Remembering What Counts

It’s been almost a week since I posted. I need to post today because I know that if I don’t update this blog regularly, those of you who are checking in regularly will stop. (If you’re not checking in that often... try harder.)

It’s not subject matter I’m having trouble with. Nor is it, even, the time to write. I’ve come up with subjects, and I’ve even had a few minutes of spare time. But the topics I’ve thought of—midlife psychosis, understanding teenagers, and why Xanax is so expensive—are the kind of subjects about which books are written. I write at that length only if I have some expectation of being paid for my time. Nobody’s paying me to do this blog, but if you want to make an offer, we can talk.

Small subjects... things where I can toss something off and leave you thinking I’m clever and pithy, yet wise... have eluded me. And also, if we’re going to be frank here, sometimes I just forget I have a blog I need to update. Maybe because I have these my-mind-is-an-arid-wasteland days.

Do you have those days? They’re the kind of days where you can meditate for hours, but still not find a single answer to the meaning of life, a single way to achieve the dreams of your heart, or a single thing listed on the menu of a fast-food restaurant that doesn’t cost more than the 76 cents you can find in your car if you hunt hard enough. That last is pretty important. I know, because the other day I didn’t have time to go home for lunch and I’d forgotten my bank card, and I was really, really hungry.

Okay, what I just said is a little misleading. About the bank card, that is. It’s not just that I’d forgotten the bank card; it's that I don’t even know where it is. I know, though, it’s somewhere in my house, so I’m not calling the bank yet. I’ve already replaced that card three times. This year.

Which brings to mind this idea I had. People who make bank cards should start equipping them with those beeper-things that are on a cordless phone. You know—-the ones where you push a button on the phone base and the receiver squawks from between the sofa cushions, from your son's room, or from the dishwasher? That beeper works really well for me, as long as I notice the receiver is missing before the battery runs down. I’m not buying another new phone this year, either.

Someone told me this blanking-out I experience is a result of declining estrogen. Or maybe I read it somewhere. I don’t remember. I do remember that the information was offered as if I’d find it reassuring to know that, at midlife, this is a normal phenomenon.

I’m not reassured. In fact, since I don’t expect spontaneous regeneration of my ovaries, I find it worrisome that this is something I’ll be dealing with for a while. If I'm lucky, quite a while.

Well, that’s the natural progression of life, I suppose. And maybe it’s not so important that I remember where I left my bank card or the cordless receiver, as long as I do remember the important stuff: never go to bed angry, always take time to smell the roses, and Hy-Vee Supermarket has Nature’s Choice Granola Bars for only 50 cents plus tax.

Reaching the Top of the Happiness Scale

I read the other day about a study published in the Perspectives on Psychological Sciences journal. No, I hadn’t heard of it, either, but it sounds very important. And it must be since I was reading about it in TIME magazine. And TIME doesn’t report on unimportant stuff, so I’m assuming this is a very important study. It was on happiness. A bunch of experts asked a bunch of people a bunch of questions about life satisfaction and income, then ranked the whole bunch on what was termed a happiness scale.

And they apparently found there was a correlation between happiness and success. The higher you ranked, the more money you made. The article didn’t editorialize on whether this implies happiness leads to success or success leads to happiness or indicate if the experts who conducted this study had drawn any conclusions. Maybe its just a vicous circle. The kind of circle you’d like to join.

But apparently the correlation falls apart if you reach the very tippy-top-top of the scale. If you consider yourself blissfully happy, Number Ten Happy, your life satisfaction completely, well, satisfied, then, weirdly, it seems it’s likely you don’t make as much money, have as much stuff, or have GPAs quite as high as those who fall into slots Number Eight and Nine.

I got excited. Isn’t this proof that money doesn’t buy happiness? In which case, I have a shot to become very, very, very.... very happy.

But when I read on, I became confused. Experts think, therefore, that there may be an advantage to being slightly dissatisfied. Experts posit this means that the slightly dissatisffied try harder. They’re more likely to change a career. A major. Their hairstyle. Which means they’ll probably get a bigger house, have TiVo, and a Harvard degree.

Advantage, advantage... I pondered that word. Pondered the article. Pondered the perspective. Pondered changing my hairstyle. And after all that pondering, I could only conclude that this very important study missed something very, very important.

Ponder it.

Grab the Gusto

I announced I was moving to Texas. Now I’m announcing I’m not.

Dagnabbit.

I’m not sure if that word originated in Texas or Arkansas or Oklahoma, but the three syllables and hard consonants make that a gusto word. One of those words you can fill with feeling and really roll out there.

So, dag-nab-it.

Not that I’m feeling all that horrible about staying, either. There were, and are, lots of reasons to go and lots of reasons to stay put. So, how’d I decide? I didn’t. My child’s future-vocation decision—-which involves colleges and tuition and programs and a nice girl in English—-did it for me. So, here I stay for the foreseeable future.

I wrote something recently about, “When in doubt; wait.” I took the advice. And the decision was made without my having to make it.

And now there’s another. Should I stay put in this house or go smaller; buy a cute bungalow with a big front porch and a good spot for a bird feeder and a shower wider than the measurement from one of my elbows to the other when they’re positioned to wash my hair?

This decision is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish that has to do with interest rates and housing markets and how many steps it is from my car to the kitchen with an armful of groceries, and that’s all wrapped up in another choice involving career directions and income and trailers in Texas and... well, the only thing it doesn’t involve is fish, so I’m not sure why I brought them up.

On Friday at lunch, a wise, very wise, friend of mine told me I needed to “embrace the wait.” That instead of acting like cats trapped in a burlap bag, I should relax... look at this time as a suspension from decisions... a space where I can be free from doing.

Another friend called today, and when I told her of my Friday-friend’s advice, she said my Friday-friend was wise, very wise. And that while her advice may seem obvious, all of us need to hear it at some time or another because “embracing the wait” is precisely what we believe we aren’t allowed to do. But she couldn’t tell me why any of this would involve cats, so I’m not sure why my Friday-friend brought them up.

Still, you might want to give her recommendation a try. Today, if you face a decision and don’t know which way to go, embrace the wait.

I know. It's not in my nature, either. But, seems to me waiting eventually leads to a serendipitous confluence of circumstances.

Serendipitous confluence of circumstances. Now, there’s a phrase with gusto.

Unmet Expectations

I had a lesson in expectations the other day.

A friend of mine, let’s call her Hildy, lost a good friend of hers recently. Hildy and I don’t live in the same town, or even the same state, and Hildy and I don’t even see each other that often, so I’m not even sure you’d call us friends as much as friends of a friend. And it was that friend who’d died.

But I really felt for Hildy. She’s older—

Which reminds me. When you get to a certain age, suddenly everyone older than you is older. Nobody is just plain old. Even if they’re 127 and counting. Have you noticed that? I thought so.

Anyway, I knew Hildy had lost a sibling this past year, and another good friend, and that her only son lives forty-five minutes away, and she wasn’t overly fond of her daughter-in-law. Not that she’d ever said a word, mind you; it was just something in the way she’d spit whenever her name came up.

So I pictured Hildy dragging herself up each morning, switching on the TV (assuming she had one), and settling on the couch (assuming she had one of those, too) where she’d doze off and on all day, forgetting to eat.

So, I determined to call Hildy twice a month. I even marked it on my calendar. I felt pretty good about myself after I did that. But, you know, every time Hildy’s name turned up, I was squeezed for time. So I’d push Hildy’s name off onto another day... then another week... and...

Drag your feet enough, and you can procrastinate something right into next year. You know what I mean? I thought so. But I can go you one better. I am entirely capable of procrastinating Hildy clear into a future when I’d look at my calendar and say, “Who the hell’s Hildy?”

I’m self-enlightened enough to know why I was doing this. I missed that friend, too, but I was handling it okay, and I knew Hildy wasn’t. I knew we’d have a weepy conversation—-well, she'd weep, and I'd bravely hold back my tears. She’d do a lot of why-me’s, and I’d do a lot of there-there’s, and eventually I’d invite her to move into my guestroom.

But last night, I had my work done, my house clean, my car washed, my clothes washed, my hair washed, my bills paid, and I remembered Hildy. And after I’d alphabetized my spice rack which didn’t take as long as I’d hoped—-I mean, thought—-I ended up with nothing I needed to do for the next hour except watch American Idol. Have you seen that? I thought so.

But, feeling saintly, I called Hildy, instead.
“How are you?” I asked with those inflections that say you really care about the answer.
“Who is this again?”
“Jerri.”
“Oh, Jerri. I’m fine. I just got—”
“Are you? Are you really fine, Hildy?”
“Yes, I'm fine. I just got back from the Shop ‘n Go.”
Good. she was eating. Feeling relieved, I settled into a more comfortable position on my couch. I was in for a dull conversation, but at least it didn’t sound like she’d need to live in my guest room.
“Clementine oranges,” I confided. “On sale for 68 cents a pound at my Shop ‘n Go.”
“Oranges? Oh. No, no. Not Shop ‘n Go... Mexico.”
I laughed, asked her to give me a moment. I turned up the volume on my cordless, put it back to my ear. “How funny. I thought you said Mexico.”
“I did. A friend of mine owns a villa in Cabo. Right on the beach. Real marble floors. Even a pool man.”
“Pool man.”
“A real hunk. Skilled.” Hildy giggled. “If you know what I mean. What have you been up to?”
I thought of my completed work, clean house, clean car, clean clothes, clean hair, paid bills, and alphabetized spice rack. “I’m sorry, I just realized the time. It’s almost nine.”
She misunderstood. “I won’t go to bed for hours yet.”
“No, it’s me. I... A favorite show of mine’s about to come on. American Idol. Ever watched it?”
“Don’t think I have.”

I thought not.

Gone With the... what was that?

My good friend, Libby Sternberg....

...normally I don’t name names, so if you’re a friend of mine, besides Libby, that is, or, another friend, Karen Brichoux, don’t hesitate to share with me as I won’t publicly announce your name here, but Libby and Karen are also authors, so they have public names and this is a favor I’m doing for them, you see, a plug for their very good books: look under Libby Sternberg or Elizabeth Malin, or, of course, Karen Brichoux...

Anyway, my friend, Libby Sternberg, wrote me the other day about the roller-coaster track her thoughts have traveled lately. (Karen’s don’t do that, largely because Karen is not yet fully estrogen-deprived.)

And I told her (Libby, that is) that her paranoid, schizophrenic, anxiety-laden, neurosis syndrome, occasionally accompanied by bouts of mild depression, or PSZALNSOABBD, as we of a menopausal age refer to it, is, in fact, fairly common. I notice it whenever I try to intuit the outcomes of writing vs. a bi-monthly paycheck, moving to TX vs. staying put, or cutting my hair vs. leaving it long.

The other day, I decided that the best possible advice I could take was from my daily meditation book, Courage to Change (which I obviously do not have in great abundance, so I will keep reading it). The February 6 entry was lengthy, thought-provoking, and basically boiled down to, “If in doubt, wait.”

I shared this with Libby. She said it sounded closely akin to the strategy plan she was following: the SOH plan, SOH, of course, standing for Scarlett O’Hara, the heroine created by Margaret Mitchell. Ms. Mitchell is no longer with us, but you should sometime take a look at her book, too.

If you already have, you probably remember Scarlett’s famous words, don’t you?

No, no, no... not that one about as God is her witness, she’ll never be hungry again. Although, I'll say that's not a bad one at all. It's one I’ve taken to heart, along with that one about Rhett—-or was it Ashley?—-preferring a girl with a healthy appetite. And somewhere between those two, I remember Mammy fretting. “It ain’t fittin’, it just ain’t fittin.” Which is precisely what I think when I pull on my jeans in the morning.

I’m also not talking about that quote I just know you thought I was talking about, so don’t deny it. Not, I’ll think about that tomorrow. After all... tomorrow is another day.

I’m talking about that other famous quote:

Fiddle-dee-dee.

Right Between The Eyes

I haven’t written for a while because I started thinking I needed to have something BIG to say first. But I’ve changed my mind. We’ll talk about something small. Well, small to you. I had an epiphany last night. It wasn’t the lightning bolt of epiphanies, but it was a big deal to me.

After I’d bemoaned the difficulty I’m having deciding among some choices that have recently opened before me, like moving to the Texas gulf now or moving later (oh, the horror of it all!), a friend emailed an offhand remark:

“Gee,” she said, “how exciting.”

I gave that a second’s consideration, then replied:

Huh.

And decided I really needed to find a friend with more tender sensibilities.

Then, last night, I was at this support-group thingy and someone read from one of those daily-meditate-on-this books. I don’t remember which book and I don’t remember the entire passage and I don’t even remember the central thrust of the writing. But one of the lines—-something I do remember that the author thought was not A Good Thing—-was: “I viewed my life as a tragedy.”

The sentence smacked me up the side of the head. Along with the trace memory of my friend’s emailed remark, it made me look harder at the perspective I’ve developed in the last few years. For two of those years, life handed me some pretty nasty stuff. Tragic stuff. So, I, naturally, understandably, and even forgiveably, viewed my life as a tragedy. But for the last year, life’s pendulum, as it’s wont to do, has swung back.

But I’ve stayed stuck in the old mindset. I--once an eternal, infernal optimist--I am stunned to discover I’ve become a glass-half-empty person.

So last night I decided—-and this morning I reaffirmed—-to be more aware of all I have to be grateful for. I firmly believe that f I focus on, and consciously make the effort to appreciate, what I already have, then the answers I want will arrive with greater ease. And hopefully with more gentleness than a smack on the head.