Carded At 50!

The other day my husband sent me an email with links to websites regarding savings and discounts one can receive once you reach the age of 50. My first thought was whether he meant the email to be sent to me. After all, I am only 48. Then I thought, “Oh my God, I will be 50 within a year and a half!” Within several moments, I was able to rationalize my tiny hysteria into a positive thought process.

That is when I began to focus on the different websites and all of the advantages that come with a “Senior Discount”. I suppose my reaction of giddiness toward any type of savings proves that I am indeed on my way to become a bona fide senior.

When you approach 50, you can join an exclusive club that will send you an identification card. It is this card that will give you access to all of the savings and discounts. As I pondered this information, I realized in order to receive any of these special treatments, you must prove that you are 50 or over.

So, when was the last time I had to show evidence of my age; perhaps over 20 years ago, when I was either purchasing or wanting to consume alcohol. I remember loving the whole idea of looking young enough that someone actually thought I was under age.

Then, the time comes when there is no doubt that you have entered into the “parenting years” of life, whether you have kids or not and you need to accept the fact that you will never be asked again.

Well, opportunity knocks once more and the idea of having a shot at getting carded at 50 is very appealing. So, I thank my husband, for the email, I’m sure was sent to me as a joke, for it has given me more incentive to keep thinking and looking young.

Nothing's Perfect!

I’ve been to a couple of therapists in my day, usually when I find myself stuck in a funk that I can’t seem to get out of on my own. A therapist helps me clear away some of the muck, which enables me to move my feet again.

It’s been awhile since I’ve found myself in those circumstances, thanks to a wise sage of a therapist that literally changed the way I think.

After listening to some of the episodes in my life, the therapist said, “You need to take yourself down a few notches”. Wow and Ouch! She went on to say I feel the need to have everything perfect, that I have extremely high expectations for myself and I see life in such a way that no one could possibly reach. She handed me a dictionary and told me to look up the word, “Perfect”.

Perfect – Being entirely without fault or defect.
Satisfying all requirements.

The definition went on and on, but that’s all I really needed to know. Many scenes of disappointments from my past flashed through my brain as I left the office in a daze. Sifting through, I was amazed with how many situations could have had happier endings.

I now see that perfection has been my intent throughout my life. It was to attain the perfect picture from my imagination or nothing! So, most of what I have imagined has never come to fruition so I had mostly been left with nothing.

I am now aware that nothing in this world can achieve perfection, satisfy ALL requirements or be ENTIRELY without fault or defect, especially me!

I work at this new thought process everyday. When you have lived a certain way for a long period of time, it doesn’t change over night. As a matter of fact I am just now trying to find the happy medium from the other extreme, where I didn’t control anything!

I am now experiencing some contentment in life. Instead of expecting everything to be a certain way, I take what enters my life at face value and appreciate it and more times than not, I go with the flow. I also try to embrace the flaws in my life, then work to make them better. I don’t stress out if they don’t change; because nothing’s perfect!

Every Day

Every day, you wake up with renewed hope that life can touch you and make you feel alive again. A smile develops and a chain reaction of warmth trickles through to the tips of your limbs.

Every day, there is a series of events that occur, where hope turns to dust and slips through your fingers, swirling into the air, leaving you numb and lifeless as you fall into your bed at night.

Every day, you can open your window to the beauty of the world. No matter the season, you get a front row seat to a spectacular show. Nature can awaken all of your senses, sending love to your soul.

Every day, there are tortured souls that stand center stage, demanding your attention, sucking any bit of positive energy you may have managed to retain. Your chin turns downward as you concede to them playing the lead in your play.


This is life.
You have good and you have bad.
It can be calm or storm.

Life is also a series of choices.
You can choose good or bad.
It can be a choice of calm or storm.

The challenge in life is to recognize that you have all the power needed to open the door to good and hang the, “Keep Out” sign for the bad.

Remembering that if your sign falls down you have not failed, for you will have another opportunity to right the wrong…Every day.

Life Began at the Funeral Home

I feel as though I am in a Hollywood movie, waiting for the director to yell cut. The scene is set with an abundance of flowers, tender music playing and murmuring extras strategically placed throughout the rooms. The camera zooms in on me, sitting listlessly staring through tear-filled eyes at my father, lying in a casket. I wish it were a movie, but it’s real.
I don’t want to face this. I just want my Dad back, just as I wanted my Mom back eleven years ago in this very room. You’d think at my age I would have this life and death thing down and tending to the sobbing “others” in the room. Nope! I am thinking of no one but me. That is my right as I am the “baby” of the family. I practically raised myself and now, two people I was able to blame everything that went wrong in my life, are gone. Not that my life was Hell or anything, actually it was quite nice most of the time; it’s just that everyone was busy with their lives and I was floundering at home all alone.
Early memories of my life bring to mind an Italian version of a Norman Rockwell painting, where our welcoming house was the place where friends, neighbors and relatives would gravitate.
Until I was eight, we lived in a sweet suburban neighborhood, where kids could safely roam free. My Mother was a stay-at-home mom, always at hand and providing a warm, cozy home. She adored her family, tending to every detail and when this woman wrapped her arms around us, her love went straight to our souls.
My Father was a city policeman and my Superman. To me, he was the bravest, smartest, funniest person in the world. When he was home, I was never more than two feet away from him. I loved following him everywhere he went in the house, whether it was watching him shave or helping him fix something in his workshop. I was sad to see him go to work and screamed with joy when I heard him return.
My older sister and brother were still young enough to enjoy the idea of a baby sister. We all had our own friends, yet we all seemed to mingle with one another. I know I am making my early life seem too good to be true, but this how I remember it, a bit of paradise!
Then the fateful day came when the rug was pulled out from under me and my parents had the brilliant idea to purchase a grocery store and live in an apartment above. They made it sound like the adventure of a lifetime and we would live happily-ever-after. Actually what happened was my Mother worked from morning to night for the next 10 years, my Father dabbled in many side businesses, eventually ventured into politics and became our city’s mayor for eight years. My sister and brother matured and stepped onto the fast track of the teen years. And me? I watched a lot of TV!
Our home/business sat on a main street in a bustling steel city. There was the day and night noise of speeding cars and trucks outside our front window. It was not a place where a kid my age could just walk out the door and play. When I walked out my door, there was a sidewalk, not a yard. It felt as though I were in a prison. No where to go, no one to play with, no one really taking care of me. My paradise seemed far away.
After two years, we moved back to the suburbs and true isolation set in. Living above the store I could go downstairs when I was lonely and see my Mom at work, but at least I had a yard, playground and my favorite place to escape; the woods.
There was a lot of love and laughter in the house on the rare occasions when everyone was together. Holidays were always my favorite time, because the house was filled to the brim with bliss. The voice of Nat King Cole, blaring from our stereo, singing of chestnuts roasting, drifting aromas of Italian tradition being prepared in the kitchen and decorations throughout the house that usually could compete with Vegas. The place screamed joy! I was sure no family was ever as happy as we were at those moments. However, all of that vanished after the holiday. When I would come home from school, open the door, enter the house and all was silent, and once again, I was alone.
I could spend hours talking about the wonderful times we had as a family, it was just the day to day life that was lonely. It was the decisions I had to make on my own, because there was no one to turn to. Let’s just say, most of the decisions I made were good and a couple were just plain bad. I am now only somewhat neurotic, which is phenomenal, considering the circumstances.
So here I sit, back at scene one, among the numerous fans of my Father, wishing I hadn’t stopped smoking years ago, so I could have an excuse to go outside and escape every fifteen minutes. Instead, I have to be in the same room as, “Her”. Who’s, “Her” you ask? You see, my father remarried since my mother’s passing, not once, but twice. I really don’t want to go into all of the gory details, so I’ll skip the first remarriage and move right on to the second. Right now, the second one is standing at his side crying and peeking out of the corner of her eyes, looking for someone to spew her, “poor me” spiel on. She did a number on my family and I do believe in my heart of hearts she is Satan’s protégé in disguise.
I didn’t always feel this way about her. I delighted in the idea that my Dad marry her and I told him so. A day I now wish, perhaps, I would have been in a coma unable to speak my mind. But no, I just wanted my father to be happy and not alone.
She seemed to be a sweet, meek, small town widow, who worshiped the ground my father walked on. Exactly the type my father was searching for. Someone that would devote her life to follow him anywhere he wanted to go; road trips, Kmart, all-you-can-eat joints or just sitting in front of his big screen TV.
For the better part of a year, she did just that. Somewhere in the middle of that year, she wanted to get married. Not just a quickie marriage; the type I imagined and rallied behind when my Father spoke of wanting to get hitched for the third time, but a full out family and friends wedding/reception extravaganza. It was during this period of time when our family noticed, how should I put it…the “other” dimensions of the woman he was marrying. Once they were married, his life faded into her life. He sold most of his possessions and his home, moved into hers and began the slow decay of his wants, needs and eventually his health. The game was over and she had won. She had control of the property, money and him. Monopoly! When he was out of the game, she flipped the board and let everything scatter and left us to clean the mess. One enduring piece of vindication is that most people who know my family eventually saw through her veil of deception and were kind to her merely out of respect for my Dad.
As I pan the room I see faces from my childhood, some I haven’t seen in twenty years or more, relatives that I see usually under similar circumstances and people I’ve never laid eyes on in my life.
I find the strength to stand, thinking I can sneak past the guests, out the door to get some air in my lungs and a chance at a bit of peace for my mind. Oh, for a bit of that childhood loneliness right now, but irony once again comes into play.
I was almost home free. With my hand on the doorknob, an old friend of my father’s placed his hand on my shoulder. He began talking to me about how sorry he was for my loss. So instead of saying, yeah, yeah, like I wanted to and keep walking, I became my parents’ good, respectful daughter and once more smiled and responded out of obligation.
As I turned toward him, I looked in his eyes and noticed how truly sad he seemed. Out of curiosity, I decided to actually listen to what he was saying and it turned out to be the beginnings of a story about the good old days with my father, when they were policemen together. He spoke of a time my father arrested a man for breaking into a grocery store shortly before Christmas and when he discovered the burglar was trying to get food for a Christmas dinner, my Father took a bag of groceries to the man’s family so they would not spend the holiday hungry.
As he was talking, two other men joined the conversation and the next thing I knew, a group of people were forming, laughing, crying and marveling over this man they knew most of their lives. Their friend, my Dad. The stories were incredible.
I always knew my dad was funny, kind, loyal and honest and I witnessed these aspects of his personality throughout my life. But these people were telling stories of his life never knew. I suppose during those years that my dad was scarce to me he was at least doing worthwhile deeds in the world. It then occurred to me that perhaps it’s not the amount of time he spent with me that was important, but the quality of time and all of his wonderful humor, wisdom and knowledge he shared with me.
For the remainder of that day I began to take on a different viewpoint. Instead of looking at all of the mistakes my Father made, I focused on all of the good about him. The coldness around my heart began to melt with the warm glow of compassion I felt for him. I was so proud of him for being such a fine man. I welcomed conversation and craved more knowledge about my Dad and sought out more from all who came through the door. My search did not disappoint. I marveled at the admiration these people had for the same person I used to view as my special hero.
On the day of his funeral there was an article in the newspaper about another story of his life I never knew. I wept as I read it, as I realized how all of my life, I was so busy blaming him for not spending time with me, that I barely took the time to recognize him. I am honored to be his daughter.

Cut!!

As much as I would love to sit and write on a daily basis, priorities in my life prevent that from happening. I have twin boys, a husband, a job and a home to keep from spiraling into chaos. Every production needs a director on the set and early on I was appointed that position in our home. I work with a very talented cast and I must say I am head over heels with the leading man.

I guess what I am trying to say is some days I will have time to write for a couple of hours and some, not at all. Today is a happy medium day; I can write for a few minutes. I’m fine with that scenario for now. Well, lights, camera…

I'm Out of the Closet!

I was just checking out someone’s blog when off to the side, I glanced at the words, "Create Your Own Blog”. Something strange came over me, as if my fingers were on an Ouija Board, I moved the mouse, clicked and here I am.

Stashed in the back of my closet is a stack of journals from years of writing that I periodically imagine myself torching. I'm not one to dwell on what others think or say about me, but the idea of people reading some of the passages of those books, well it just makes me a bit uneasy.

I do love to write, mostly non fiction and mostly about my experiences. I'm not sure why I am here or why I feel the need to progress from private writings to public writings, but as I stated before, here I am.

Maybe its time for me to be, “out of the closet”, with my writing. There, I've outed myself. I proclaim myself, “A Writer”. I suppose in every writer’s life, there comes a time when they must take that step of proclamation, by submitting a piece and finding out whether they have an appealing writing voice or the unfortunate news that comes via rejection letter, that perhaps they need to continue to journal in the privacy of their own home.

I think The Spinners said it best, in the song, I'll Be Around, when they said “This is the fork in the road”. For many reasons, I need to see where this takes me. The signals keep getting stronger and clearer.

So, without further ado, I present me, to whomever happens to read what I write, and I hope you feel and hear my voice through my words.