Mistakes & Myths

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. --George Bernard Shaw

Does anyone else subscribe to the Oprah Magazine daily e-mail?  Please say you do, I need to feel some community in my in-adequateness.  I subscribed years ago, when Oprah still had her talk show.  I was an occasional watcher.  I like her interview style, and she really does like a lot of cool stuff, so the "Favorite Things" shows always sucked me in hard.  Anyway, each day I get an e-mail about "Living My Best Life", no harm in trying to be the best me I can be, right?  Life coaching and guidance through the inbox.  Good stuff.  Lately most of the titles contain the word "mistakes" or "myths".

The Six  Hair Mistakes (hint: quit talking to your hairdresser, you are compromising your hairstyle)

The Ten Biggest Relationship Mistakes (oddly sharing to many common interests, and not sharing common interests are both no-nos)

The Biggest Mistakes Women Make When Dieting (Creating too much of a calorie deficit through under eating and over exercising.)

5 Diet Myths Making You Gain Weights (as told by Dr. Oz...do not even get me started) He restates the above "diet mistake" and you need to quit diet soda.

4 Myths About Anti-Depressants (also by Oz) (they are not "happy pills")

So this is the stuff that greets me every morning in my inbox.  All the myths I am believing and mistakes I am making.  It becomes a game to see what I am doing right.  In reading all the myths and mistakes, which are meant to help guide one to being better, or making better choices, a person can, at the least, get rather confused, and at the worst, start feeling like a colossal hot mess.

Lately, I have started to think making mistakes is fine. Is it really so bad to believe in myths?  As a kid I pretty damn happy believing in Santa and the Tooth-fairy.  Loot rolled in.  Life was good.  Granted, the Santa myth is rather harmless, and harboring other false beliefs can be more dangerous.  I guess the whole thing with "Myth Lists" is you sometimes feel like a dummy for not realizing you were off the mark.  However, mistakes are not bad.  Mistakes are some of life's best teachers.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. --Benjamin Franklin

 As a mother of a teen daughter I am very guilty of trying to keep her from making mistakes.  (I admit I am a huge hypocrite, and she knows it)  Sure, there are some things that  through sharing stories can help teach and mold.  I certainly do not want her to learn not to drink and drive by getting in a horrific crash.  I do not want her to OD and go to rehab to learn that drugs are dangerous.  The big mistakes I am perfectly willing to share news articles, and other sources to help impress that these are mistakes she does not even want to dabble with.  It is the smaller, but still painful, stuff  that I struggle to not lecture upon.  Most of this involves relationships. Things like, putting to much caring and trust in people that will not reciprocate.  Liking someone who does not even have a inkling of clue how awesome she is as a person.  Believing the myths someone tells to get what they want.  Believing the myth that it does not matter. I never want her to have her heart broken.  I want her to never make mistakes that will hurt.  When I write that I see how absurd it sounds.  Mistakes do hurt.  Some hurt worse than others.  Some myths, like Santa, are harmless, and some are far more insidious.
 
I mock the Oprah Magazine site for sending me lists of mistakes not to make, and myths not to believe so I can I have my "best life".  As if you can really "learn life" from reading an article, or attending a lecture. All the while, I am doing the same thing.  I want to lecture and curate the perfect easy, breezy high school experience for my daughter.  Perhaps that is the big myth I need dispelled.  High school is neither easy, or breezy.  It is a bunch of confused half-adult, half-children wandering about trying to figure out what the heck is happening to them. I just happen to have a very serious interest in only one of these half & half creatures.  I want to send her a list of mistakes not make, and myths to disregard.  I want her to read each bit of information and wisdom as if it were heaven sent.  It is not.  It is just from a person was there, made mistakes, got hurt, got up, and did better the next time.  I would not give up any of it because it helped me become wise.  However, now I have to watch one of the most important people in my life make mistakes, get hurt, get up, and do better the next time.  I need to let her become wise.  You can not give wisdom, you have to earn it.

And no lists or articles in the world could have ever, even remotely, prepared me for this.  

Not Yet

Life moves pretty fast.  If you do not stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -Ferris Bueller

Do you ever have that moment when you realize time has flown by?  Recently I have had two situations that have caused the startling realization that time just zips by...pow...that fast.  When I was young it seems like time crawled.  The school day stretched endlessly (not in a good way).  It seemed like I was always waiting for something to end, and something else to begin, and the wait was torturous.  Time seemed to creep backward, if that was possible.  In my youth I truly believed that time was my slow moving enemy keeping from my future.  I am on record stating that I WAS WRONG.  Time is still my enemy, but because it is moving so damn fast.  I want to hit pause I so many things now.  A hug with my kids or my beloved (pause...make it last).  The silly times with friends over lunch or cup of coffee (pause...savor the moment).  It is the little things that are so precious.

Yoda in November 2012

Recently I had to put down my cat, Yoda.  She was seventeen years old, she had kidney disease, she was deaf, her eyesight was poor, she had a heart murmur...she was very old for a cat.  In the human equivalent to her 17 cat years is 96 years old.  Logically, it was time.  She was in pain.  She needed to be carried to her litter box.  We had to coax her to eat, unless it was her treats...she begged for those until the very end.  No matter how many people tell me that 17 years is a long time to have the same cat, I still do not believe it in my heart.  Seventeen years flew by with Yoda.  She was our first pet.  She outlasted two dogs.  She helped raise two kids.  Yoda was at my side for every late night feeding with both kids.  My beloved would be fast asleep while Yoda and I tended to the baby.  Yoda would lay sleeping on my lap watching infomercials when insomnia was not going to let me sleep. (Cats seldom suffer from insomnia)  Seventeen years pretty much just flew by.  I have made a photo book of Yoda, and it has so many great memories.  I can see how time advanced through changing paint colors, furniture, fashion, hair cuts, hair colors, and of course the growth of my kids.  I am glad I have all the picture memories, but I still wish I had her actually here.  At any single moment, I am not sure that I would have said that time was moving too fast...but as I look back it clearly has been. 

The second event that has triggered the realization that time is flying is a high school open house.  My beautiful 13 year old daughter is currently living in the time-space continuum that I had in my youth.  Nothing can happen fast enough and the world is moving at a turtle's pace. (Ironically, the pet she wants to "replace" Yoda is a turtle)  Tonight we need to go to the high school she will be attending in the September for a tour and informational meeting.  We are approaching this from two very differing perspectives.  

Her perspective: This is awesome.  I can not wait!!!

My perspective: WTH? When did she get old enough to go to high school? How can I stop this crazy train?

Such is life, I suppose.  Perhaps my mother felt the same way, but because she is a reserved, classy lady she never let me see her sweat this kind of stuff.  I am more of a force of nature. ("Subtle, like a sledge hammer", my father has said about me, more than once)  I am not holding in my feelings. My daughter knows that I am full of angst over her growing up.  No one is trying to keep her a child.  We have conversations about the current issues that face teens and young adults (I am not a moron)  I just do not like how fast time has flown by.  Can't we pause and have just a wee bit more time?  I also realize I have been amazing blessed to be a stay at home mom for  my daughter for most of her life, and all of my son's life.  It seems rather Peter Pan-like for me to want to keep my kids at their present ages, but at this moment they are just right.  I suppose I would have said the same thing at every age (after they were potty trained...momma never loved the diapers)

The point is (as if I really care if I have a "point")...time flies, and sometimes that notion catches up with you and it sucks, and at the same time it is beautiful because you see some amazing growth.  Sometimes we really do not like that time keeps marching on, but it does.  We just have to remember to stop, look around, and enjoy the moments...no matter how fast they are moving.   

Wicked Wednesday: Anger Management Edition

Anger is a secondary emotion.  Any therapist worth their weight is salt will tell you anger is a result of frustration, sadness, helplessness, or hopelessness.  They may add more primary emotions that cause people to act out in an angry way.  I have only been a student in a few psychology and sociology classes, not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.  Yes, I give solicited and unsolicited mental health evaluations of people...all the time.  It is what I do, and no one stops me.  I also offer the disclaimer that my opinions are not, and should never be taken as, actual medical advise.  I am all for people going to get some counseling, some people need lots of it.  I have a mental list of people I have encountered that should probably NEVER leave counseling.  They need to be in the care of a doctor or licensed therapist forever...and maybe a day after that too.  My first clue that someone needs to get some help is usually their inappropriate and misplaced anger.  The person that is always sniping at their significant other .  Yelling at their kids.  Getting rude with customer service people (This is the worst.  Imagine becoming so sick with your anger problems that you will take it out on strangers?)  Hideous. Generally, those people that are walking about with the misplaced belief that the world is against them and they are mega pissed off out it.  News Flash: The world is neither for, or against, anyone.  I can not solve anger issues.  I can give no suggestions that make an angry person less angry.  In fact, trying to convince an angry person that they need help, or they need to focus on what is good in life, really only refocuses the anger. (mostly on the person that just suggested they had anger problems)  I do not like being the target of refocused anger.

It is frustrating seeing so much anger in the general population, especially angry children (yes, there are angry children.  It is sad and separate issue).  Yes, we all need to blow off steam and vent frustration.  That is normal.  Finding a safe and healthy way to do that is important.  Sure going out with friends and having some drinks can help, but it could also set up using substances to cover problems.  I do like a good night out, but this is a "use sparingly" solution. I personally enjoy writing my rants down, sometimes I even publish the rants (if it is funny or universally helpful it is generally worth airing my dirty laundry).  Writing helps lay out exactly what bothers me, literally in black and white).  Sometimes it becomes clear that whatever is bothering me is just ridiculous, which is fine, because then I know and I get over it.  Often it helps me profile a situation that I need to either get out of or redefine how I am going to deal with the situation going forward.  Yes, this is my personal anger management style.  Anger happens, but you can not let it consume you, then you become wicked. (the bad kind, the green faced, flying monkey kind of wicked)  Some people use other hobbies to get their minds off angry thoughts and feelings.  Some people exercise to sweat out the negativity.  At times I find this helpful, and the sore muscles give me a sense that I really worked something out.

There are many ways to reduce or eliminate anger.  The best advice ever given to me is from my mother, THIS TOO SHALL PASS.  No, she is not the first person to have ever said those words, but she said them often to me when I was young.  Guess what? 100% of the time this is true.  There is no sense in being an angry jerk.  It helps nothing, solves nothing, and likely cause more issues.  It will all pass.  Life has a funny way of resolving itself.  Give up the anger.  Live. Love. Laugh.

(This post is pretty much proof that  most all the time my writing surprises me.  I really did mean to write a scathingly wicked post about angry jerks, yet somewhere in the process I heard my mom's voice in my head reminding me more of kindness.  She is a gem.  I need to write about her...she is a smart, kind and sassy woman.  She also just totally squashed my Wicked Wednesday post.  Mothers!!!)

Damn Near Survivalists...yeah whatever

This past weekend a bold move was made in my household.  Something that borders on sacrilegious in some circles.  Something so heinous we waited for our teenage daughter to be out of town for the weekend before we made our move.

We disconnected the cable.  Yup, if you come to our house you will be watching TV through the antennae.  High Def air signal.  Let me tell you, it is not as horrible as it sounds.  We get a lot of stations, the major networks, PBS, and some other riff raff stations.  Its going to be fine.  I think of it as being a survivalist right now, living off the entertainment that floats in the air around us.  Our daughter was appalled when she arrived home to a place void of any cable boxes.  She asked several times if we were joking.  She asked if we just hid the cable boxes as a joke. (As if we would move furniture and go to such trouble for a joke.  C'mon lazy apple, you came from these lazy trees).   She was genuinely shocked, which surprised me because we have talked of disconnecting cable for close to a year now.  That is how we roll, lots of discussion, so much chatter you become certain nothing will ever really happen, then BAM a decision is made and swift action is taken.  It is actually rather exciting when my beloved and I decide to take action.  Cue the A-Team theme music...a plan is coming together!

The decision to cancel cable was based on several factors, here are what I would say are the top five.  If you corner my beloved he will give you five absolutely different reasons.  This probably explains why swift action must be preceded by several months of debate.

1. Eldest child's poor TV choices.  My daughter, I love her, she is smart, lovely, and talented, but she has horrible taste in TV shows.  She loves really bad reality TV.  Dance Moms is a favorite.  She has been known to watch Toddlers in Tiaras marathons (yuck).  In fact almost anything shown on TLC can become her "favorite".  Worse than just watching these shows, she also would DVR the shows.  The amount of hours of stupidity recorded on the DVR was ridiculous.  To save her beautiful mind the cable had to go away.
2. My own poor TV choices.  I fully understand where my daughter gets her penchant for crappy TV.  I am a recovering Bravo TV junkie.  I will watch any season and any location of The Real Housewives franchise.  I love those rich bitches.  The arguments. The augmentations.  The botox.  The drama.  It is like crack.  Like a true addict, I would hide my passion and watching of these shows.  NEVER would I DVR an episode.  Nope, I found out that all the episodes were carefully saved for me in the OnDemand feature of our former cable carrier.  I loved that stuff.  I am going to miss it.  I am getting the shakes just thinking about it.  However, I am on the wagon.  I will miss you Andy Cohen and all the Bravolebrities.  I will miss you, deeply miss you.  (Note to local friends, DO NOT let me in your homes to covet your Bravo.  Give me some red wine and listen to to whine, but do not let me go back to that place...it is too much)
3. The 200 channels of background noise.  We found that we really did not actively watch too many shows.  Often the TV is on and each of us has some other device going.  My husband is on his computer or smartphone.  I am on my iPad.  The kids both have iPod touch devices.  So the TV was just background noise.  We have a few shows that we really watch and they are all on network TV.  Spending money for background noise seems silly.  (Note: My beloved and I would probably agree this is top shared reason)
4. Netflix and other streaming services.  Cable seems silly when you can get streaming feeds of programs you actually want to watch through gaming systems.  We just realized we can watch YouTube clips on the big screen of the TV through the PlayStation 3.  Which is awesome since one of our favorite things is to refer each other to crazy stuff we have seen on YouTube.  It becomes a shared activity with all of us contributing to the entertainment.  It is a modern day variety show where we are the producers and directors and captive audience.
5. Money.  I love it when people say, "It is not about the money", that is my clear indicator that is indeed, without a doubt, about the money.  Who does not like having extra money every month?  Fools, that is who.  Cable was a money drain, like a dripping faucet, or a drafty window.  It is not a life changing amount of money being saved, but it is a family night out per month amount.

So now we live a cable-less life.  We are damn near survivalists.  Okay we are nothing close to survivalists.  I know, any day now,  my daughter will forgive us.  Soon the glamorous lives of vapid, self-absorbed people will not be horribly missed.  My son was pretty nonchalant about the whole removal of cable.  He even helped move some furniture to unhook the boxes.  And of course, my beloved, is 100% behind the decision, so he will admit to missing nothing.  We shall see when baseball season rolls around.   I am not going to be so bold as to say we will never go back to cable.  We are not known for quick decisions, or for not changing our minds.   

Writing by Force

Okay, so I have been slacking this week.  In truth I have just had a lot of little things that needed to get done.  It is funny how little things can add up and take a little longer than you thought and then suddenly...it is Thursday and you have not written a blog post all week.  That is how it goes sometimes.  However, I am writing this because a friend, who is a faithful reader, pointed out my blog neglect.  This friend also happens to be going through a bunch of changes and challenges right now.  Here is a sneaky peek...she is changing jobs (which is great) and the house she is living in with her spouse and two kids has a septic tank issue that the landlord is refusing to fix.  So now with a job change, she faces finding a house (in the same school district) before the sh** hits the fan.  Okay the sh** likely will not hit the fan, but it may well back up all over the floor...which is just as bad.  This makes my piddly little stuff look like child's play.  However, we all have sh**, not all of us have it literally, like my friend, but we all have it.

So I write by force today, because she looks forward to reading my crazy musings.  Too bad for her, it is her struggles that have made me realize that I have just a million little things, while she faces actual sh**.  This is the time when I wish I could have a village of all the people I love, that have touched my life, that mean the world to me all centralized.  My friend lives in Florida, so from Michigan all I can do is pray that everything will come together and work out...FAST.  I hate thinking that people I care about are struggling.  Even while I struggle.  We all struggle.  I just do not like people I care about to have anything but good things.  Yes, that is a fully impossible thought.  We can not only have the good and easy life.  Frankly, if life was only good and easy we would be miserable with it.  Seriously.  How would we know the good and easy times without the struggles & challenges?  It used to make me crazy when I would hear people say, life's challenges & struggles are the times when we, as humans, grow and build character.  Time, and this statement proving true, over and over again, has made me not only accept this statement, but somewhat embrace it.  Reflecting on past personal challenges that caused struggle and discomfort, and often extreme frustration...then great personal growth, makes me a little thankful for the challenge.  In the midst of any personal crisis, I know that it will somehow work out and I will have learned a thing or two.

I am praying for my friend's current struggle will come to a good resolution...soon.  I know that she is a smart woman, she is resourceful, and she is a fighter.  I am still sad that she and her family have this struggle, but I know that everything will work out for them...hopefully sooner rather than later.  And I thank her for making me write by force, because my own words have helped me put some perspective on my own life.  Thank you, my friend.

Change is Bad

Today I am going to lament the new format that I am forced to use because I updated my blogger dashboard. The screen features are less than the previous set up, or I just can not figure out where the features I liked are as of yet. I have also saved some posts that were not finished only to return to find them lost. Okay, perhaps I can cull them out somewhere, and if not they were just a few rough paragraphs, but still what if those lost items were my best writing ever? We shall never know now. So now I need to embark on learning more about this updated system. I pretty much hate change sometimes. Admittedly I am not tech savvy. This lack of savvy just adds to my frustration. Perhaps this exercise in relearning will help me embrace change. It is certainly not a life of death situation. I am sure than i can call for tech support. Though calling for help will mean I have to explain to some support person how dense I am about technology.

The funny thing about my tech-phobia is I really desire to understand all the gadgets, but from afar. My husband just got his first smartphone. He loves it. He keeps talking to some assistant telling it to remind him of this and that, to send text messages using voice commands...all sorts of cool stuff. He asked if I wanted a smartphone, and I have thus far avoided answering the question. It almost seems like it may be a waste of good micro-chips for someone who prefers pen and paper. Honestly, if I could write in a notebook and scan my blog entries to post them, that would be great. Although I do have a love / hate relationship with our scanner. The printer and fax features work for me, but the scans are sketchy at best. Should I blame the scanner? Probably not. It is likely me and my lack direction reading and /or following that is the issue.

Hopefully, with some concentration and desire to move forward with the times, I can work through this change. Perhaps it is not as bad as it feels right now. However, the old way was just peachy with me and if I can find my way back to the previous version, I am probably going take it. Sadly, I fear that is unlikely. Change is bad, but in a few weeks I may learn to adapt.