jennethink

TAX SEASON IS OVER - THERE'S ONLY ONE SURE THING LEFT TO POST ABOUT

I’m in a reflective mood today.

I was forwarded an email about a woman who recently passed away from ovarian cancer.  The email contained the remarks her husband gave at her memorial service.  Truly amazing.  Heart-wrenching.  So touching.

It got me thinking again about my own death and my (pre-written) obituary.  It got me thinking about the way we all try to live life as if death isn’t a possibility when in reality it is one of the ONLY things we can count on.  It got me thinking about my dad, my uncle, my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my dog.  And then my mind tumbled to my father’s mother and father.  And my grandfather on my mother’s side whom I never knew.  And I sure hoped they understood and weren’t upset that they were listed after a basset hound.

I don’t understand death.  Death is so hard and difficult and I don’t understand it.  There is a part of me that gets angry because death is so difficult.  There is part of me that thinks it shouldn’t be that way, that whoever came up with this plan - of being in a body that gets sick and suffers and dies – wasn’t thinking things through very well.

Why not fiery chariots to heaven for all of us?  It’s been done before.

And when I don’t understand something, I at least try to find meaning in it.  I try to find purpose.  I try to learn whatever lesson is there to learn.  Because I have to believe that suffering has purpose.  I have to trust that Whoever did put this whole thing together knows what He is doing.  I have to believe that death has meaning.

I don’t know how to resolve that, exactly.  I only know what I have experience and I know that I am a different person because of the losses in my own life.  I know that because of his imminent death, my father poured lesson after lesson into my young mind – as much as would fit and more.  And I know these lessons pour out of me. 

The porch railing

The gasoline cap

Sweet water and vinegar

The lemonade stand

The seizure

Will this matter in eternity

Crow lake

And as I write, more and more lessons flood my head.  Not themed and not as tidy as the others but equally as important

I love you

You are okay

Men open doors for women

There are girls boys date and then there are women men marry

This is how you do donuts in a Buick in the snow

Would he have done it if his mortality wasn’t looming over him? Would he have done it if cancer wasn’t eating its way through his body?  Would he have done it if he thought he would live long enough to walk me down the aisle at my wedding or kiss his grandchild or help me buy my first, second and third houses?  The Buick one, without a doubt, but the others?

I don’t know.

Maybe I am simply trying to find meaning in something meaningless.

Like I said, I’m in a reflective mood today.

PEOPLE ....

A girls rugby coach was beaten until he was bloody and unconscious during a weekend match, and police are seeking criminal charges against several adults.

I used to play soccer.  My father was the coach of the team.  We had 2 rules.  1) The referee is always right.  And 2) If the referee is wrong, see Rule 1.

This just didn't apply to refs.  It also apply to coaches, parents and nearly any adult.  What has changed?  Why are things so different now?

When I was growing up (and holy crud, I cannot believe I just said that), ANY adult in the neighborhood could, and was expected, to discipline me if I got out of line.  When I was growing up (there it is again!), I wasn't allowed to talk back.  When I was growing up, parents may have been upset with the coach of the team, but they kept it to themselves.  Except for this one mom who sat in the stands and would always threaten to throw her high-heeled shoe at our coach during high school basketball games.  What was her name?  Shoot!  Well, my sister will remember.

Anyway, I'm disgusted by this story.  Everything about it upsets me.  The ref orders a spectator off the field and is punched in the face.  A coach tries to intervene and is attacked and this especially honks me off:

Several of the adults had fled by the time police arrived on the scene. Authorities were working to identify those involved in the fight. No one had been arrested by late Sunday.

Cowards.

I’m sure their children have learned a number of invaluable lessons.  1) The ref is most likely never right.  2) If he is wrong, a right hook should set him straight.  3) If someone tries to protect the ref, jump him. And most importantly 4) Run like hell if someone dare try to hold you accountable for your actions.

ADIOS, ALFONZO

My favorite fighter on The Contender, Alfonzo Gomez, just lost.

I’m too upset to post anything else.

(Although, it is probably better that he did.  The other option was most likely watching Peter Manfredo, Jr. get beat up by his dad if HE lost.  So there's that.)

At least I got to see creepy Jimmy Caan again. 

PICK A LITTLE (LESS), TALK A LITTLE (LESS)

I have a good friend who I met from a message board online.  It’s one of those boards where every one {{{{HUGS}}}} each other and uses the smileys that pull down their pants and moon you. Haven’t seen those?  You aren’t missing much.  I hate that part of the board.  But I adore the people I’ve met there so I keep going back.  Kind of like going to a restaurant that has horrible lighting, bad waitresses, dirty bathrooms AND the world’s best pork chops.  You tolerate the bad stuff so you can have the good stuff.

Well now, isn’t that a nice life lesson?

Anyway, today someone on the message board asked me about my job.  I mentioned I worked with companies and individuals in the area of Emotional Intelligence.  She asked what emotional intelligence was and I, not surprisingly, went into a post a thousand words long about it.  I got caught up in the details (gee, I wonder who I get that from) and posted all about EI and why it matters and what the basic EI competencies we’re, etc. etc.  I said a lot.  I’m sure not all of it was coherent or helpful.

Sort of like this post.

ANYWAY … she mentioned based on what I said, that she would consider herself to be emotionally intelligent.  I agree, by the way.  However, she did say she struggled with the concept of negative self-talk.  She said “I need to get better control of that for sure!”

Well, who doesn’t?

Here’s the thing:  talking badly to yourself about yourself is one of THE MOST DAMAGING things you can do.  I could go on and on about why this is (and you know I can) but I won’t.  Just know that it is damaging. 

Really damaging.

Really, really.

So what to do about it.

Well, stop it.  Stop talking negatively to yourself.  Stop saying “it will never be all right” and “it’s all my fault” and “I’m a loser”  Stop talking down to yourself.  Stop calling yourself names.  Stop berating yourself.  Stop saying things to yourself that you would never say to someone else. 

Do you even realize how often you do it?

Imagine you’re at the copy machine at work and you copy the wrong side of the paper.  What’s the first thing that comes out of your mouth?  “IDIOT!” probably.  Or “I’m such a MORON!”  Right?

You pull in the driveway and realize you forgot to fill the car up with gas. You hit the steering wheel and mutter “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

You get up in front of a group at work to make a presentation.  You flub up.  Not a big flub up, but a flub nonetheless.  And you think about it for the rest of the day.  I messed up.  I messed up.  I’m so stupid.  I’ll never be good at that.

Sound familiar?  You do this all the time.

And yet, you would NEVER say those things to someone else, would you?  Let’s say I was the one at the copy machine.  Let’s say I slid the paper in the machine the wrong way and out came a blank page. Would you look me in the eyes and say, “You’re an idiot.”

Probably not.

And you wouldn’t tell me I’m stupid when I forgot to fill up the tank, would you?  Forgetful, maybe, but not stupid.

And if I was the one to flub up the presentation, I’m sure you would tell me to focus on the good things I did and that it wasn’t really bad at all and that I’ll do so good next time!

See how encouraging you can be?

So stop being so negative when you talk to yourself and start telling yourself all those things you tell others.  Give yourself a break. 

Please? It will make a huge difference in how you see yourself and ultimately how you perform.

I’m mean what kind of idiot talks badly to themselves anyway?  <insert annoying smiley here>

AT LEAST THE PANCAKES WERE GOOD

The next morning after the Hoopla fiasco, my mom was in the kitchen making sweet potato pancakes.

“I thought of how I could have drawn that groundhog’s day thing better.”  She called out.

“Yeah?”  I said.  I’m thinking, well that’s progress.  After all, we worked with her for about an hour after the groundhog incident trying to get her to understand WHAT you need to draw and WHY.

See, my mom has this issue.  We’ve known about it for a while but I never thought it would come up in “art” form.  This issue is this:  she likes to give background.  A lot of background.  Tons and tons of background.

A typical conversations goes like this:

Me:  How are you?

Mom:  GOOD!  You’ll never guess what happened to me in my meeting today!

Me:  What happened?

Mom:  Well!  Last year ….

Me:  <interrupting>  Last year??? I thought you said something happened today.

Mom:  well it DID, but FIRST, last year ….

And so on …

So she’s standing in the kitchen Saturday morning and she says,

“Yeah, I SHOULD have drawn a little path going under the ground.  Then I could have drawn an area, like, you know, like an area where the groundhog lives under the ground. Like a den. I could have made it like irregular like it’s been dug out.  I could have made the area big and not so small.  I think that’s why you had trouble guessing what it was, because I drew the hole small.”

Yeah.  That was it.

“Then I could have drawn a groundhog living down in the hole and then him coming up out from the ground and with two eyes and his eyes looking down at the ground where his shadow would be.”

There is just so much wrong with this, I don’t know where to start.  I do remember asking,

“How would we have known it was underground?”

“Because I would have drawn trees.”

Of course.  The trees.

“You don’t think you could have gotten that?”  she asked from the kitchen. 

Now I go off:  “MA!  Why would you draw a path??? And why a whole den??? And how would you show him LIVING under the ground?  Is there an alarm clock and a toilet down there?  And his EYES looking at where his shadow WOULD be? How about drawing a SHADOW?”

Now she’s huffy:  “Well, I never said I was an ARTIST, and obviously I never will be!”

At least she can draw a conclusion.

PICASSO WOULD BE SO PROUD

I know I write a lot of things about my mom.  If you knew her, you’d understand – she is really good material.

This past weekend she came to visit.  My sister came too.  We worked on the house, organized closets, hung drapes (drapes … is that a word you use if you are under 55?), cleaned out the refrigerator, etc.  I know, it doesn’t sound like fun to you but this is what we do in my family.  We travel to each other’s homes and help out.  I was once confined for a whole weekend to my mother’s condo in Florida painting her walls.  I didn’t see sunlight for 3 days.  This is a true story.

Anyway, every time we have one of these weekends, I learn something new about my family.  This weekend’s lesson:

My mother cannot draw.

Late Friday night after working all day on the house, we decided to play a game of Hoopla.  The details of the game are inconsequential, what you need to know is that at some point in the game, you are required to draw pictures.  Sort of like Pictionary or Win, Lose or Draw but without Bert Convey. You all play as a team against the timer so you really want your teammates to do well.  You want them to do well because you are trying to guess what they are drawing.  If they do well, you are able to guess what they are sketching out and you can call it out (usually in a very loud voice) and move on.  If they do poorly – say by drawing a mechanical bull that looked a lot like a can opener with a leprechaun on top – you are unable to guess what was on the card and then the timer runs out and you lose.

We played three games.

We lost three times.

Now, I’m not saying that she was to blame for us losing.  It is a team game after all.  But I do feel compelled to tell you about one drawing of hers in particular.  That drawing was Groundhog’s Day. 

Before I describe her drawing, I want you to think about what you would draw if this was your challenge.  Groundhog’s Day.  Maybe, oh I don’t know, a groundhog?  Maybe you’d even draw a groundhog half in a hole and half out?  Or I bet you might draw a groundhog with a shadow – you’re clever that way.

My mom drew two men. 

Now that’s not all she drew.  She also drew what turned out to be a hole.  We didn’t know it was a hole.  It was actually just a jagged line on the other side of the paper opposite the two men (who incidentally had arms that shot right from their heads).  Then she began her signature move of tapping on the paper with the tip of the pencil.  <tap> <tap> <tap> on the paper where the “hole” was.  This is done to indicate that what she is tapping at is important.  This much I’ve learned. 

<tap> <tap> <tap> on the hole.  Then she scribbles a little more on the hole. 

Then she draws a sun.

Now, I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking there is no WAY anyone could make a guess as to what she was drawing.  Not so.  You don’t know my sister.

“Okay it’s a man, it’s two men, two men and a baby! No, not a baby a line, two men and a line!  A sun!  The son of two men with a line? No.  Ok the line is important.  Ok it is a dark line.  The line is getting darker.  Something about the line …”

And so on.

Finally God himself intervened.  This is the only explanation I can come up with for my sister shouting out:

“It’s a hole!”

<TAP> <TAP> <TAP>!!!!

“Okay! It’s hole!  Those guys are doing something in the hole!  They are doing something they are ICE FISHING IN THE HOLE!  NO! Not ice fishing.  Okay they are looking at it.   The sun is shining on it.  It is summertime?  Summertime in the hole.  The men, no not the men, the hole is in the summer, no not the summer.  It IS a hole, right?”

At this point my mom can tell we need some sort of clarification.  So she begins to draw lollypops next to the hole.

“The men have suckers?  The men ARE suckers!  No, not suckers.”

<tap> <tap> <tap>!! 

“Right okay, those are … what are those … they are under the sun next to the hole … are they trees?”

<TAP> <TAP> <TAP>!!!!

“So they are trees!  Are you sure they aren’t ice fishing?”  Now my sister is getting frustrated.  Actually, she was frustrated long before this but now she leans toward our mother and says loudly,  “MA!  Can you draw ANYTHING that helps us???”

My mom’s shoulders droop.  And the tapping lessens.  She’s getting discouraged. We’re frustrated and she’s discouraged.  “Ok, mom” I say,  “just think about it for a second, there’s gotta be something that will help.”

She speaks for the first time.  “Can we pass?”

“No Ma,” says my sister, “You can do it! You’re doing fine!”

“Don’t give up now!”  I say.

Then, suddenly she has an epiphany.  She looks at the card again and says “OH OH!” and leans over the paper.  GREAT!  I think.  She’s come up with something!  All it took was a little encouragement and she’s now got it!  This is a good lesson.  You just give people a little positive reinforcement and they’ll come through!

She drew hats on the men.