Wiping Away the Cobwebs

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I find myself in the middle of the work week wondering if I spent it right.  Did I give thanks for all the things that I have in my life?  Did I wind down and relax like I was supposed to?  I had all good intentions...

When I was a kid my dad had all good intentions as well by designating every Sunday “family day.”  We were all supposed to have a “holiday” from our busy lives and appreciate each other.  Yet, as kids, we tried to connive ways to get out of it.  It seemed like every fun thing to do popped up on family day.  We would beg mom to please let us do this one thing…let us get out of family day… but dad would not budge.  Nope.  It’s family day.  He was like an orthodox Jew on the Sabbath.  We were not lifting a finger! 

I think the holidays are like God’s “family day.”  It’s his way of saying – “slow down and enjoy the things I have given you.”  And, yet, we squirm and get a little uncomfortable at this sudden jolt with reality. 

At least I do.  And I know why.  Because it’s in these “quality times” when I do a lot of “quality thinking.”  I reassess my goals in life, take inventory of my “to do” list, and cringe at every thing that’s not checked off yet.  I wipe away the cobwebs that the busyness of life conveniently covers and ask myself the hardnosed question, “What have you been doing all this time?” 

The “to do” list gets longer when we all tromp down to Texas and I see my sister-in-law’s new gorgeous home and her impeccable decorating taste.  Check.  Check.  Check.  It is like a rustic castle only with all the modern amenities…arched stone entranceways, curved wooden banister in the large foyer, textured walls in warm hues of yellow and green, and all nestled all three quiet acres in the country by an expansive lake.

Everywhere I look, there is the perfect color combination of flowers, the perfectly placed picture and another beautifully crafted aspect of this custom dream home.  Wow.  What a beautiful setting for three joyous days of giving thanks!  Home away from home. 

Not quite.  I meandered around… wondering what to do next … how to help.  This is extended family.  It's not like your own house... where every process is your own.  How should I help with the Thanksgiving feast?  Where are the spoons in this humongous kitchen?  Is it okay if my kid drinks their soy milk?    

But, turns out a little time with friends and family is a good thing.  I was appointed to make the green bean casserole (with the recipe on the back of the fried onion container), the spoons were next to the dishwasher and there was lots of extra milk… in their second refrigerator out in their separated garage next to the pool. 

It can be relaxing when you settle down and be yourself.  I learned more about my extended family and decided that this might be a fun place to come back to in the summer when it was warm and the kids could go out on the boat.

Plus, on the last day, I was getting ready in their upstairs bathroom, which was adorably decorated in a boyish western theme with gingham wallpaper, when I spotted a cobweb.  Hmmm… I thought… funny.  Here I have been trying to clean the cobwebs off my dreams and aspirations, trying to make sense of how I want to go forward in life and there is a cobweb in the house of someone who appears to have it all together.  Maybe there is no such thing as perfection.  And the best you can hope for is “quality times” with “quality people” – friends and family. 

What Do We Need?

It’s Sunday night, and I just finished watching a movie called “Lovely, Still.”  It is a bittersweet romance about an older couple who find happiness in each other’s company. It’s not a typical romance though.  It has a twist and a deeper meaning.  It is about the human condition and how much we need each other and how we are built to share life with each other.  I’m balling on the couch.   

Later, five minutes after tucking my very tired son into bed, he tiptoes in my room and says simply, “I need you.”  I ask him if he’s had a bad dream or just can’t sleep.  He shakes his head.  He just needs me.  He doesn’t know how else to explain it, and I can see that my normally mischievous, independent, no fear kid is being quite serious and sincere.  He’s a walking, talking version of the human condition.  He just listened to his heart and emotions.  We need each other.  We don’t like to always admit it, but we need to connect with each other. 

I think women need it more than we let on.  We suffocate without the right dose of connections with the people we love.  It’s in our genes.  When our kids come up to us and say how much they need us, we melt.  This is a wonderful stage… kids have no qualms about just speaking the truth.  On the contrary, we adults do everything we can not to voice our true feelings.  We are plagued with fear.  Kids are not. 

This touching movie was about how an older couple became like children again and realized the truth.  They had faced fear and said to it, “To hell with you.  I’m going to live my life.”  Just like my son, they were honest with themselves and took actions to get what they knew their souls needed. 

But, as adults, the ones who are supposed to be running the show, we make this basic human need so complicated and distorted.  Sometimes, we don’t say what we want or listen to our inner voice.  We ignore the truth or, worse, lie to ourselves.  We rush around trying to build a life for ourselves and forget what is right under our noses – a bunch of connections that could enrich our lives and slow us down. 

Older adults have experienced all of what life has to offer and still come back to the true meaning of life and love – connecting with each other.  Maybe that’s why kids and grandmas and grandpas tell the best stories.  They don’t have to worry about getting dinner on the table or paying this months’ cell phone bill.  They choose not to worry.  They like to tell and listen to stories because it creates more connections.

As we women go into the hubbub of creating another lasting memory this Thanksgiving with the perfect turkey, tablecloth, decorations, and seating arrangements, maybe we should look around and see what the other generations are doing.  Are they building a puzzle, reading a book, telling a story?  Are they meeting their human need to connect better than we are?  Is getting the milk to butter ratio for the mashed potatoes right that important?  Instead of pouring our efforts into inanimate objects that we will never be able to connect with, maybe we should tell our own story and see who listens.  They do need us after all.          

Don't Be Afraid to Surprise Yourself

“If you don’t let what you don’t know stop you from doing your best in every situation, you will surprise yourself over and over in life, as I have.” 

This is a statement from a book I just finished, entitled If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You.  The author is a famous publicist in the fashion industry in New York City.  She shares her failures and successes in life– from being a homeless drug addict to running a bi-coastal business in marketing. 

She is speaking to all women - urging us all to learn from her mistakes.  Be fearless.  Be yourself.  And never quit.  She believes that women’s abilities are unique, but that many times we do not exercise our full potential because we are not following our own intuition.  She rashly and fearlessly left her safe haven of rural upstate New York for the unknown -  New York City.   She learned life’s lessons the hard way.  But, the important thing is that she never stopped until she found fulfillment.  Not riches, fame, success, or glory.  She found that, but was miserable.  She wanted something else.  She had already indulged the “lower energies” of her mind – “greed, ambition, insecurity, self-doubt, and guilt.”  She only became really happy and fulfilled when she discovered who she was and what she was meant to do.  She had to have faith in herself and follow her intuition.  It was then that she started “surprising herself.” 

She also points out that “sometimes, if not most of the time, you find out who you are by figuring out who and what you are not.”  It’s like shopping for a dress.  You find many dresses that you know will NOT work before you find the one that will.  But, when you try on the right one, you know it. 

Everyone has fear.  But, I think as women, we do not address this fear like we should.  We are the nurses in battlefield rather than the warriors.  But, to gain ground, we need to be the warriors.  In fact, we will be better nurses when we can take over the territory.  We live with fears that are ultimately going to feed our insecurity and keep us from being who we were born to be.  We focus on caretaking, fixing problems, picking up after others, which is fine – until we let our fear overrule our intuition.  Our intuition is our greatest asset.  It is firing on all four cylinders when we have eliminated the fear in our lives. 

The world needs our intuition and needs us to do what we were born to do.     

Children are good at beating fear.  Every day, my son tries something new.  I’m in awe.  He goes into each challenge knowing he is going to conquer it one way or another.  He has not been programmed to back down, relent, or give up.  He’s programmed to win. 

When he is shooting pucks in the laundry basket in the basement, all I can think of is that one of those pucks is going to shatter the nearby 50 gallon fish tank and clown fish and anenomes are going to come spilling out.  Not my son.  He concentrates on stick handling, shouts out the play by play, invents his own players, keeps the score close and ultimately wins the game.  It’s all in his head. 

But, I’m naturally acting as the ref, anticipated the worse, trying to head it off at the pass, and ultimately letting my fears get the best of me.  Sometimes, a little caution is healthy.  Like when my son decides to skateboard down the middle of the street.  Healthy caution keeps him alive.    

But this caution should not interfere with our natural intuition about who we are and what we were born to do.  In fact, it’s the tasks that no one knows how to do that we are going to be the best at.  Because there is no play book to these games.  We follow our intuition to discover the solution and create the play book.  We are programmed to run interference, but it’s our natural asset to go for the end zone and discover new solutions to old problems.  Through our intuition, we have our own play book.  We just need to find it and use it.  In other words, we need to spend less time focusing on the clown fish and more time on hitting the back of the laundry basket.          

What's In a Goal?

My son plays hockey on Saturday mornings.  Last week, he “scored” four goals.  (It’s a “learn to play” league, and there are no real goalies.)  We sang his praises on the way home.  “Wow, you were so good out there.”  “That was a great breakaway.”  (I’m learning the hockey lingo.)  It must have gone to his head, because this week he tried to do it again.  But, no such luck.  No goals.  On the way home, silence.  He was beating himself up.  “I’m horrible at hockey!”  He can be rather melodramatic.  In the front seat, we tried to rally.  “Better luck next time!”  “You had two assists!”  “The team couldn’t have done it without you.”  He looked at us skeptically.  Our cheerleading didn’t quite cut it… 

My husband was happy.  “This is good.  Competitiveness is healthy.  The good athletes push themselves.”  I did not concur.  “It’s just a sport.  Does he really need to be beating himself up?  Isn’t he acting kind of selfish?”

We bantered back and forth about the philosophies going through our six years old’s head.  He sucked on a tootsie pop and watched.   

I’m not sure I want the inherent selfishness that comes in being “good” at a sport, although I like the benefits of team sports and learning discipline and hard work.  But, my husband can’t wait to see him excel in something and hone his skills.  Which is the greater evil - a kid who is excellent and conceited or a kid who is mediocre and kind?  What are we breeding in our kids?  Why can’t culture reward kindness like it does athletic ability? 

On the other hand, we learned at the parent teacher conference that “he was empathic towards other kids.”  We were stunned.  He goes up to them and hugs them.  He has a kid with Downs Syndrome in his class and treats him with kindness according to his kindergarten teacher, Ms. Fritchlee. 

I have to find a way to help him focus on the goal of kindness and selflessness as much as the goal in a net in hockey.  Maybe if we cheered more for these types of “goals” he would be more apt to do them. 

Maybe that is why sports is popular.  It is tangible to see a goal and obvious when to cheer.  It’s easy to spot the heroes. 

Sometimes in life, we forget to cheer for the acts of kindness that go unnoticed. 

The jobs that are considered a “calling” like teaching and motherhood are the jobs where no one is looking.  No one is noticing or singing your praises and many “goals” go unnoticed. 

But the people I know who excel at these jobs are the kind of people that I want to be like and that I want my son to be like. 

I notice that some people who are hailed as successes, elevated above others, and put on pedestals are actually selfish, unhappy and lonely.  They may have a hat trick in life like my son had two Saturdays ago (I’m getting really good at this lingo thing), but when they are off the ice, they fail to see the real meaning of winning.

 

It seems so easy, but it’s difficult to master.  It’s like good athletes.  They make it look easy.  But, it’s not.  So many people walk around wondering why they are unhappy and dissatisfied with life.  Well, it’s simple.  These people are not scoring the goals that are important in life.  They are not giving back, sharing their gifts, and helping others. 

Like my son, we all need to be reminded that it’s not always about scoring goals.  Sometimes, an assist is just as important as a goal.  If someone is not passing the puck, another doesn't have the opportunity to put it in the net.    

Being mothers, wives, daughters, friends, and women, we do a lot of passing and get a lot of assists.  But, this is where I find my happiness.  I love being a mom and I love being a friend, sister, daughter and wife.  Helping others, watching the play develop, and finding a way to win as a team is my most rewarding sport.