Month: February 2021

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Adulting.

I was thinking today about two things: One, how we get to know who we really are, and Two, Deciding who we want to be. I spent a lot of time (years!) on the first one, and these days I think a lot more on the second. I often find myself asking these questions:

Do I want to be THAT person? That says THAT thing? Or does THAT?

When I need to make a decision, as small as calling a friend or as large as changing life in more profound ways (moving or something else that is a BIG decision) I stop and really think about what I’m doing, what I’m saying, and WHO (what kind of person) I want to be.

So I started off knowing who I am now, past and present, and then transitioned into thinking about looking forward. Am I fully who/how I want to be? I’ve become so aware.

It’s adulting, isn’t it? Fully realizing that each and every decision we make has a consequence, be it good or bad or somewhat neutral. Adulting at its finest. Who I surround myself with has consequences. Who I love. How I choose to put myself “out there” to others. It all matters, if even in the tiniest of ways.

I’ve watched a lot of movies recently and one theme I really see a lot, is that one person saying one thing to someone can have a profound impact. (Sometimes the impact is good and sometimes bad.) I don’t wanna be a person who gets utterly shut down, worrying about what I say and do and what others think about it, but also, I want to be aware. As much as possible I really want to be a person that encourages others.

I want to be the one that others feel they can talk to and share their lives with. I want to be open. Secure. Settled. Wise. And even when I find differences between myself and someone else, I want to love and accept them despite these differences, as much as possible. I’ve often said we are not all the same and were not meant to be, and how boring would that be—so I want to walk that out.

It can be HARD especially if I feel profoundly and deeply about something and maybe others take issue with it, but adulting can also mean, knowing when to break away. When you’ve done all you can, let it be. Let people be who they are, and if we just can’t click, so be it. Peace. You go your way and I’ll go mine, but I wish you no ill will.

Maybe I’m finally getting the knack of this adulting thing. I hope so cuz I think it’s here to stay for me.

When I was young back in Oklahoma, we had these neighbors, twin girls, and one said about their sister, “Next time I’m gonna be born with the mole on my leg.” One of those random things I remember because it struck me how she thought she’d be doing it all again. (She was about three, I think.)

My son once said when he was a similar age, when we were discussing growing up, that when he grew down, he was going to do this and that. He thought that people grew up and then grew back down to infancy. I don’t think I’ll be growing back down, so I’d better get used to this.

Acceptance. A large part of adulting.

Peace Out, my friends!

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Day to Day Feb 24

Gonna go back through a lot of my writings and maybe delete some things, which kinda goes against all I stand for, but I’m entering a new and different place or phase, and I don’t want some of the more negative stuff following me around like an online ghost. Knowing full well of course, that what is out out there, is always out there, to some degree, but I want my pages and blogs to reflect more of what I am and less of what I was.

Such a strange time to be alive on planet Earth. (I’ve said this a lot before and I’m sure I will again.)

Pretty well adjusted to The New Normal by this time. Don’t go out a lot, usually only to pick something up from Target or Publix, always with my mask on, being good, thinking of others. Wearing a mask is about others, for me. I’m fortunate enough NOT to have to wear one all day in a work situation and I feel for those who do.

Most days I’m in a really good place, emotionally. Isolation can still be hard but way easier for me than for some. I tend to be a solitary person for the most part, even under the best of circumstances. There are few people I care to hang out with or be around on the regular. But there are a couple people I miss.

Hubs and I are joined at the hip. We kinda always have been but then we moved to Florida and he began to work from home and that took things to a new level, then the pandemic, and even another level. I have to say that being THIS CLOSE to someone is a new thing in my life. He is my person. If he were not, I think it would’ve ended us. (I say this only because I feel like it would undo any relationship that wasn’t rock solid. Glad ours is.) He has been my closest confidante and friend, my world and my everything and I’m so thankful for him. I can’t help but think about single people who are uber-isolated and alone and I feel for them. My gratitude helps keep me sane. (That’s been a thing with me, gratitude grounds me.)

For me, closeness has always come hand in hand with fear of losing someone so the closer I get to hubs over the years, the more that underlying fear increases, I guess it comes with the package of truly loving someone.

The pandemic has really brought me face to face with death. It’s a thing. A path we all will take one day. We’ve lost so many perfectly wonderful humans to this virus, and to other things. I lost my dad in December. I can’t wait for a brighter, more hopeful day. When the reaper ends its deeper sweep into humanity and the virus fades. If only death could be put back in its place.

I don’t recognize the face in the mirror anymore, I’ve aged so much in the last two years. I’m trying to get to know this new older person staring back at me. But I’ve really gotten to know the person on the inside. I know me, I love me, I’m cool with me. That, at least, feels good.

I put on a few pounds during the holidays, I purposefully loosened the reigns on my “diet” (meaning the way I normally eat), so that I might enjoy a cookie or a slice of my DIL’s homemade goodies, that sort of thing. I couldn’t help but think, “What if I died tomorrow and never had another scone or muffin or bite of cake??” And now I’m paying for it. My body does not tolerate sugar well, it swells immediately when I eat sweets, normal serving sizes, not a pig out, but if I have sweets 3 times in one week, I will pay a dear price. My joints will hurt, my body swells, my clothes don’t fit.

This is how my bod functions. Not sure if others can get away with it, it seems so to me, but I cannot. So now I am trying to tighten back up, eat less sugar, drink more water, do more of what I know to do. But/and/also if I can stay in my same size of clothes, just do THAT well, I’ll be okay cuz I don’t have that driving need to be thinner, thinner, always thinner, that I had when younger. I just want health, that is all. Just a healthy, strong body that will carry me through all of the ups n downs until I take that final journey.

In a sense, growing older is such a loss of innocence, like on a whole new level. I don’t have the luxury of never thinking about my own death anymore. But it’s like anything else, you get to know about it, put away the fear, decide its simply another part of life, as natural as rain. And press on pushing that boulder up that mountain.

I hope my friends are all well and strong and dealing with life. I keep holding on to this old adage, “This, too, shall pass.”