Gratitude and Me?

Oh My Gosh!  Do you think when Abraham Lincoln dedicated the third Thursday of November to giving thanks he knew how much we would need a day to consider how fortunate we are?  In my opinion we could especially benefit by counting and considering our blessings considering how divisive our recent  election and the state of the world. It is chilling that I can go to bed and sleep when I KNOW there are people struggling to survive – and likely in my own neighborhood. I am fortunate, and some are not. It was Henry David Thoreau who wrote “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. ” I think that is obvious during the hectic and often stressful Holiday season. The recent election added a bucketload of anxiety to the Holiday Stress Mix.

The Holiday Season will be a difficult time for many. While for some the holidays are filled with warm memories and traditions which have traveled through the generations., for others this time of the year is filled with loneliness and struggles just to make ends meet. The holiday season sometimes brings an escalation of the struggles of many: violence in the home… many of our friends and family may be struggling with addiction…. And Poverty is its own form of abuse. I think Poverty deserves its own capital “P”…Something you can’t imagine if you have never been there. Holidays bring  more stress and despair, and many may feel lost and alone.  Homeless shelters fill to overflowing,.. and some of our brothers and sisters struggle to stay warm and have long ago lost contact with their family of origin.

If you are fortunate enough to be working, or raising your children in a nice home with heat and a full refrigerator do something to show your gratitude this year!  Volunteer somewhere at least one day a week, or a few hours a week. Consider the hospitals, the assisted living homes, the special needs of people who can’t read…teach them, reach them and read to them. Go to the children’s wards and read or play with the children. The quickest was to cure depression and loneliness is to do something for someone else. And if you are fortunate and want to show your gratitude,  add a place at your table and invite someone who is alone to share your good fortune. A friend of mine sent me this link for Giving Circles, which is a GRAND idea. https://shar.es/18wIAC

Like all of you, I have friends who are struggling mightily.  One lifelong friend is sliding downhill with dementia and I miss her this Christmas. She was always here to celebrate with us. I have another who is struggling with cancer and I worry about her every single day. Like you, I have minor struggles in my own life, and I am learning to be grateful for the struggle. Sometimes it is that very struggle that gives meaning to life.

I come from a large family. I am the middle of five children. They are all back on the East Coast and I am here, and I miss them every single day of my life. I have a son and daughter-in-law and two teen grandchildren who live in St. Louis. I miss them every day. And Carlos and Ricky, my other son and grandson, I miss them terribly too.  I miss the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Everyone but my husband and myself is gone this year. I will read a book. I will be grateful to my first grade teacher who taught me to read. I will cook a delicious meal and be grateful to my mother for teaching me how to do that.

The only difference between me and someone exhausted with poverty and depression is an accident of birth. I’m going to get up off the sofa and reach out this Holiday Season. I want to live in gratitude.  Carpe Diem before it’s gone. Quickly now, before we miss it altogether.

 

 

 

 

Is He Really the President Elect ?

So we lived through the last two years of the nastiest, ugliest, race-baitingest, name callingest, most misogynistic and just plain hateful presidential race of my lifetime! It was brutal and exhausting. We ended up with two candidates most of us did not like nor trust worth a damn. To make matters worse the national press was so biased that little of what they fed us on a daily basis was true… and the pollsters were all wrong.   One of the candidates appeared to be a ridiculous clown who intimidated his way into the finals. Somehow Trump rudely touched a few nerves that left seven candidates lying flat on the floor, flustered and unable to shrug off his accusations. The Republican party had some capable and respectable candidates running for President. Only Trump was left standing

The Democrats had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She thought it was “her turn” to fill the office of President. After all, she had stepped aside for President Barack Obama to serve his eight years after she had already stood by as her husband served eight years… and endured his cheating and lying because she knew her time would come.  Hillary was magnificent in her arrogance. I could not have expended the kind of endless energy Hillary or Trump spent running for office for two grueling, exhausting years. In the end, the Clinton legacy caught up with her…along with exhaustion…and she limped to the finish line. What she didn’t know is the country had had enough of her and Barack Obama’s arrogance. To some degree this was a battle between the left wing liberals and the right wing conservatives. Those who favor small government and those favoring government involved in all aspects of our lives. I consider myself a fiscally conservative liberal, and some of my friends are socially liberal conservatives. Many polls place the majority of our population somewhere along those lines, and I think that’s how we voted. Hence Donald J. Trump is the President-Elect as of 2:30 this morning.

I am ridiculously praying that Donald J. Trump, up until November 8, 2016, was doing and saying exactly what he believed he had to do and say to win the election. It worked with his competition…and it worked all the way to the finish line. The finish line is also the beginning of his Presidency. Let’s hope some better version of Donald J. Trump shows up to take the reigns of a country that in spite of it’s faults, is already a pretty good place to be born. Let’s hope we  continue on  the path we’ve already started– of inclusion, respect, and support for ALL of the people of the United States of America. I’m going to hope this is true because the President-elect said in his acceptance speech last night,  “It’s time… I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans,  and this is so important to me.”   Let’s hold his feet to the fire!

Manhattans and Martinis

Living in Las Vegas is a trip.  We moved here in 1990 to live for a couple of years while my husband figured out what her wanted to do with his life. He had tired of the corporate world and it’s system of promoting the least talented people who knew how to kiss-up to the boss. When his boss dropped dead on the street in New York City and the company replaced him with someone he didn’t respect, we moved to Las Vegas where he played poker and did not come home for lunch..

We’d visited here a number of times over the years at the invitation of the Stardust or the Hilton or the Sands or the MGM. Those were the days when the Casino would pick up your tab as long as you played a certain number of hours and ran a certain amount through their bank. Oh my gosh it was fun! We ate at the finest restaurants, dressed to the nine’s, and danced at the top of the Dunes …I think it was?  We had a ball!  It was a small town then, back in the 70’s and 80’s. We would meet at the Blackjack tables, order a Manhattan or a Martini and the croupier would set us up for dinner and everything was “free”. Of course my husband had spent a good portion of the day playing Texas Hold’em at Binions’ or the Stardust, and that’s who paid for dinner and our room. It was all so fine- Elvis, Sinatra, Sammy and Dean.  We saw them all.  Vegas was The Place To Be.

Now it’s 25 years later and the bloom is off the rose. Vegas is not so beautiful any more. Oh sure, once you get inside The Bellagio or The Wynn or the upper-end casino’s it’s fine, but on the way there it is filthy. The streets are nasty and often scattered with litter. Really, from Sahara to Tropicana, or even further South on Las Vegas Blvd. to the Welcome to Las Vegas sign it’s decent. It’s pretty much a pit from the STS all the way downtown. Obviously it’s not a walking town because the sidewalks are grimy and it’s a long way down The Strip and it passes through a number of relatively “unsafe to be out at night alone” neighborhoods.  Not to mention it’s likely 115 degrees in the shade. Talk about cooking eggs on the sidewalk? Yecch!

Come on! We’ve quadrupled the population and that plus the number of tourists and locals who look and act like bums don’t exactly inspire the same reaction we used to get from a trip to Las Vegas. The casinos no longer comp ordinary people. You have to have a bazillion dollars in their bank.  You can look and act like a bum, drink like a fish and be rude as hell and the Casino will pick up your tab. As long as the bazillion is in play.  When exactly did the Casinos decide money was more important than the way we treat each other? So meany mean and rude people in the shows, in the restaurants–loud and obnoxious–but the Casinos look the other way when in the old days those people would have been kicked out. Meanwhile, customer service for the locals is nonexistent. The latest example of this is the MGM Parking fiasco.

Here’s my idea…What if Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Association or the Junior League started a drive to clean up Las Vegas. Start with steam cleaning the sidewalks. Put the people who think it’s okay to spit on the sidewalks in jail! (hehehe- but really?) And double the time if they spit their gum on the sidewalks. And fine them $500 every single time they throw their cigarettes or cups on the streets. Not to mention the porn flyers all over the place . Okay! Okay! That’s not likely to happen. But what if we just ran a campaign for civility– good, old fashioned, decency and good manners? Can we do that?  Please? And I’m not even mentioning how people are dressed and popping out of their clothes these days. Enough with the perfectly perky and round boobs and skater shorts at the Celine Dion show! Fine if you have them, but you don’t have to show them.

And maybe we could have a Manhattan and Martini night where we all dress up in our finest, close off The Strip, put Sinatra on the loud-speakers and dance in the streets? Of course we’d have to end around 8 PM because that’s when people my age go to bed.

Be kind to one another and understand loving self requires being a self worth loving,

Wennn ich raste, roste ich.

 

Solitude and Loneliness

 

There is a difference between loneliness and solitude.  One is about missing the other and one is about being content with being alone and liking the company we keep. It is important to love ourselves if we expect to create healthy relationships. So the question becomes how do we define loving our self?

Some claim to love themselves and yet their life is filled with chaos. If you find yourself in a chaotic, abusive and violent relationship it is not possible that you are treating yourself lovingly. There is a huge difference between someone who places him/herself in the center of a healthy life, capable of making supportive choices and someone with an inflated, fragile or narcissistic ego.

People who love themselves in a healthy way, consider themselves in their relationships. This means I take what I want or need into account along with what my partner needs or wants. It means that if what my partner needs/ wants would cost too much of me, I cannot satisfy that need without careful consideration of what my compromise would cost the relationship. If I sell myself short in order to please you, eventually I will resent you. If, however, I stop to consider whether my compromise would eventually cause resentment for me–if I am willing to take responsibility for my compromise, understanding that I cannot then blame you for my choice–then resentment will not appear. Resentment comes from jumping over myself to please you when I cannot afford to do so. We have to first consider how important that boundary we are considering violating is -and is it flexible enough to withstand compromise. If not, then together we talk about the issues.

Of course this idea of putting yourself first flies directly in the face of most of our childhood teachings about “selfishness”. So hear me, it’s not that we become self-centered or or self-indulgent. That would likely be self defeating and narcissistic.  What I am saying is do not make decisions in your relationships which are not respectful of who you are. If you do, both you and your partner will eventually be miserable.

This means that if your partner is abusive- in word or deed, you do not accept it. You speak-up, if safe, because that is not what love looks and acts like. It means you either fix the problem or leave the relationship. You know when your limit has been reached and remember, fixing the problem is a process not an event.

Loving self means everyone doesn’t have to love or even like you. It means it is okay to make mistakes. Making mistakes is something we all do. The trick is to learn from them and try not to repeat them. Loving self means learning to respect our vulnerability…to even treasure it. Loving self means even when others disagree with me, I can accept difference without self-recrimination. If I am unhappy being around your difference then I may leave you, because I do not have the right to control your way of being in the world.

When I love myself well I do not have to control others. I accept people the way they are and accept myself the way I am. I am willing to compromise that which doesn’t cost me  my integrity. Integrity is a vital part of loving  who we are. Integrity is when we are living our life true to our beliefs and moral code.

As an adult who has learned to love self, I take responsibility for everything in my life.  I am not a victim. I am responsible for how I feel. I am responsible for what I do. I am responsible for the choices I have made. I know that any choice I make that clashes with my moral code will exact a price, and that price is more than I can afford to pay. I can handle it when things go wrong. I am no longer willing to deny the sadness and/or tragedy of my life…or the joys and pleasures. My life is most often just fine and I am not hooked on drama. Loving self means peace not chaos.

Life is not fixed and static. It is always open to change and challenge. Teach yourself to be excited by that change and challenge. Celebrate all of the potential of your life– and your partners life. And you can dream how two separate people with such interesting differences can come together to create a good relationship.

And remember, loving self implies being a self worth loving. Get busy.

Hello world!

Well, this is scary, putting myself in such a vulnerable position.  What if I fail? What if all I get is negative feedback? What if I dry up and can’t think of anything to say that’s worth a damn. What if you’re on the playground and no one wants to play? So much of my life I’ve spent protecting myself from the world around me. Isolating myself so I wouldn’t get hurt. I am perfectly capable of protecting myself from everyone else, pushing them away so skillfully they don’t even notice when I leave.

Finally I am ready to risk the connection with others. I am OPEN for business, so come on in and give me your feedback. Talk to me about your connections, or lack of. Laugh with me. Cry with me. Tell me when you disagree and even disapprove. I want to connect with you…my reader.

Some of my posts will be funny, some nostalgic, some wise and some simply observations. They won’t come on any regular schedule. I write when the muse shows up. I have some things I want to say, yes…but mostly I want to hear from you.

Leave me comments, please. Come share with me.

Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.