes them feel less guilt about the cushy middle-class lives that they live. And, I am also, now, one of those guilt-ridden upper middle-class people.) Not true. Some people’s foundations are so screwed up that they’ll spend a life-time caught in the mire of trauma.  Not everyone is blessed with good genetics-bodies and brains that work- and people who love and support them.

No one WANTS to be poor or hungry or addicted or homeless.

And right here, is where I get really frustrated. I start to feel like a dog chasing my tail on this issue. Because, it is also true that life is not fair and you can’t make it be fair for everybody. To take away from one person because another person’s life was unfair is…unfair to the first person.  My husband went to school for YEARS, he gets up everyday and goes to work and works hard, I went to school for years, I stay home and WORK. We shouldn’t feel guilty for being successful-we’ve both earned it.

I’ve been on both sides of this issue and the one thing that I do know is true is that there are no easy answers.  And, anyone who says that they know the answers…well, that just tells me that they don’t really understand the questions. There are NO simple answers to complex problems.

The thing is that I know that even if I paid for that lady’s groceries, it probably won’t help the problem.  The problem is probably bigger than one-time help. It was for me. The problem was my ex but it was also my refusal to deal with the problem of him. In fact, we once had very good friends who spent over $300 of 1990s money to buy us groceries and the whole time I was thinking, Don’t do this. You’re just making it more possible for him to NOT do what he should do.  We’d have had enough, IF he’d have controlled his spending. Our friends were just hurting themselves trying to help us. And, that hurt me… and my pride.

It enabled me to stay in a bad situation longer, true, but it also showed me that I couldn‘t protect everybody else from his issues. I couldn’t internalize it all and continue to pretend everything was groovy when it wasn’t.

My experiences have left me much more left of right than I used to be. Politically, I find myself much closer to being “Independent” than anything else.

I’m closer to being Independent mainly because I am so frustrated with BOTH sides’ answers to these kinds of social issues:

Ignore It and Pretend Like It’s Not There
(- ie pull yourself up by your own bootstraps)

or

Throw Money At It
(-ie here, let me fix your problem for you)

- neither of these, by themselves, are viable solutions to complex problems.

There are lots of times when people take advantage of the system, no doubt. Sometimes, some people need a helping hand. They need not to be left on their own against a system that is bigger than any one person. Where would we all be without family? Without other people in our lives who care? Without an education?  There are people in the world, who were born at the wrong time to the wrong people. And, have no foundation. None. They need help if they are to ever make it past “food stamp.”

And, some people need to teeter-totter on their own for a while until they learn to do it themselves.

And, there’s the crux. To know the difference, you have to know the person and the situation personally. You have to be involved.

(I’m not sure that giving to your church counts, if it did a lot of these problems would be smaller. I’ve been involved with a lot of churches and most of them are more focused on their next building project than the community that they live in.)

A handout, without love, will always be just a handout.  I am not advocating against handouts. Some people really need them and should not be denied that help. I’m saying get involved. Know the people in your community. And, help where help is warranted.  It’s going to take the individual person AND the government agency to get this done. It’s going to take creative, WISE answers to individual problems. We’re gonna have to work together-bipartisanship. What a concept!

You mean, we’re gonna have to stop treating politics like a competitive sporting event (“We win, you lose!”) and start working together?

Yep, that’s what I mean. Or, we all, in the end, lose.

(And, don't think for two seconds that I think I have all the answers, I'm still going round and round inside my own head about what, if anything, I should have done differently standing in line behind that woman in the grocery store.)

To Whom It May Concern...

… in the  U.S. "Nag People About the Environment” camp:

I’ll be 40 soon. I’ve lived some life and, as I’m gearing up for the Great Birthday, let me just say,

“I’ve had it with the guilt.” 

Guess what, tree-huggers of the planet -  I am a human being, I live on this planet, I’m gonna leave a “footprint.”

In fact, I’m SUPPOSED to leave a “footprint,” if I didn’t something would be terribly wrong.

My personal choices ARE pretty full of  tree-huggery:

• I only eat organic, WHEN I can find it (I’m not crazy, I’ll eat whatever, but I try to use my brain whenever possible.)
• I get my kids vaccinated but I turn down all the “add ons”  - no flu vaccines for us.
• We drink water that comes from a glass container, shipped to us from Arkansas-no fluorinated, chlorinated water if I can help it.
• I hate plastic and have been known to layer every evil plastic container and every piece of plastic wrap with paper towels just to avoid any of it touching my food. In fact, we have NO carpet (yes, it’s plastic) in the living areas of my house, at all.
• The recycle bin at my house is always full.
• My kids sugar intake is ridiculously low, compared to most of the rest of the USA. My kids think most sugar comes with a fruit skin on it. (I have been known to THROW OUT Halloween candy - horrors!)
• We do not drink any sodas - diet or otherwise. In fact, IF I order a two liter Coke with our pizza it often gets THROWN OUT before we finish it. And, it’s a big deal - my hubby will ask, 

“Oh, it’s been one of THOSE days, huh?”

• I really abide by the “if you can’t pronounce it, you shouldn't be eating it,” mentality when it comes to food. I AM that annoying woman in the grocery aisle reading the back of every package. In fact, if we use it at all, I better be able to pronounce the ingredients. (Everything that we use in the house is as close to “natural” as I can get it, from toothpaste to toilet bowl cleaner.)
• I had a doula and a mid-wife with my third birth which was an underwater birth and definitely the best birth of the three. 
• I do "Parelli Natural Horsemanship" with Horse which, even in the horse-world, makes me a bit of a "touchy-feely" weirdo.

(Some of my choices aren't are so full of tree-huggery:

• I wear a diamond ring that my husband gave me when we got married, I have no idea if it is “conflict free” or is a “blood diamond.”  I’m thinking I’m gonna keep wearing it.
• I drive a gas guzzling, non-hybrid, keeping my kids safe, hauling my horse, F-150 TRUCK.
• I eat meat. There, I said it. And, I have no intention of not eating it. My body was designed to eat it. Carnivores on this planet eat other animals lower than them in the food chain. I am a carnivore. It sucks, I’m not arguing that point. It is the way that it is in this world.  Survival of the fittest, rules. I think it sucks what is done to animals in the name of “growing” them for consumption. It should change, laws should be passed, agreed. I’m not gonna stop eating my hamburgers because somebody else is acting like a fool. That said, I do buy “grass-fed, organic beef” when possible. It’s not possible, a lot.
• I breast-fed my kids as much as I could and then I put them on formula. I KNOW! FORMULA!!!  <sarcasm>  Hello, it ain’t rat poison. The point is to FEED your kids. Kids, fed.
• Hold on to your hats, I hate to admit this, it is soooo heinous -I used disposable diapers on all my babies!  Egads-shocker! )

Most of my choices would put me in the category of  “Tree-Hugger-Wanna-Be” and you know what? Even I’m tired of the guilt and the confusion. We’re all just doing the best we can with what we’ve got to do it with.

Our culture gives me a whole supermarket full of aisles of stuff to buy, urges me to be a good little consumer and then you nag me when I don’t consume the correct stuff.  In fact, you are always nagging me to buy the next earth-friendly thing. I’m beginning to feel like it’s all just a ploy to get me to BUY more stuff.


It’s not that I don’t think the environment should be protected.


It’s not that I don’t want to do my part,

but, believe me, Big Business is doing far
far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far
more damage to the environment than I ever will,
in my whole lifetime.

Pick on them for a change.

Kay?

Thanks!

     -A-Girl

4,5,6,40?

“Momma, my birthday is next.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I will be five.”
“Yes, Baby you will be 5.”
“Whose birthday is next, after my birthday, Momma?”
“Well, Baby. Mine. My birthday comes next.”
“How old will you be Momma? 6? Will you be 6?”

Um, no.

<giggle> "No, Baby. I’ll be 40.”
“How old are you now?’
“I’m 39.”
Silence. “Uh-huh.”

Hahahahaha

I, too, remember the unfathomable ages that my parents were when I was a kid. How do you wrap your brain around “40,” when you’re 5 (or even, 16?) 40 is literally 8 times as old as a five-year-old. It would be like me trying to wrap my brain around being 320. I have a hard enough time wrapping my brain around "50" at this point. Speaking of, according to Yahoo News,

“Stars who turned 50 in 2010,” are:

Julianne Moore
Daryl Hannah
Hugh Grant
Colin Firth
Jane Lynch                  
Bono
Michael Stipe
David Duchovny
Antonio Banderas
Valerie Bertinelli
Sean Penn
James Spader

Yeah, I know. NO FREAKING WAY!

(And, I remember my mom catching sight of an aging star on Tv and exclaiming, "He's looking so old!" I had a few of those moments, myself, looking at the pics that went with this list.)

The look on Oldest Child’s face when I told him, a few years ago, that I remembered when there were no CD players or microwaves was priceless. He was astonished. (You should have seen his face when he asked what you did if you broke down on the side of the road before cell phones and I answered, "You WALKED to the next exit and prayed that they had a working phone and that you could find a quarter to use it." The look on his face that time was...well, his mouth fell open. <giggle>)

Today, I perused People’s "Sexiest" issue and knew NO ONE in the age group,“20s and 30s.” (I didn’t recognize anyone until I got to the “40s and 50s.”)

Who ARE these people?

I didn't recognize a single face and the only celebrities whom I knew are ... beginning to play the mothers and fathers of the stars of recent movies.  I blinked and suddenly my peeps have been regulated to background characters?   I’m serious, watching a movie for me, now, is a plethora of hearing myself asking desperately,

“Who is THAT?”  

Don’t even get me started on music. I’m serious, don’t get me started.
I can’t even pronounce some of these acts.
Kei$ha? How do you say, “$” ????
Her name is, “ Kei-dollar sign-ha?”

(All I know is Oldest Son was aghast that I had one of her songs on my phone,

“Mom, she’s a slut! 

My mom listens to ‘slut-music!’ 

I can’t stand it!”) 

And, who in the world is  “Flo Rida?”
Seriously, the guy calls himself “ Florida?”
His name is a state?
That’s it!
From now on, I shall be known as “Al A. Bama.”

I had to Google “Justin Bieber” (my husband just informed me that he was SURE that his name was "Justin BEAVER" hahahahaha)  just to figure out how to spell the little (yes, he is little) dude's name. Apparently, there is some language associated with being his fan?

( http://www.fanpop.com/spots/justin-bieber/forum/post/65941/title/bieber-language)

But before I shake my head and get too cocky I remember Donny Osmond and his purple socks. Surely, this kid is not as corny as that. Right? Right???

I have definitely entered the Twilight Zone World of Middle Age. Every time my husband shakes his head and makes some comment on how kids are so stupid today, I respond,

“Honey, I KNOW. 

But we think that because we are old fogies. 

Did you just hear the comment 

that came out of your mouth?? 

Yep, old, old, old. 
Personally, I would say it's 'cause 
we finally got smart but everybody else 
would say 'old,old,old.”

My grandfather suddenly seems so much smarter to me.

Seriously, it's been around for a while but WHO thinks jeans worn down below your butt is COOL?

(I came around the corner of my truck, not that long ago at the car wash, and found myself face to,well, face with the boxer clad butt of a teenage guy bent over vacuuming out his car. I could just about see his cheeks jiggling underneath that pitiful excuse for fabric. I couldn't help it, I stopped and stared, at that, and at his jeans which were hanging on for dear life right around his upper thighs. I wanted to shout out,

 "You DO know that that belt ain't doin' much good, right?"  

I looked up in time to see his mom staring at me over his head. She gave me a look that said, 

"I know! I know! STUPID! He takes after his DAD!" hahahahaha)

I hate to tell you, we would have. We would have thought it was cool.

Aren't we the same generation who actually went to school (when we could get around our totally shocked moms) in “underwear”  worn as “outerwear”  ala’ Cyndi Lauper and Madonna?

Yeah, the only difference between “us and them” is about 20 years.

It’s just that I am so much smarter, now, and they are so much more stupid. :)

The young always have the same problem

-how to rebel and conform at the same time. 

They have now solved this by 

defying their elders and copying one another. 

-Quentin Crisp