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.