Setting This "Transferring Project" Aside As Sunday Morning Arrives.

I'm not going to get into the whole thing about moving some stuff from the site, Bubblews, to here.  Besides there having been so many changes on that site, I've never really known what people were supposed to be writing on there.   I don't really plan to clean out my whole account on there (at least right now).

Anyway, I've spent several hours moving a bunch of stuff that I don't really want on my account there.  Kind of waiting to see where, if anywhere, things go on that site.  For now (long story short), the posts I've been moving appear here with the orange-flower picture I've been using on Bubblews. 

At least for now, having that picture with former Bubblews posts will, if nothing else, help me immediately identify if a post (on here) came first from there.  Depending on the post, I may remove the "identifying" picture (and maybe he post) once I figure out what I want to do (if anything) with each post.

Shifting Things Around On A Few Blogs

I'm in the process of trying to shift things around, and generally clean up this blog, as well as two others.  I'm aiming to get a certain type of stuff limited to just the three blogs.  From there I'll make additional adjustments of one kind or another.

Anyway, the two blogs are:

First Hand Perspectives (where I've been transferring some stuff from other sites/blogs (but, of course, that, in itself, is kind of a multi-layered project.

Here's the link to that one:   http://firsthandperspectives.blogspot.com/

The other one is ME Whelan - The Blog;    http://mewhelan.blogspot.com/http://

I'm trying to first loosely lump things together, without regard for any niche (if they're even "niche-worthy" at all; because there's a lot of cleaning and converting that has to be done with tons of old stuff.  From there, I'll decided whether to bury some things behind layers of my own links (I have my reasons) or whether I'll find a way to give them a new lease on life somewhere other than on one of these three "non-niche" blogs.
   

Do I Get The "Cabin Fever" Prize??

December 13, 2014

I just read a post about Cabin Fever, but I didn't want to do a "one-up-manship type of thing" on that post (especially since the Bubbler said her little one wasn't feeling well). There's a thing people do, and that's the old, "Well, if you feel bad maybe if you think about all the people who have things worse than you you won't feel quite as bad."

The thing is, sometimes no matter how bad how many people in the world have things worse than you do, that doesn't always make your own situation less miserable than it is. Most of us know how many awful things so many people have to deal with. Most of know that in the "scheme of life" we're fortunate. We can know all of that stuff, but we can know it and still have to deal with the reallities of whatever it is that's miserable for us at the time.
When I write this I'm not entirely sure that I won't get some people wondering what must be "wrong with me", but I'm not going to try to tell the whole, complicated, legal-case, related story that started with badly handled divorce.
The simple fact is that I have been trapped in a house and only able to get out by walking a good distance since 1993 when I couldn't renew my driver's license after I was left to live in my car while also (and thankfully) being ordered to pick up my children each afternoon and on for every weekend.
The rest of the story is, as I said, long and complicated. What doesn't help is that I have been given NO answers by anyone in the legal system or anyone in from "The System", for that matter. God knows who, outside The System, thinks what.

The point is that I've been walking since then, and when that all started it wasn't as if the mother of three children and the whole thing with a house, pediatricians, schools, activities, etc. etc. meant that I was all that rested in the first place. It was, as I used to say, "a good kind of tired", however, so I didn't mind it. It's just that once a bunch of stuff related to the divorce was added to everything else; and once worries about my children being separated from their sole source of emotional support became a factor), that (and the living-in-the-car thing) were more of a drain (to say the least).

I won't go more into the license thing (it's somewhere among all the stuff I've written somewhere else). And, I won't even go into the walking thing (which I actually recently just wrote about on some blog). All the rest of it aside, the real "Cabin Fever" situation set in exactly five years ago this month when I did a serious leg injury (also wrote about that in that same blog post). That put an end to walking, although right when I was getting to at least kind of walk at last the three-mile round-trip to a nearby convenience store, I did another injury to the other leg (also in that blog post and "wherever else" among stuff I've written).

The point is it was just last Summer when I was able to put finishing touches on teaching the "old" leg to know how to walk without my thinking about AND to continue to build up strength both around the injuries and in muscles that had gotten out of shape from my not doing all the walking I'd done before the first injury.

Now there's the thing with snow and ice, which was bad enough (where I live) before any leg injuries. Whether I can walk somewhere has always been weather dependent. These days (and for the last several months at least) I generally get out only when I walk or when I go out with one family member once on a weekend day and often one evening a week.

This would be rotten enough if I were a sick person or even someone who didn't have a lot of mental and physical energy; but I'm not now and never have been either mentally ill or lacking in physical energy. (Well, in the last several years I've thought of myself as often running on "six of my usual eight cylinders" and as time has gone on, on "four cylinders" and in the most recent of times, sometimes as little as "three cylinders".)

Other than that "cylinder issue", I still have a whole lot more energy than a whole lot of people do have, or would have under similar circumstances.

I'm not the "martyr type" and don't want "the proverbial medal" just because I'm still the same me that i've always been (although tired and in need of a good pedicure, among other things). But, once the warmer days started to become fewer and fewer; and once ice and cold (or rain and snow, or whatever else) showed up this year, any Cabin Fever I've generally managed reasonably well has become less and less manageable.
There is not one second of any day when I'm not acutely aware of, and thankful for, the fact that in that "scheme of life" my "miserable-ness" is less than nothing compared to what so many people in this world have to deal with.

Still...........

Memories Of Work Clothes In The Late 70's/Early 80's.

January 26, 2015

After reading a few different posts that focused on clothes (and in view of the fact that I often can't think of much to post), I thought I'd write a couple of posts about my own clothing preferences. (Feel free to send me ads, clothing retailers; but I warn you: I don't spend much on clothes these days.)
Once I was old enough be out of school and working full-time, I was happy not to have to worry about what "everybody else" was wearing. Where I worked women wore either skirts, dresses or else pants that were not as casual as jeans. At the time, they weren't "dress" pants, but they were dressier than what one would wear out and around outside of work.
I like simple and feminine-feeling clothes, so since these were being worn at the time, I often bought "pants sets" (not to be confused with pant-suits) that involved soft-fabric pants with one or another kind of long, flowing, top that matched. As long as I was careful not to get something that someone, say, over fifty would wear I didn't have to worry about looking matronly because at the time I didn't have a matronly build. In fact, it was because I have a very small frame and, at that time, weighed in the 106-116 lb. range that I aimed for clothes that were feminine, professional looking, and didn't run the risk of coming across as "cutesy". (When you're really small and have a young looking face on top of the fact that you are, in fact, in your early twenties; you don't want to come across as if you're embracing the whole "little-girly" thing.
Also, at that time, mid-calf skirts were around; and contrary to the believe that small women shouldn't wear long skirts, I found that a lot of people didn't realize how short I am because with heels (or platform shoes of the 70's) combined with one, long, "visual fiield of color", it looked (at least I thought) OK. Besides, I'm not under 4 ft tall or anything like that. I'm 5.2.
At the time, jackets/blazers came in any number of fabrics, including "synthetic" (aka one kind of polyester or another). Some of that was worse than some other. It depended, I guess, on what the mix of "synthetic" was.
In any case, whether synthetic, linen, wool, cotton, "faux suede", or whatever else; I had a lot of jackets.
On the one hand, I care enough about clothes to at least hope to look my best. On the other, I don't want to be thinking about them the whole time I'm wearing them. So, when I was working fulll time (but also now sometimes) I found that a simple skirt with a simple, comfortable, top under a jacket felt feminine, required no thought, and looked pretty much OK anywhere.
Something else that I liked to wear was simple, pull-over, dresses that were essentially long jerseys or long sweaters. Effortless, so I liked those.
Being single and working, and being someone who took care of my stuff, I usually had a few coats of one kind or another, depending on the season.
What I wore when I wasn't working depended on where I was going or what I'd be doing.
In recent years I found the book, "Dressing Your Truth" by Carol Tuttle (who is a woman who has "a whole deal about knowing your type, beyond just the book about clothes). Other than look at some of her videos about clothes and types, and other than reading that one book, I didn't pursue any of the rest of whatever she's got going with books, videos, store, etc. However, it was interesting to read the book, and I kind of figured out that, for the most part (and at least since I got past my teens), I've always very much someone who dresses for what's right for me and what feels most comfortable, rather than allow trends make me abandon the kind of clothes that I like.
That doesn't mean I won't abandon some things that are out-and-out out. It doesn't mean that I don't like fresher versions of classic clothes. I just mean that even when I was young I wasn't about to be a slave to either fashion or clothes.
Once I quit working full-time, had three little kids, and sometimes took short-term or freelance projects, I had to re-think a few things and aim for clothes that were more all-purpose (while still "being me").

All-Purpose Clothes When My Kids Were Young - More Reflecting On My Clothing Preferences

January 26, 2015

After reading a few different posts that focused on clothes (and in view of the fact that I often can't think of much to post), I thought I'd write a couple of posts about my own clothing preferences. (Feel free to send me ads, clothing retailers; but I warn you: I don't spend much on clothes these days.)
Once I was old enough be out of school and working full-time, I was happy not to have to worry about what "everybody else" was wearing. Where I worked women wore either skirts, dresses or else pants that were not as casual as jeans. At the time, they weren't "dress" pants, but they were dressier than what one would wear out and around outside of work.
I like simple and feminine-feeling clothes, so since these were being worn at the time, I often bought "pants sets" (not to be confused with pant-suits) that involved soft-fabric pants with one or another kind of long, flowing, top that matched. As long as I was careful not to get something that someone, say, over fifty would wear I didn't have to worry about looking matronly because at the time I didn't have a matronly build. In fact, it was because I have a very small frame and, at that time, weighed in the 106-116 lb. range that I aimed for clothes that were feminine, professional looking, and didn't run the risk of coming across as "cutesy". (When you're really small and have a young looking face on top of the fact that you are, in fact, in your early twenties; you don't want to come across as if you're embracing the whole "little-girly" thing.
Also, at that time, mid-calf skirts were around; and contrary to the believe that small women shouldn't wear long skirts, I found that a lot of people didn't realize how short I am because with heels (or platform shoes of the 70's) combined with one, long, "visual fiield of color", it looked (at least I thought) OK. Besides, I'm not under 4 ft tall or anything like that. I'm 5.2.
At the time, jackets/blazers came in any number of fabrics, including "synthetic" (aka one kind of polyester or another). Some of that was worse than some other. It depended, I guess, on what the mix of "synthetic" was.
In any case, whether synthetic, linen, wool, cotton, "faux suede", or whatever else; I had a lot of jackets.
On the one hand, I care enough about clothes to at least hope to look my best. On the other, I don't want to be thinking about them the whole time I'm wearing them. So, when I was working fulll time (but also now sometimes) I found that a simple skirt with a simple, comfortable, top under a jacket felt feminine, required no thought, and looked pretty much OK anywhere.
Something else that I liked to wear was simple, pull-over, dresses that were essentially long jerseys or long sweaters. Effortless, so I liked those.
Being single and working, and being someone who took care of my stuff, I usually had a few coats of one kind or another, depending on the season.
What I wore when I wasn't working depended on where I was going or what I'd be doing.
In recent years I found the book, "Dressing Your Truth" by Carol Tuttle (who is a woman who has "a whole deal about knowing your type, beyond just the book about clothes). Other than look at some of her videos about clothes and types, and other than reading that one book, I didn't pursue any of the rest of whatever she's got going with books, videos, store, etc. However, it was interesting to read the book, and I kind of figured out that, for the most part (and at least since I got past my teens), I've always very much someone who dresses for what's right for me and what feels most comfortable, rather than allow trends make me abandon the kind of clothes that I like.
That doesn't mean I won't abandon some things that are out-and-out out. It doesn't mean that I don't like fresher versions of classic clothes. I just mean that even when I was young I wasn't about to be a slave to either fashion or clothes.
Once I quit working full-time, had three little kids, and sometimes took short-term or freelance projects, I had to re-think a few things and aim for clothes that were more all-purpose (while still "being me").

English - American, UK, Traditional, Something Else?

August 7, 2014
Since I ran into a discussion on people using American spellling and/or grammar rules versus UK spelling and/or grammar rules, I thought that the subject may make a good (or sort of good-ish) Bubble. Well, the fact is I can't always really think up what may or may not make a good (or even good-ish) Bubble. So, most of the time I end up writing a bad-ish Bubble and thinking that it's better than nothing (sort of/maybe not - who knows...).
I use American spellings (of course) because I figure if anyone from, say, the UK reads something I write they'll know why someone from the US uses American spelling. I see it the same way when I'm the reader and read anything (Hub or anything else) that has any UK spellings.
Maybe it's because I went to very old-school, American, schools; and I think SOME grammar differences that people think of as "differences" are more a matter of some changes in American English that have gone on after I learned a more traditional version of grammar. The majority of teachers in my grade-school days were very old fashioned, quite elderly, women who had never been married (aka at the time as "old maids") who, in some cases, were born maybe as early as the late 1800's, but certainly, in most cases, the early 1900's. (I know that makes me sound like I come from "prairie days" or something; but if you do math and subtract, say, 70 or 80 from 1950-something/1960-something you'll see how even younger-side "old maids" were older than my own parents (so you can imagine when the oldest of those "old maids" had - like - 1880-something birth-dates - so just imagine what they were taught in terms of grammar and spelling when they were in school).
Things can be complicated when writers use one or another different styles, whether, say, AP or some other, field-specific, style that may kind of eliminate a lot of punctuation anyway.
Then, though, there are some things that have been changed in American English that I refuse to use (and I don't care who likes it, approve of it, thinks of it as old-fashioned, or whatever else). An example is "having an issue" with some like, "If anyone wants cake and ice-cream THEY should get in line..." (that kind of thing). I don't happen to see an issue with using "he" in place of "they" in that instance; and although that's the latest, acceptable, thing (to use "they") - I'm sorry - I'm not going to use what I learned was poor grammar.
It's the same with what someone else said about using punctuation and quotes in a way that just isn't correct. (I don't know even know what is American or what is UK or what is specialized style on some things like that; but unless I'm writing something that requires some disregarding or conventional, written, English I pretty much stay with what I learned was "correct" (and more traditional) English (with, though, American spelling).
Then, too, if I'm writing on a more casual basis (as is the case with something like writing on Bubblews), I'm not above out-and-out intentionally making up the occasional word (like, for example, "good-ish") or breaking the occasional grammar rule if I think that doing that will better accomplish what it is I'm trying to do with a piece of writing. I'm comfortable with words, so I like playing with them if I think that will do one or another job more effectively. (I don't recommend "trying this at home", as they say. Well, correction, no. By all mean, try it at home. Just don't try it at school or in business - but I digress (oops,Over-Used Phrase Alert on that "but I digress.." thing. Then again, it can be difficult to sort out, say, some over-used terms/phrases from "oldies-but-goodies" terms/phrases and/or oft-used terms/phrases that are "oft-used" simply because they do their job so well).
For the most part, I don't go too wild with making up words and/or my own grammar rules (or deciding I won't bother with one type or another, since it's casual writing that offers me a little flexibility. For the most part, I aim (in my more casual writing, which is actually usually less casual than a lot of other, less writing-minded, less writing-engaged, people than I am) to produce what I think of as "decent and mostly/largely correct" spelling and grammar. Oddly, whatever spelling and grammar checkers I use often have far less of a problem with some of my deviations than I might think. Once in awhile spelling or grammar checkers pretty much hate some of my "creative efforts" playing with words. Then again, though, far more often than that there are those times when I'm writing something less casual and more serious, and the "brilliant" spelling or grammar checker doesn't even recognize some words from some fields and then suggests some real doozies as alternatives. I don't blame the spelling or grammar checkers (particularly the spelling checkers). One can't expect them to "know" absolutely every word that anyone is ever going to use.
Of course, what we pick up, in terms of writing, can also be influenced by what we've read over the course of our lives. Somewhere between classic literature and, say, historical documents, a whole lot of "extra stuff" has been dropped from using the English language; which, at least to me, has most often been kind of a good thing, but not necessarily always a good thing.
The point is, I really think (provided a writer is not bound by a very specific set of style rules) that using one's common sense and writer instinct, but also keeping in mind the aim (and tone) of a specific piece of writing, is sometimes the more "right" thing (or at least as "right" a thing to do as a lot of other choices as we write).
For the person who aims to produce solid writing of one sort or another, it can be an almost constant thing of trying to figure out how, when and/or why to drop some of the more traditional things in English (and "getting with the times") and when, instead, it may be time to preserve/protect the language, itself.
Personally, I draw the line on mixing the singular with plural and assuming that people can't be grown-up enough to figure out when, say, using the word "he" doesn't shouldn't be taken personally by all the "she's" of the world. It's not the same as saying "mail-man" versus "mail-carrier" or even "actor" versus "actress". I mean... I don't care who uses "colour" versus "color" or "humor" versus "humour" (consistency of choice is preferred, of course). I will never be OK with mixing singular and plural just because a) someone takes offense with a convenient use of the pronoun "he" and/or is too lazy to go with something like "s/he" or "she or he" (or "he or she") - and thinks that altering formal and correct English is the better alternative.
I just don't think that laziness is a good reason to break some of the grammar rules that are, after all, the building blocks of language that a whole lot of people seem to think has served a whole lot of people fairly well throughout history (American, UK, both, or otherwise). Besides, it's not all that difficult to figure out one way or another of not mixing singular with plural without eroding the fabric of the language, little by little.
By the way, if anyone wants cake and ice-cream he should go the nearest birthday party, I guess, because he (or she) sure-as-heck won't find any by sitting at his/her (never "their") computer and doing whatever it is he/she (never "they") do at their computer.
Oh, and by the way... The spell-checker hated "good-ish", "bad-ish", "humour", and "colour"; and it apparently "thought" I shouldn't have used "doozies" and instead should have used "doggies".. See? THIS is why just sometimes has to break the rules and do his own thing (as long as it is not mixing singular with plural).

Do So Many People Really Take Divorce As Lightly As So Many Other Folks Think They Do?

October 10, 2013 So many people seem to believe that so many divorces happen as a result of people taking them, their vows, their marriage, or even life too lightly.

I don't think most people who get divorced have taken either their vows, the marriage or the divorce lightly. At least nor the ones I know. So many people wait years to see if things get better, or in the hopes that one partner will be interested in fixing what's wrong in the relationship.

Loving and responsible parents especially, perhaps, take divorce most seriously of all. These are people who a) don't want to hurt their children at all, and b) don't want to be separated from them through divorce/custody issues.

As far as couples without children go, I don't know... If there's so much wrong in the relationship that either of them is thinking about divorce, maybe it's better they get out before there ARE children. When a relationship has what relationships need in order to survive so many differences and challenges, nobody even thinks about divorce - at least I don't think - when things get rough. I think when a relationship is what it should be, the difficult stuff brings people closer together rather than driving them farther and farther apart.

The only people, I think, who are in a position to make guesses/judgment about someone else's divorce is both of the the people involved in the relationship, and sometimes even one of them doesn't even really understand what happened. :/ I think one reason so many people think that divorce is taken lightly more often than it really is is that divorcing people don't always tell all that's wrong in the marriage, so it looks to others as if they're divorcing "for no reason" or "for stupid reasons".

Most of the things that are bad enough to make a lot of people even consider divorce are pretty ugly things They're often not the kind of thing people want to share with anyone else, and they're sometimes not the kind of thing people would choose to share with their children (sometimes they do because they have to, or because the children have already lived with whatever it is and so already know about it). Not all divorcing people hate the other person, so not all would be willing to shame the other person by sharing shameful behavior or deeds.

Sometimes, too, even if one person does try to tell someone else how bad things were in the marriage, others won't/can't believe it was really that bad because a lot of "bad behavior" is something people only do behind closed doors and in front of the spouse.

As someone who had no choice but to divorce, I've so often run into people who opinions about divorces. Some have never been married. Some are happily married. None of these people have run into the realities of some situations that require divorce. One day they may, but they haven't yet.

Then there are those who will say (and maybe even are) they are happily married, but only because they worked hard on staying married. Obviously, both were willing to work hard. Obviously, too, the challenges and differences were the kind that - even if awfully difficult - these two people happened to be able to overcome together. These are people who obviously have not encountered the kind, or number, of challenges that were far too much for even the most willing of individuals to overcome. And, I don't want to seem gloomy and certainly don't wish this on anyone, but of all the people who think/believe/say they are happily and permanently married today, "x percent" of them will discover otherwise some time in the future.

Finally, there are those people who are willing to stay in an unhealthy and destructive - sometimes extremely miserable - marriage for their own reasons, and everyone has a right to his own reasons. When this is case, others have their opinions on how unhealthy it is "to stay", but those others should realize, too, that judging the choices of someone else always means judging a road being travelled in shoes other than one's own.

I have no doubt that there are some people who are too cavalier about things like marriage and divorce, but I don't think that's most of them.

Photo: ME Whelan, 2013

So Many "I Told You So's". So Little Time.

May 26, 2015

This post will be kind of cryptic, I suppose; and that's mainly because there are a lot of things I can't/won't put on the Internet. Nevertheless, "I Told You So's" can have a way of building up when enough of them, in fact, do build up; and when there's enough of a build-up it can be very frustrating not to express at least SOME of them.
Ordinarily, I'm not an obnoxious person (or at least I try not to be). If the matter is a silly one (like a little debate about something like which actor played what in some movie) I don't even have the urge to say "I dol you so". On things that aren't quite as insignificant/silly as that but aren't all that serious either, even then I'm not one to need to enjoy even thinking "I told you so".
I'm a secure person. I have no problem with being wrong and conversely, no particular problem with being right (and by "problem" I mean having the need to say "I told you so", or even spending more than a fraction of a second thinking it. I suppose with the more day-to-day/less significant matters (even, sometimes, when they cause inconvenience or some problem if the wrong person caused it), I don't care much. I don't get joy in someone else's being wrong, and I like to try to be the proverbial "bigger person". There's something to be said for aiming to be the bigger person. (Actually, I prefer to think of it as taking the high road. I don't need to be "bigger" than other people in my own head. As I said, I'm secure. ) Also, however, I'm very careful about making sure that if I say "I think x" that I've spent plenty of time and effort going outside my own head and making sure that what I think, or how I do something, isn't in conflict with what, say, well established experts say. It's not that there's ever been a time when I haven't questioned a thing or two that experts say. Usually, though, such times have been fairly small issues and/or things that I've questioned because something I've seen for myself doesn't match something that is the latest conventional wisdom. Even with that, however, I've always pretty much been "a mainstream-expert believer".
In any case, the world is full of people who think things without being good and sure they've backed them up. It's all full of people who listen to lies, pull things out of their imaginations and/or out of the blue.
There are some things that I take far more seriously than others, particularly things that have affected me and/or my family (particularly any/all of) my three now grown children.
And, while I won't say more about any of this, or which matters I have in mind; while I still may, in some instances, try to be the bigger person, I have no intention of not, at least, mentioning that I have a huge, huge, number of "I told you so's" for any number of people.
For now (and maybe forever), all I'll say is "so many 'I Told You So's' and so little time. I'm not entirely sure there aren't at least a few more "I told you so's" that have to be established, but until every last one of them is I'm not through waiting to know/see that they have been.
As I said, I know there's a big "element of cryptic" to this post. I'm writing it for me, rather than anyone else.

A Funny and Not-Funny Refrigerator Magnet

A few years ago I was at a local dollar store and saw some refrigerator magnets with funny "sayings" on them. Several of them were funny, but I wasn't about to waste more than a dollar on any of them. One, in particular, just struck me. On it: "Just Because You Don't See It Doesn't Mean It Isn't Coming".
I don't have a whole refrigerator's worth of magnets, the way some people do. I just have a few (among a few other things) on the side (and only near the top). They have to be kind of "special" for me to think they're worthy of "posting". Some are things like phone numbers of businesses. I have a couple for each holiday (that aren't up all year round). My daughter made some really nice ones, so they're there. There's one or two related to people's vacations.
Anyway, this one I saw that struck me so funny didn't even have any picture on it. Maybe that's why it struck me as funny as it did. The words, to me, conjured up the image of, maybe, a person on, say, a baseball field with some super fast baseball headed straight at the back of this individual's head from somewhere afar.
The magnet has been on the refrigerator for years now, and at some point in the last couple of years one of my sons told me how his girlfriend had seen it when she was with him at the house, and he said how she thought it was funny. He was laughing a little as he mentioned it, and it got me laughing too. We weren't doubled over laughing or anything like that. We did, however, get on kind of giggling roll. My son and I have a similar sense-of-humor, as family members often do. He (and his siblings) also know that some of the things that have gone on in our lives are things for which I have some real heavy duty contempt and disgust. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but there has been truly nothing funny in any of it while at the same time I'm tempted to call some of it "laughable".
While over the years there have certainly been times when I'd approach one "issue" or another with my best efforts to present fairness and wisdom, there have been other times when I've used attitude, sarcasm (not the mean kind, by the way), and/or general humor to either introduce a few laughs or lightness into the mix, or else, maybe, in an attempt to show one or another (or all) of my kids that their mother is strong, solid, and (while not immune to rotten stuff going on) able to remain strong, "above it", and (hopefully) an example of how to deal with some of the rotten stuff in life.
My kids and I have had a lot of slightly sinister-feeling giggles over some of the absurdity that we've dealt with (and I'm not talking about the stuff that has more been tragic than "absurd").
Back to the magnet: As I was thinking of a number of things earlier I was thinking about how my son and I had gotten on that "giggle roll" over the magnet. He knows what I think of so much stuff that we've all had to deal with, and he knows the contempt and disgust I've had for so much of what has at times gone on.
As I thought about what made the magnet so funny to me I realized that while I got a mild chuckle out of the image of that clueless person with the baseball headed at him (combined with thoughts of the words on the magnet); the giggles that, for me, were the most fun and kind of sinister required more than just that simple image and those simple words.
Normally, I don't find people getting hit by wild baseballs very funny. In order for it to be funny I had to also have the image of that person on the baseball field being really arrogant as someone else tried to tell him (or her) that the baseball was headed toward his head. The arrogant and clueless individual with that high-speed baseball coming straight at the back of his clueless head had to be really sure of himself and really sure that the person trying to spare him some pain knew what he (or she) was seeing and talking about. Yes, in order to truly understand why I found that magnet as funny as I did involved realizing that arrogance and condescension had to be combined with the cluelessness of the individual who was about to be beaned. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so funny.
The magnet has been up for so long I'd long ago forgotten that I'd put it on the refrigerator. So, when my son mentioned it after so long I once again imagined the arrogant and/or condescending individual with the baseball headed straight at the back of his (or her) head; and getting exactly what he had coming. There are all kinds of things that go on in life that we don't see coming. There's nothing about not seeing some things that makes anyone who doesn't seem worthy of ridicule (and a high-speed baseball to the back of the head). It's the arrogance and contempt that make the difference.
Also, it isn't even being clueless that makes that imagined individual worthy of the high-speed baseball. We're all clueless about any number of things. Again, it 's that arrogance and contempt. It's also refusal to listen to the warnings of someone who is only trying to warn someone else about that baseball; because, boy, if the arrogant and clueless individual isn't interested in being warned about that baseball headed straight for his noggin he sure as hell isn't likely to get much more of a clue once he's been knocked farther into La-La Land than he already is.
There's nothing worthy of ridicule about not seeing something coming as long as one doesn't tell the person who DOES see it coming, and who tries to warn the other, that what he (or she) sees doesn't exist. (When you think about it, imagine the degree of arrogance it takes to ignore what someone else actually sees and to tell him (or her) that he doesn't see what he sees with his own eyes.)
Yes, it's funny to imagine the arrogant, condescending, and clueless individual getting knocked out and having imaginary stars swirling around his head (the way they do in cartoons). In real life, and away from the harmlessness of the world of refrigerator magnets, it isn't at all funny.

Getting Over Emotional Pain - Does Time Really Heal All?

January 29, 2014

I just ran into a post about whether time really does heal all wounds.Rather than write a super-long comment, I thought I'd write the following post.

From my own experience, it does, at least when it's something that nobody could have done anything about (like a death) But it, takes more time than we usually think it will or should. Again, just from my own experience, we at first may have to not think about whatever it is, but then over time we kind of start to pull out of the "mental file" marked "process later" some of the parts of whatever happened; and over a period of time we process each part until the whole thing just doesn't have a whole lot of emotion attached to it. That's not saying that, for example, in the case of someone who has passed away, we don't still miss them at times, or in some ways; but it's so much less and feels so much smaller.

How it has always felt to me is as if everything surrounding the event is what we process, think about until we make peace with it, and eventually we make some kind of peace with whatever it is.

If it's a death that has recently happened we don't just tell ourselves to be numb, and we don't just feel numb. Things go on that actually do numb us soon after the death, and gradually the numbness starts to wear off.

I have no doubt that there are some very extreme and awful losses/events that people don't ever get over (in fact they're so unimaginable for most people I can't even make myself put into words an example here. Under most circumstances, though (and even with some horrible things and overwhelming losses) we actually do get over it.

One problem can be, though, that when you've been through something but it's old enough that it has lost its emotional punch for you, if it's big enough it will still be a part of your life; and it may be as much a part of your life/history as, say, the color of your hair or the school you went to. So it has no emotional impact for you. But, others who have't had a similar experience can be very uncomfortable about it if you mention it. In fact they can think you "haven't moved on" when, in fact, you've moved on - but you don't have amnesia. Also, in the case of losing someone, sometimes they were so much a part of your life that not mentioning them means you have to leave big gaps in your "story" any time you're talking about a time in your life when they were here.

With "wounds" that have been inflicted by someone (whether intentionally or not), I think it can be trickier because the person who knows he has been victimized by someone else can have a need to have the other person (or at least someone) acknowledge what happened and that it was wrong. There can be a need for some form of justice as well. Sometimes a person may be able to put it past him and do whatever processing has to be done (and this part can be similar to other types of hurts, like death) if he gets a simple acknowledgement and/or apology. So, while I can't speak for everyone, I can say that what makes some "wounds" not heal is that the process can't be complete without those additional elements (like the acknowledgement and apology). Making things right again would be another thing the person may wish he could have happen (at least ideally), but even that could be "gotten over" better with the other elements.

Photo: ME Whelan

Of Strength, Defending Oneself and Ageism -

Of Strength, Defending Oneself and Ageism - Part I 

 February 16, 2014
Last week on our local news there was a story about a man who fought off a would-be robber by defending himself and his cash by threatening the would-be robber with a big stick of some sort. I could post a link with all the details, but none of that is the point. (Besides, maybe the man really wouldn't want to call more attention to himself than the situation already has.) The story had an even happier ending when the criminal was later caught, as he tried getting away with cash he'd taken at another establishment.

The man who chased the would-be robber away runs a gas station (and maybe convenience store) The news reports and a lot of others in the man's community said that the owner of the gas station has always been a hard-working man who seems dedicated to providing good service to his customers.

As it happens, the man's accent would indicate that he has come to America from another country. As it also happens, the man is 74 years old. So, besides having so many people admire him and/or be happy for him; the fact that he's 74 may mean that the robber thought he could take advantage of an older man. Of course, maybe the robber didn't think things out that much. Maybe he just wanted cash and saw some opportunity other than something related to the man's age. But, on the chance that the man's age made him more of a target for this particular criminal then, obviously, there was just that little bit more satisfaction in knowing the man showed the criminal otherwise.

So, while I imagine the man was shaken up (who wouldn't be?), and while I hope he was OK over the days that would follow, it was a nice story with a happy ending.

Take from that story what you will for now. I'm going to go somewhat off the subject for a minute and say a few things about getting older..... 

Of Strength, Defending Oneself and Ageism - Part II 

My mother was 75, I guess, when she was talking about dealing with Rheumatoid Arthritis and some other serious health issues. She said, "What people don't understand is that you feel the same as you ever did, only you can't do the things you used to do and would like to do. Even with her health problems, however, my mother did a whole lot of things that a lot of thirty-year-olds don't have the energy to do. She took care of all kinds of people in any number of ways, including making big meals, taking care of young children, helping people financially, and pretty much doing everything she'd always done (including her own housework, grocery shopping, and whatever else needed to be done) - only slower sometimes (at least when substantial physical activity was required). RA, however, is not a condition of the elderly. Children have it, of course. My mother's was diagnosed when she was in her fifties. So, when she spoke about "what people don't understand" wasn't so much related to aging, but to her worsening mobility problems.

I'm nowhere near 75, but I've had a little (well, a big) taste of some of the things that " people don't understand" after having a couple of serious leg injuries that have involved years' worth of slow healing and strengthening. Again, not the point. The point is that I've had a taste of having people have opinions about what I should be doing with one or another injury, associating the injury-related mobility "issues" with my age (I may not be near 75, but I'm not near 30 either). Without getting into all kinds of examples and details, I've had all kinds of "tastes" of not getting one thing or another (including not getting that I've done everything in my power to get the injuries back to normal, which hasn't been difficult because they're "equal to fractures" but because they've been very serious and complicated and related to (among other things) more than one ligament. So, for what amounts to "six leg-/injury- years" I've had a real taste of what it must be like to be perfectly sane, perfectly capable, and perfectly pretty much everything other than able-to-walk normally - and that "taste" has been particularly rotten when I've realized that this is the kind of thing so many elderly people must live with all the time (whether they're problem is something like Arthritis or some other condition).

Take from what's immediately above what you will as I once again switch gears a little and talk about how getting older has felt to me - and that's whether I've been thirty, forty, or any other age up until my present age of "fifty-eleven" (hey, some of us are more gracious about some things than others are :/ ).

Everyone is different, of course. So, how anyone would describe what getting older feels like is likely to be different too. None of what I'm about to say is scientific or researched. It's just how things have felt to me.

What getting older has always felt like to me is as if I'm the same person now as I was at, say, three y ears old; but it's as my "self" was once a simple, basic, circle (kind of a "core person"); and as time went on, and experience and knowledge were accumulated what started out as a single circle became a matter of concentric circles, with, perhaps, the color or size or even pattern of each of those outer circles being made up of any number of things involved with accumulating more time as I went along. Of course, when you're three and you're physically growing with each week, month or year; those changes would factor into whatever outer circles were forming. So, too, it would seem to me would any physical changes involved with, say, going from early middle age to later middle age. I'd think (or at least I imagine) that in the case of someone like my mother, that RA would have its impact on the nature of any of those later, more outer, circles (just as my almost-good-as-new leg injuries have "colored" any of my own more recent ones). Still, the real point is that the imaginary concentric circles are about who/what I am as a person, and on the inside - not whether I can walk normally or not. In fact, now I can walk normally (knock on wood, and at least for now). Still, while I'm now the "same me" walking-wise as I've always been, additions and changes to those imaginary circles have resulted in my "having more to me" - not less.

That goes back to exactly what my mother used to say, which is that "you feel the same on the inside". Of course, some elderly people develop one or another form of dementia and eventually do, to one extent or another, "become less". Not all do, however. It's the same with things like arthritis, heart conditions, or any number of other health conditions for which there is a higher rate once people are over the proverbial "certain age". Who develops what medical issues is different from person to person, and some folks have relatively few (if any) of those "age-associated" conditions either until they die suddenly or develop one or another thing that then leads to yet more conditions that contribute to a "jump ahead" in aging. (Well, for example (and again knock-on-wood), the world is full of people in their forties who complain about one kind of joint pain/stiffness or another; yet even with the two injuries (knee related) that I mentioned, a number of fractures years ago, and a couple of other injuries; so far I have no signs of joint problems or Arthritis at "fifty-eleven". I'm not bragging. I'm making a point, and one point is that I really don't like it when a forty-five year old with joint stiffness or Arthritis assumes I must have the same, and probably a lot worse, since, of course, I'm so much older than he.)

Take from what I just said what you will, because now I'm going to get back to the man with the gas station and that stick....

 

Of Strength, Defending Oneself, and Ageism - Part III 

Based on the accent that man had, I can only assume that some his imaginary circles must include whatever he has been through (for good or bad) in order to leave his home country and establish his business in the US. What his life is, or has been until now; based only on the fact that he's quite a bit older than I, I can only assume that his overall "circle" has to have a larger diameter than someone younger's. What each of those circles is made up of, I have no way to know. They could be simple. They could have all kinds of patterns, colors, information, etc. etc.

Also, I don't know whether this man has a joint-pain at all, any other medical condition, or how bad any such conditions may be if he does. He is obviously at least capable of running and working in his business, as well as swinging a giant stick and effectively scaring away a would-be-robber.

Now, I'm thinking this man did the exact same thing last week that he would have done ten years ago, twenty years ago, or however long ago if someone had told him to hand over his hard-earned cash. When he showed the reporter how he chased away the criminal he demonstrated how he headed toward the criminal, held the stick up high over his own head, and angrily demanded of the criminal, "YOU WANT CASH??? !!! " He then repeated, "YOU WANT CASH???!!!!" With only limited time to demonstrate how he chased away the robber, he did - at least on the news - add, "I"LL GIVE YOU CASH!!!" as he held the stick. I won't guess if he added that, but I was certainly expecting to hear him say that before they went to another part of the story.

Now, I may be being "nit-picky", or maybe I just have a real "attitude problem"; but here's what bothered me about the presentation of the man's story:

While the man's customers and neighbors said he'd always been a hard-worker (in other words, he worked hard for his money and didn't deserve to have it taken by some slime-ball), the news people referred to him as "feisty". We see stories like this involving people of all ages all the time. The message is most often, "....fought off a would-be attacker" or "fought off a would-be robber", to which is most often added, "Police say they don't recommend doing this, but.." (since it worked out OK, great). The word, "feisty" isn't used when a forty-year-old man is involved, or a fifty-year-old man is involved. It's only when people "over a certain age" are involved, or in the case of some woman, when "feisty" is used. When it's a teenager the word, "brave" is often used. I don't recall ever hearing "feisty".

When telling this man's story, why not stop at the word, "brave" or "determined" - or even "foolhardy"? This guy looked like a big, sturdy, man. He looked very much like the kind of man he probably is - a hard-working, capable, man who doesn't work in an office and who, instead, is out scraping off people's windshields in eight-degree weather (and a man who has managed to keep his business up and running for years - and enough years that people in the community seem to know him quite well). Whether or not this man has, say, Type II Diabetes or a couple of arthritic knees (and I'm just using those hypothetically), I still wouldn't want to be the person who saw him headed toward me with his giant stick (or whatever it was).

Yet, if he had been a forty-five-year-old, "white-collar", man who, perhaps, worked in his "Daddy's" software-design company, who weighed 150 lbs, had skinny arms, and wore running shoes, and who had been a pampered American kid; would anyone even have considered calling him, "feisty"???

Some Dictionary/Thesaurus References on "Feisty"

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feisty

www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/feisty

www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/feisty

www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/feisty

If you look at some of the definitions of the word, "feisty", at some the synonyms and other "related words" you'll probably see that a few of them may actually be appropriate - but only a very few. In general and in the largest number of possible "interpretations” the word doesn't even really apply. Even that, however, is not really the point; because most of us have a pretty good idea of how the word, "feisty", is most often used. And, what that word brings to mind to most people is most often "smaller and weaker" (and more likely to lose in a physical confrontation).

I don't know the man who fought off his would-be robber, whether or not the criminal was either riddled with some substance that would either make him slower/weaker or else faster/stronger than he otherwise might be. I don't know how tall he was, but he definitely looked a lot younger and thinner than the man who did not become his victim. On his second attempt to steal money he didn't appear to confront anyone. Instead, he skulked behind a counter and took money from a drawer (or something like that). Nobody called him a "feisty, would-be, robber" when he confronted the first target and demand he give him money. (Again, consider some of those words/definitions associated with "feisty".)

We all pretty much know why it was this man in his seventies wasn't just called, "successful at defending himself and his business" or "effective at fighting off a would-be robber". Twenty years ago that's what people probably would have said about him doing the very same thing. Now, regardless of whether his body is nowhere near as strong as it once was, is almost-but-not-quite as strong as it was twenty years ago, or is every bit as strong as it was; and regardless of whether his imaginary concentric circles are twenty-four years bigger in diameter and how-ever-many times richer and more colorful and complex now than they were back then; the rugged-looking "Mr. Talk-Tough-and-Not-Only-Carry-But Swing-A-Big-Stick" gets called, "feisty".

Take from that what you will.
Based on the accent that man had, I can only assume that some his imaginary circles must include whatever he has been through (for good or bad) in order to leave his home country and establish his business in the US. What his life is, or has been until now; based only on the fact that he's quite a bit older than I, I can only assume that his overall "circle" has to have a larger diameter than someone younger's. What each of those circles is made up of, I have no way to know. They could be simple. They could have all kinds of patterns, colors, information, etc. etc.

Also, I don't know whether this man has a joint-pain at all, any other medical condition, or how bad any such conditions may be if he does. He is obviously at least capable of running and working in his business, as well as swinging a giant stick and effectively scaring away a would-be-robber.

Now, I'm thinking this man did the exact same thing last week that he would have done ten years ago, twenty years ago, or however long ago if someone had told him to hand over his hard-earned cash. When he showed the reporter how he chased away the criminal he demonstrated how he headed toward the criminal, held the stick up high over his own head, and angrily demanded of the criminal, "YOU WANT CASH??? !!! " He then repeated, "YOU WANT CASH???!!!!" With only limited time to demonstrate how he chased away the robber, he did - at least on the news - add, "I"LL GIVE YOU CASH!!!" as he held the stick. I won't guess if he added that, but I was certainly expecting to hear him say that before they went to another part of the story.

Now, I may be being "nit-picky", or maybe I just have a real "attitude problem"; but here's what bothered me about the presentation of the man's story:

While the man's customers and neighbors said he'd always been a hard-worker (in other words, he worked hard for his money and didn't deserve to have it taken by some slime-ball), the news people referred to him as "feisty". We see stories like this involving people of all ages all the time. The message is most often, "....fought off a would-be attacker" or "fought off a would-be robber", to which is most often added, "Police say they don't recommend doing this, but.." (since it worked out OK, great). The word, "feisty" isn't used when a forty-year-old man is involved, or a fifty-year-old man is involved. It's only when people "over a certain age" are involved, or in the case of some woman, when "feisty" is used. When it's a teenager the word, "brave" is often used. I don't recall ever hearing "feisty".

When telling this man's story, why not stop at the word, "brave" or "determined" - or even "foolhardy"? This guy looked like a big, sturdy, man. He looked very much like the kind of man he probably is - a hard-working, capable, man who doesn't work in an office and who, instead, is out scraping off people's windshields in eight-degree weather (and a man who has managed to keep his business up and running for years - and enough years that people in the community seem to know him quite well). Whether or not this man has, say, Type II Diabetes or a couple of arthritic knees (and I'm just using those hypothetically), I still wouldn't want to be the person who saw him headed toward me with his giant stick (or whatever it was).

Yet, if he had been a forty-five-year-old, "white-collar", man who, perhaps, worked in his "Daddy's" software-design company, who weighed 150 lbs, had skinny arms, and wore running shoes, and who had been a pampered American kid; would anyone even have considered calling him, "feisty"???

Some Dictionary/Thesaurus References on "Feisty"

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feisty

www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/feisty

www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/feisty

www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/feisty

If you look at some of the definitions of the word, "feisty", at some the synonyms and other "related words" you'll probably see that a few of them may actually be appropriate - but only a very few. In general and in the largest number of possible "interpretations” the word doesn't even really apply. Even that, however, is not really the point; because most of us have a pretty good idea of how the word, "feisty", is most often used. And, what that word brings to mind to most people is most often "smaller and weaker" (and more likely to lose in a physical confrontation).

I don't know the man who fought off his would-be robber, whether or not the criminal was either riddled with some substance that would either make him slower/weaker or else faster/stronger than he otherwise might be. I don't know how tall he was, but he definitely looked a lot younger and thinner than the man who did not become his victim. On his second attempt to steal money he didn't appear to confront anyone. Instead, he skulked behind a counter and took money from a drawer (or something like that). Nobody called him a "feisty, would-be, robber" when he confronted the first target and demand he give him money. (Again, consider some of those words/definitions associated with "feisty".)

We all pretty much know why it was this man in his seventies wasn't just called, "successful at defending himself and his business" or "effective at fighting off a would-be robber". Twenty years ago that's what people probably would have said about him doing the very same thing. Now, regardless of whether his body is nowhere near as strong as it once was, is almost-but-not-quite as strong as it was twenty years ago, or is every bit as strong as it was; and regardless of whether his imaginary concentric circles are twenty-four years bigger in diameter and how-ever-many times richer and more colorful and complex now than they were back then; the rugged-looking "Mr. Talk-Tough-and-Not-Only-Carry-But Swing-A-Big-Stick" gets called, "feisty".

Take from that what you will.

Every So Often One's Bubblews System Goes Out The Window and 'Whatever' Takes Its Place by ME Whelan, &LMW197

February 23, 2014

Oh, brother....

Thursday and Friday I was kind of feeling crummy, and a bunch of things had gone on that made me kind of frazzled. So, I "put off until tomorrow what I really could have/should have done today" (that was Thursday and Friday); and, for the most part, kind of took a couple of days off. (Well, at least when it came to SOME things.)

Since Bubblews is a spare-time thing for me, or at least a skimmed-time thing for me; Bubblews was the first to go - and go completely. In other words, I only used the PC for doing the absolute minmum that I needed to do and pretty much stayed away from it other than that.

Two days off can do wonders for a person. So can a Saturday afternoon out when the temperature is close to fifty, at least some of the horrendous snow has melted (sort of), and one decides not to even think about groceries and instead just get fresh air and socialize.

So, by last evening (Saturday) I felt like myself and came to Bubblews. Of course there were - like - eight billion notifications (kind of overwhelming, but a) I was feeling energetic and back to myself again, and b) (let's be honest) some of them had to be "left unattended". I was overwhelmed enough not to really use my ordinary "sort-of-system". Instead I just kind of willy-nilly went through the list, picking one name or another and taking it from there. In the meantime, needless to say, more notifications kept coming. No problem. I told myself I'd just spend the late part of Saturday night, reading posts (etc.). In fact, I told myself that it was probably good not to do anything more demanding than that - particularly after having felt so crummy.

THEN, though.... I ran into at least three posts about subjects that gave me ideas for my own posts; and that's when it all unraveled (well, at least with regard to how-ever "raveled" it was in the first place anyway). At first, when it was only one, I just figured I'd write it. Besides, it was on a serious subject; and I just thought it was "worthy". A couple of other-people's-posts later, however, I was "inspired" to write a second one. If I recall correctly, that was the one that was goofy and super-long. But, I had a little fun writing it, so "whatever" (but also, "oops" lol).

Having fallen super-far-behind on the notifications; for some reason, I started going through the newest ones (and they kept coming), while the list of not-so-new ones grew longer and longer.

So, short story long: Everything went out of control, but I did end up with (I think) three posts but also having pushed off the immediate page a particularly stupid post about the weather (which I've been wanting to do for days but haven't done because a) I couldn't think of anything to write after I wrote the stupid one, and b) I then started to feel crummy anyway.

With three posts, a bunch of coffee, and having had a little fun writing (as well as reading in-between times); I got to feeling really great at, I guess, around 4:00 a.m. And, as all experienced and skilled pullers-of-all-nighters can generally attest, by 5:30 a.m. I was feeling REALLY, REALLY, great. Well, ,that was until 6:00 a.m. started to roll around, and for another half-hour or so I ignored the sleepiness (exhaustion, really) that had started to pick up speed; and plodded my way through a whole bunch of people's posts. BUT, we all know what can happen in a few hours on here.

So, what I've done is to make an MSWord document of all the notifications between "then and now", so that I won't lose them. I'm looking at the "6:44" on the clock right now and (as I so often do) thinking about what an idiot I am. In the meantime, I've saved all last night's notifications. Some of them I got to anyway. Some don't apply really (well, you know the ones, "So-and-so commented on your comment", when they really were commenting in general or else on someone else's comment.)

The point is that I did save the notifications list from last night. Who knows what will show up between now and when I return. I'll deal with those when the time comes, but my main thing was that I didn't want to lose all of those from last night just because I "went wild" and wrote some long posts.

So, even if I've been kind of "wise-guy-ish" (or whatever) as I've written this particular post; I just wanted to say, "thank you" to (particularly) the people who read, liked and/or commented on the posts I wrote when I'd really planned to only read and not post at all; but also to let people know that if I haven't already gotten to them somehow that I will. It's just that (well let's put it this way) I'm an idiot sometimes who apparently has little control of her own free-time activities. :/ :/

Image: ME Whelan

When All or Part Of Our Family Background or History Is Missing

January 3, 2014 One of my grown children is adopted, so I've spent a lot of time thinking about adopted people and the subject of their learning about their background. Actually, when my son was twenty-one and contacted by an agency that invited him to meet the birth mother it was he who said he wasn't interested, and I who encouraged him to "at least let her know you're OKAY". He did go on to meet her and her family.

Also, although I've never cared much that there's a whole lot of my own ancestry about which I know pretty much nothing, when my niece and a couple of other family members dug up some information about my ancestors I enjoyed learning about it and thought it was "kind of interesting".

Other than that, I've never particularly cared that I haven't known a lot of things about my ancestry, or even grandmothers. (I would have liked to have known them, but since I didn't there's a point where it's never mattered a whole lot to me.)

The point is, I'm not someone who thinks adopted people shouldn't know and/or have no right to know about their "birth story" and birth family - in fact, to the contrary. As a mother of a son who is adopted I saw his learning about his beginnings as something that was very important (provided he had nothing against learning about those aspects of his life). The fact is, though, that there are a lot of adopted people who never get to learn that information; and what bothers me, in this day and age in which birth stories and ancestry are so emphasized (and in which it can seem as if so many people think that the person who "doesn't know" can't possibly ever "be whole"), there's a part of me that still thinks that there needs to be some way to put "not-knowing" (or "not-knowing-all") into perspective. After all, for the person who doesn't, and will never, "know" (and who is bothered by that fact that he doesn't), that may be the only perspective there is. I wrote the following on thoughts on my own grandmothers in the hopes of sharing a perspective.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

It should, perhaps, bother me more than it does, but the fact is I would not be able to write the life story of either of my grandmothers.

My father's mother died long before I was born. My mother's mother died about five years before I was born.

This is what I know about my paternal grandmother: She was strong, woman who had two sons and a daughter, but who lost her three-year-old daughter to diphtheria. She was closest to her eldest son (my father), came from either Ireland or Wales or Nova Scotia (the story wasn't told clearly). She was apparently on the tall side. She made really pretty little satin and crocheted things and had a lot of pretty tea cups. She died in her fifties.

Here is what I know about my maternal grandmother: She was brought to the U.S. from Scotland as an infant. There are pictures of her father in kilts. She, too, was on the tall side. She, too, was a strong woman. I was told she did a lot for other people and was always taking care of others. She had five children who lived. Of them, there were two sets of twins, with one of those twins dying at birth. She, too, crocheted things and had a lot of pretty tea cups. She, too, died in her fifties. Her death was the result of complications of diabetes.

Both grandmothers were White women. Both had brown hair. Both had their babies at home and were waked in their homes. Both were born around 1881. Both had sisters, although I don't know their names. I don't know which of them did or didn't have any brothers. Both had sons who fought in WWII. Only one lived to see her son go to war.

My mother tried to tell us about her mother, but since we didn't know her it didn't really mean much at the time. My father never said much about his mother. Both my parents were devastated at the loss of their mothers. I grew up thinking of myself as someone who "didn't have" grandmothers, and I never really thought much about it.

Today we live in a time when searching out roots and hanging onto cultures are seen as important. Many people believe its "so important" that adopted children know everything there is to know about their biological roots and relatives. "Let no family history stone go unturned for anyone," is the motto of so many people today; and there is sometimes the belief that living without knowing everything about grandparents, great-grandparents, and other ancestors is unthinkable.

In about three paragraphs above I wrote pretty much everything I know about my grandmothers. I could write what I know about the two grandfathers I did know in about four paragraphs. Some day I suppose I ought to find out what the names of my great-grandparents were.

I'm not happy that I don't know much about my grandmothers. Its just how it happened. I suppose if my father had lived longer than he did he may have gotten around to talking to his grown kids about his mother, but we never got to have our father as adults. Probably, too, because we grew up and had kids and made our mother "The Grandmother" my mother's mother faded into history.

What I've learned from having lived with so little knowledge of my grandmothers is that people really can grow up feeling whole even if they don't know much about their "roots". That's an idea I wish all adopted people could have and one I wish anyone who lives without knowing much about his/her history could have.

On Goals, Excuses, Reasons and Positive Attitude - Why Some Folks Have More Challenges Than Others

December 14, 2013 After reading a very nice post on Bubblews, I realized that my comment would be longer than might seem right (or polite, or something), so I thought I'd write my thoughts on the subject in the form of a separate post.

Here's the post to which I've just referred:

www.bubblews.com/news/1813758-the-written-word-will-always-prevail

Although I'm a big one for writing "to-do" lists, I wouldn't write my more meaningful/serious aims/goals in life down. The reason for that is that, for me, those things that mean the most to me (and particularly those that can't afford to be "diluted" in some way) keep their "full power" and strength by not being "diluted" by anything in "the outside world". I think of a line from Barry Manilow's, "I Made It Through The Rain," a song about how "dreamers have a way of getting through the day". The part of lyrics about which I'm thinking came to mind as I wondered why it is I feel as if it's so important not to write down, or otherwise share (even if only with the air) those goals/aims that mean the most to me. Those words are, "We keep the feelings warm, protect them from the storm, until our time arrives."

In his post, which shared some real-life stories about people who have reached their goals after putting them into words/writing, the author notes that so many people, when asked if they've written down goals (etc.) will come up with a "but". He, like so many other people who are generally correct about the subject of having clear-cut aims/goals and following through on them, mentioned how people will so often say they "have a situation" or "having a situation that someone else doesn't understand". Also, it was pointed out that all kinds of people have their own situations, so it was essentially suggested that having a situation isn't a good reason for not adopting those practices so often known for facilitating having and/or reaching goals.

Please understand that the following thoughts aren't (AT ALL) intended to come across like "reading the riot act" in reply the particular post I've mentioned above. Instead, the post inspired me to think about all the issues and implications associated with the subject of achieving goals by putting them (and also some plans to achieve them) into writing.

While I don't argue with the general ideas presented in the post, I have to say that some people live long enough, and/or live through enough, to learn that not all "situations" are equal. They're not equally simple or equally well understood or equally common (no matter how complex or difficult they may be). There are situations - lives, issues, other things - that might best be highlighted with a very few, isolated, words from a different song, which is a song from the Broadway production of Jekyll and Hyde, "A New Life" (and I don't mean all the lyrics, just those few words). Those few words are, "...a new day, bright enough to help me find my way."

Yes, most people have had their "situations" to overcome. Only some haven't had those BUT, as I said, not all situations are equal. They just are not.

Some people may think that other folks use having a situation as an excuse for not having, taking steps toward, and/or reaching goals. People who live with the more extreme, complex and/or "suffocating" (or otherwise overwhelming) of situations most often discover, I think, that contrary to using their situation as an excuse, they've instead found the strength and skill to develop some habits and positive thinking that surprises (maybe occasionally amazes) even them.

If there's one thing I've discovered about some types of situations, it's that some of them can best be compared to, say, having one's hands tied to a heavy chair; and then having other people in this world say, "All it takes is a positive attitude, and getting up out of that chair and moving out into your life and future." There are times when some situations (and sometimes some mult-faceted, multi-layered, situations) amount to a person's having his hands tied - at least for the present time.

There are people - some of whom start out strong and are made stronger and wiser by those extreme situations. Then there are others of who start out strong enough but are weakened or exhausted by their own situations (and I use "situations", plural, because the most complex ones can involve more than one simpler situation). There are lives that - no matter how many bright spots and/or profound meaning may exist in them - are so battered by one type of storm or another, so darkened by a seemingly endless string of gray clouds, and so relentlessly lived on shifting sands that a person may have no choice but to spend most, or all, of his energy and attention on just surviving all the storms, trying to find solid footing in shifting sands, staying whole (and if the person has children in his life then staying "better than whole" for them, as well as trying to get them safely through all the storms) and surviving mentally, emotionally and sometimes even physically.

Yes, I'm among those whose lives have involved the kind of situation(s) to which I've referred. And the "storms" to which I've referred aren't necessarily about money (although money can certainly bring some stormy weather in ways a lot of people who haven't done without it might never realize). No, though; the kinds of storms to which I'm referring can have nothing whatsoever to do with money. That can be what makes some of them such a challenge and often completely resistant to the usual kind of things that positive-thinking people do in order to get through some challenges.

I borrowed those few, isolated, words from "A New Life" to make a point here. I want to be clear that the last thing I'd ever want is a new life. There's so much about the life that I have that I wouldn't trade for the world, that's made me strong and positive, and that make me consider myself one of the most blessed and fortunate people there could be. No, I don't want a new life. I'd just like - for more than a day and a half, maybe - one of those days that would be "bright enough to help me find my way". Please don't make the mistake of thinking that "find my way" implies that I'm lost. I'm not lost and never have been. Also, please understand that I wouldn't want sympathy if someone knew the details of my own situations. I'm a strong person and a survivor; and I'm kind of proud of, and very pleased about, beng both. I wouldn't be either, I don't think, if I weren't as skilled with positive attitude as I've always been.

Positive attitude is something that many people discover is a good idea. It's something, too, though, that many people have little choice but to develop; because if they don't they aren't going to survive, or at least come through those storms whole.

It's just that in a life of so many storms, or else so many coming so soon after the previous one that there's been no time to clean up one storm-ravaged mess before another one comes; and in a life when I've had to try to get four people - not just one - through it all (and through it all with as little damage/hurt as possible), a person can find himself exhausted a good part of the time (and when he does have those times of not being completely without energy, or when he finds ways to get a little back when he's running on empty, he's likely use those "good moments" for aiming to do all those things I've mentioned above.

I don't want to come across like I want to be viewed as "some martyr", and I don't want the proverbial medal for not having a sunnier life than mine seems to have turned out to be and for living it, and staying whole through it, anyway. Still, in a world in which I now I'm far, far, from alone in my situation of unrelenting and destructive life-storms (even if some other folks' storms have been different from those in my life, I just wish there weren't so many people who look at those folks who have overcome situations and believe that because they've overcome those particular situations then all situations can be overcome as well.

By virtue of having been overcome, it is clear that overcoming some types/degrees of situation or obstacles is doable. The fact that SOME types/degrees of those things can be/have been overcome, however, says nothing about whether other types/degrees of them always can be - because as a lot of people have discovered, sometimes they just cannot be (at least at the present time, but sometimes at all).

What I've discovered about pasts, presents and futures is this: Pasts don't become "pasts" unless/until the weather changes and makes them "the past". And, we can't turn presents into futures unless/until presents have been differentiated from pasts.

"I made it through the rain. I kept my world protected." - That's why I won't take out my protected aims and goals and toss them out, in the form of putting them into writing, into days that still aren't "bright enough to help me find my way".

Of Grandfathers, Fathers, Grief and Crying

October 5, 2013 My paternal grandfather was a spry, elderly, widow ever since I first knew him. He was known for enjoying walking long distances. He didn't drive, so that was part of his reason for walking. Enjoyment was very much his other reason, though. In fact, something he enjoyed was to start out early on Sunday mornings and make the twenty-six/thirty mile walk up to visit his my uncle and his family. In the evening he'd be happy enough to get a ride back home, but he always said how he really enjoyed the long, early-Sunday, walks.

He didn't make those super-long walks every Sunday. On some Sundays he'd walk to our house instead. That was a far shorter walked, although even that one involved coming from a different city.

During the week he'd walk around his own city, as far as I know. He loved meeting and talking with old friends.

He was seventy-seven when he fell on ice and broke his hip. Everyone believed that was the end of walking days. After all, hips don't always return to "completely OKAY" when they've been broken in one's seventies. Everyone was wrong. As soon as my grandfather was able to walk with a cane he began venturing out for those walks once again - although, of course, with the cane. The post-hip-break walks started out local, but it wasn't long before my grandfather was doing his super-long, Sunday, walks to his son's house again.

This was someone who wasn't about to let anyone/anything keep him down, and maybe he shouldn't have been quite such a "fighter" in that way; because it would be one of those walks that would be the cause of his death. He was eighty-one years old when he was struck and killed by a bus when he was, from what I heard, standing too close to a stopped bus to be seen by the driver as he pulled away.

This was, of course, devastating not just to my father and his brother, but to all of my grandfather's children. I was ten at that time.

At the funeral, I looked around at all the people there, and looked down the rows of people sitting in the old, Catholic, church that my grandfather had attended all his life as far as I know. Everyone around me was crying. My father was sitting next to me, so it took looking up at his face to be able to see how he seemed to be doing. To a ten-year-old, of course, losing a parent is the biggest horror one can imagine.

After noticing that my uncle was outwardly sobbing, I looked up at my father and saw that he wasn't crying. At ten, I immediately assumed that "more crying means loving someone more", so a part of me felt as if I was discovering that, maybe, my father didn't quite love his father as much as his brother did. It was a momentary "discovery", and I was awfully upset, myself; so I suppose I kind of tucked in the back of my mind this awareness that there might be something that made my father love his own father less. Maybe I thought I'd ponder the matter at some future time. Maybe I didn't want to think about it at all.

Either way, I was ten; and it would take me another thirty-plus years before I would come to understand my father better.

I was just a little past forty when my mother died. Besides older relatives and friends, there were a lot of young people at my mother's wake and funeral. There were her grandchildren, but there were also a lot of younger people who had seen her as a mother-figure. As I'd done over thirty years earlier, I looked around to see how people seemed to be holding up. I don't know why we do that, or even if all of us do that. I guess it was mostly because I was looking to see if there was anyone who might need my emotional support, particularly since there were so many young people in their early twenties and teens. So many - most or all, maybe; don't know - were crying. I was not.

Although there were a few reasons I wasn't crying, two of them were main reasons. One was that, just as I'd feared all my life, losing my mother was such an overwhelming horror and grief, I knew that if I allowed one tear to be shed so many more would follow that I wouldn't be able to stop them. In fact, I knew, too, that the horror and grief was so overwhelming it felt as if they filled the entire universe and were far "too big" and too all-compassing for crying to be enough anyway.

The other reason I wouldn't allow myself to cry, however, was that even though it was my two siblings and I who were the ones who had been closest to our mother, I knew that a lot of those younger people who loved her too would be looking to see how I was doing; but I knew, too, that I needed to be a strong adult for all those younger people who had so often looked to me for emotional support and/or guidance - and if not either of those, then in some cases looked to me as a role model.

In my place as a grown-up, but also having recalled how it felt to be very young and to see most of the adults in one's life falling apart in their grief; I knew that I needed to remain that grown-up, even though it was I who had lost my mother.

I finally understood that not-crying doesn't mean "loving less" or "being less upset". I finally understood my father's composure at his own father's funeral; and although I'd always respected, admired and absolutely adored my father; I finally learned how a sense of responsibility to, and caring about, those who may need our support can be the thing that gives us the strength not to cry regardless of how absolutely and overwhelmingly grief-stricken we are.'

The Common, Most Often Incorrect, Belief That Other People Need Your Teaching

January 3, 2014 There is this thing in human nature, or at least in the nature of a lot of human beings, that's irritatingly and infuriatingly common - and obnoxious.

It happens in conversation, and it involves one person's making a statement and then the other person's thinking he has something to teach, judge, improve on, advice about, or otherwise offer his two-cents' worth - and he does this because, while this person may not be consciously aware of it, or at least aware of it all the time; this individual generally assumes he knows better than the individual who made the statement. I'm not referring to just knowing better in terms of information about one subject or another. In fact, most of the time when people do this it's not about information. Most of the time it's more about someone just thinking he a) knows better about life than the speaker, b) has a healthier outlook on life than the speaker and/or c) pretty much grossly underestimates the intelligence, character, emotional well-being, intentions, motivations, maturity, or any number of other things that people are or have.

Sometimes the "teaching" response to someone's statement just kind of comes automatically. At other times it may occur because the listener first imagines or misinterprets the speaker's reason for making the statement; and so, it is based on what the listener imagines or incorrectly assumes about the other that obnoxious urge to teach the other person kicks in.

Those of us who are perfectly capable, well adjusted, of average or above average intelligence, and have reasonably normal/"standard" moral character are more than well aware of how often someone else underestimates one or all of those things about us or someone else. While, of course, there are people who, unfortunately, would fall outside of the "normal" range on any of those points; most people don't (and most adults, in particular, don't). In other words, most adults are reasonably intelligent people of fairly decent emotional health and have that normal sense of morality. Am I saying that most people are perfect? Of course, not. Most people - no, no people - are perfect. Most are generally OK, though. Most are good people who have gone over, time and time again, all the matters such as having a healthy attitude, healthy perspective, healthy compassion for others, and healthy understanding that being selfish and/or disregarding the well-being of others isn't what good people are.

There is, however, this one overwhelmingly common flaw in so many people, and that is the one that involves people thinking they're just that much wiser, more well adjusted, smarter, sensible, moral, or responsible than most others. So, this is, I'm assuming, the reason so many people go into their teaching mode pretty much when anyone else says anything. The way it most often goes is that someone makes a statement and the other person evaluates whether that's a statement that can be allowed to stand, or whether there's some big or small lesson or correction required by the listener.

I'm not suggesting that people should just believe everything anyone tells them, but there's a difference between that and almost automatically assuming that one can "improve upon" or otherwise teach someone else who has made a statement, particularly something like a statement about himself. It's not saying that the listener has to agree with things that are a matter of opinion, and most people don't mind having someone else say he doesn't happen to agree, or being asked to clarify or explain facts or reasons for thinking something.

The kind of thing I'm talking about is, for example, if I tell you that my neck hurts because I slept "wrong" last, and you say something like, "Maybe you need more Vitamin Blah-Blah in your diet." NOOOOOOO.... I just told you that I slept wrong because I was the one who had my neck in an uncomfortable position, who kept thinking that I should shift position, and who kept not doing that because I couldn't be bothered at the time. I was the one who felt it happening. I was the one who woke up feeling what I'd been feeling happen all night - only worse. If I weren't certain of how I hurt my neck I would say something like, "My neck hurts. Maybe I slept wrong on it, but I'm not sure."
Maybe I would have even said something like, "My neck hurts such-and-such a way. Have you ever had that, and do you know what causes it?" Again, NOOOOOOO. I didn't say any of those things. I told you that my neck hurts and why. End of story.

Or, another variation of the hurting-neck example: I mention that I'm going to go get a couple of aspirin because my neck hurts after I slept wrong. You take that as "complaining", or maybe instead you take it upon yourself to point out to me that there are people in the world who have cancer or are paraplegics and either say, or imply, that I shouldn't be feeling bad for myself because I slept wrong and have some neck pain. On the other hand, you may instead tell me that it's all a matter of attitude, and if I had the right attitude I wouldn't have as much as discomfort. Yet another one: You might tell me that exercise prevents my kind of neck pain, or that exercise at least would make me feel happier while I have the neck pain. Oh.... and then there might be this one: You tell me how to prevent this kind of thing in the future. (I knew how to prevent it last night, and I knew I could prevent it when I kept waking up because I was uncomfortable. I just decided I'd take my chances because I couldn't be bothered getting up from the living-room chair and going to bed.)

You, my friend, are a giant pain in my neck!!!! (At least in this hypothetical scenario I've offered.)

Here's the thing:

If I have a question about something I'll ask.
If I want your opinion or advice about something I'll ask.
I've we're having a debate or I want your input (needless to say).
If I offer an opinion I'll say that it's just my opinion, unless it goes without saying.
If I make a statement about something other than myself, and you're not sure I'm correct about it; I should be (and always am) more than willing to clarify or answer any questions you have. If it turns out I've been mistaken about some proven fact I'll be happy to admit I was wrong, and happy to have learned better.

BUT, if I make a statement about myself or my own life or people/things in my own life here's how it should go:

If it's a neutral statement you should say something like, "Oh", or else something similar.

If it's a statement about a happy thing you could say something like, "I'm glad to hear that," or "I'm happy for you." If you had something similar happen to you then I'd be happy to hear your experience (about YOU - not me).

If it's a statement about a sad thing you could say something like, "I'm sorry to hear that, " or "Do you have someone who can help," or "If I can do anything to help let me know." If you've had a similar or possibly comparable thing go on in your life; as with a statement about something happy, I'd appreciate hearing about your own experience or how you felt or how you dealt with something.

As for that apparently instinctive urge to try ot wise me up, smarten me up, tell me the "right" perspective, point out what's important in life, remind me that I'm not the only one, or otherwise "educate me" on whatever it is you imagine I don't already know; save it! Go get get yourself a book on something like over-inflated ego, inadequate respect for other people, underestimating other people, arrogance, narcissistic thinking, or any other subject that would educate you on why it is you think you are superior to everyone else, some other people, or maybe just me.