Archive for July, 2005
Why wait?
Friday, July 22nd, 2005
My aunt suffered a series of strokes over the last few days so I’m flying across the country tomorrow morning to be with her (I have to get up in 4 and 1/2 hours, but can’t sleep. Arghhh!). This aunt never had children, but would have been a great mom. She found true love later in life after many tries. For her whole adult life she has struggled with a crippling disease but no one knows unless they are told. The women in my family are T-O-U-G-H. She’s one of the toughest and lovingest, too.
For the past, I’m ashamed to say it, eight years, she has wanted me to come see her home. She and her hubby remodelled it and from all accounts it’s spectacular. She knows I’d appreciate it more than most because in another life I’ve been an interior decorator or perhaps later in this one I will be. Who knows?
When informed of her health, my eyes welled with tears. Between money shortages, time shortages and just life, I hadn’t visited her. It bugs the crap outta me that this is what it took for me to get my arse on a plane. The dream visit going to all the sites with her may never be a reality now. Please let me be wrong.
Well, I’m not waiting any longer. Good grief! How often do we wait and then it’s a funeral? What a total waste. It won’t matter to her one bit if the fam treks up to the funeral now will it?
There will be no posts until Sunday the 24th.
Birthdays Worth Celebrating
Thursday, July 21st, 2005
My husband and I both grew up in families that eschewed (like that word?) birthday celebrations for quasi-religious reasons: bad things happen on birthdays (think John the Baptist’s head on a platter), expecting birthday presents breeds selfishness, Jesus Christ told us to remember his death not his birth, yadda, yadda, yadda. We were not allowed to go to other birthday parties either.
It was all nonsense, really. Having severely premature children revealed this ridiculous point-of-view for pure pessimism. My twins were born weighing 810 and 850 grams–about the size you see in that picture. One child died a couple weeks after birth and the other survived and spent many uncuddled weeks and many pain-filled surgeries and many harsh days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit before coming home on a cocktail of medication, an apnea monitor and oxygen with pulse-ox.
One child made it and now has more siblings and we celebrate. Because of the dates of the birthdays, we celebrate most of the summer between birthdays and anniversaries and of course, July 4th!
Life is a gift. People talk theoretically, saying, “I would never want to live like that” when they hear about difficult life circumstances. It is the rare person who doesn’t struggle to their last dying breath and that was certainly the case in the NICU. Every child fought to live and had an amazing capacity to endure pain. They wanted to live.
I wanted my kids to live. Bargains with God were made. Prayers never ceased. Hope was clung to. In the end, my thought was: every moment is a blessing. I’m so glad I had even just days with my one child. (Because some ask, “would it have been better not to have the child at all?” No, it would not have been better.)
Alfred Tennyson’s poem: In Memorium: 21, 1850 says it best:
I hold it true, whate’er befall,
I feel it when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.
It almost seems thankless to ignore birthdays since every moment is filled with possibility and wonder. We have so many choices before us, and nothing puts life in stark contrast like dying.
With my husband having already dealt with cancer, friends who have survived and died from it in their 20s and 30s, a friend who recently simply dropped dead at the ripe old age of 35 of some freak virus and too many clients for my comfort who died and left 4 children behind, I view birthdays as the one day a year set aside for gratitude, humility, life assessment and happiness.
Presents are great, too.
Hire A Lady
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005Btw, for what it costs to go to dinner and a movie with my husband, I can get my house cleaned once a month. For another dinner and a movie, I can have it cleaned twice amonth.
Since I don’t get out much, get my nails done, do my hair twice a year whether it needs it or not, eschew (look it up at www.wikipedia.com) designer duds and shop fashion at Target (look it up at www.target.com), and generally only splurge on organic food and the occasional Wendy’s (look it up at www.wendys.com) spicey chicken sandwich, the money I spend to “treat” myself is for house cleaning and a few baby-sitting hours so I can work and make money. Yup, my “self time” is working. What can I say?
Fly Lady
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
A friend commented that she didn’t have the resources for a house keeper and recommended www.flylady.net. Check it out here. I’m most interested in getting started. If you can do that…anything is possible.
There’s Something About Mary
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
During marriage counseling while still engaged, I felt it necessary to inform my future husband that the likelihood of me ever ironing any articles of his clothing was somewhere between not going to happen and no way ever was it going to happen. And thus it has been.
Other “not likelys” were: cleaning up after him, being his personal key locator, or making him dinner after we both had a long day of work.
What was my problem? Was I just a bible-thumping Christian Feminist? Well, that could be part of it.
But the real truth is that keeping up with my own cleaning, tidying, locating and arranging was a full-time job. My mom called me a slob. That is not exactly correct. The label “slob” implies that you’re okay with the mess. Pigs are slobs. They live in a mess and enjoy it too. I do not like messes. I hate them, in fact.
Then, perhaps I’m just “lazy”. This, too, is not exactly correct. True, I have a long “relaxation” streak, but I do work hard. In fact, when the cleaning bug bites me, I can be downright industrious. The only problem is that three hours of hard work for me looks like 15 minutes of my mom in action. Even when I clean, it still looks “undone”. This is depressing and a huge dig-incentive to do any domestic work.
And my husband is worse. Between the two of us, we can wreak more havoc than a Category 4 hurricane in less time and more efficiently.
I used to feel ashamed of this. (Interestingly, my husband feels no shame. Must be the Y chromosome or the very low expectation bar of “boys will be boys” acculturation.) With a mother who cooks like Emiril, cleans like Molly the Maid and loves domestication like Martha, my sense of inadequacy knew no bounds.
I wondered why I didn’t get a 10th of my mom’s energy, verve and meaning out of the work. Her approach to dishes was zen-like. “I clean the dishes that my children will be nourished from–ommmmmmmmmm.” One look at dishes, again, for the millionth time, makes me want to hook my children up to I.V.’s, and while were at it catheters too–potty training is a pain in my ass. (Hey, I didn’t say I was winning any mothering awards here.)
And then, along came Mary.
I had resisted hiring someone to clean my house. It would be a confirmation of my shortcomings. It would be an announcement of my weakness. My husband would throw a fit about the money and my lackluster homemaking.
In the face of all this pressure that took ten years of marriage and chaos to overcome, I hired Mary. There’s something about her…well, that’s magical.
Mary manages to clean my house, help with my kids and generally support me without me feeling like a recipient of condescending charity. She knows her way around a kitchen, makes playing Chutes and Ladders with two young kids seem like the best way to spend an afternoon and rocks the baby to sleep like a human version of the Horse Whisperer.
Not only does she perform her job with joy and excellence she has turned into a true friend of mine. I know, I know, I’ve read you’re not to mix friendship with the help, but I just don’t buy it. Our best employees have turned out to be some of our best friends.
Mary’s spirit lifts my own. With the kids, it can seem that all I do is laundry, feed, clean up, change a diaper, feed, laundry, etc. While Mary is here for just a few hours, I look forward to her coming and try my best to keep things the way she cleans them, so she doesn’t have to work too hard. When the house begins to fall down around me, I know it won’t be too long before I have her help.
Without family around to take the kids to a movie or go to dinner, Mary has been a gift from God. Even with her own household’s troubles (we exchange our woes), when I get down she says, “I know. I know.” And she does.
Why did I wait so long to hire someone? Why did I care about some relative’s pursed lips and eye rolling (you know the sort: Hey, I gutted it up for years and hated it, why can’t you?). Worse, why did I judge myself so harshly when it has always been clear that my talents lie elsewhere?
Well, having made a commitment to be a high achiever and never admit defeat, recognizing that I was a “C” housekeeping student was humbling. Snide comments and thinly veiled contempt for my shortcomings didn’t help either. The irony is that when I finally let go and let Mary, I slowly but surely got on top of things better. I can go about a month in the house on my own before all heck breaks loose. Hey, it’s an improvement.
I have a friend who keeps a huge garden, cans more food than Campbells Soup, ferries her kids around with the grace and speed of a stock car racer and has trouble keeping her house up. Hire help, I urge. I have another single parent friend who rarely sees his kid with work and other commitments and then spends his time shopping and cleaning. Hire Help! Ignore the internal judge. Just do it!
There is something about Mary. I believe she is an angel in human form.
True Self
Tuesday, July 19th, 2005
Through researching the science of personality, an interesting piece of information stuck with me and I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about it personally. Basically, when it comes to personality, there are four perspectives:
- The personality traits that we see and others also see.
- The personality traits that we alone see.
- The personality traits that only others see.
- And the personality traits that no one sees, including ourselves. This area is described on one personality profile as “hidden needs.”
To use myself as an example, I see myself and most others would probably agree, that ideas come easily to me, information gathering is fun and I enjoy education and derive personal satisfaction through helping and teaching people. We would also probably agree that I am more a big picture person, get paralyzed making decisions at times and have weak follow-through when it comes to detail orientation. Starting is easy for me. Finishing–oy!
Then there are the traits that I alone see. For example, I know, even if most people are shocked, that I have a shy interior. I work very hard to meet people and be open. It is work for me. After being in group situations, I need time alone to recharge. For example, church wears me out. Speaking engagements wear me out. Social functions like weddings wear me out. Because I manage social situations fairly easily, this trait is often obscured. My behavior has been (mis) interpretted at times as being “stuck up” because after spending fun times with people I’ll hibernate for a while. Oh well…
Now to the traits that only others see. How can you see it if only others can see it, you may wonder. Well, I have been personality tested out the wazoo and have done some serious soul searching so to become aware. This trait was very painful for me to recognize but a lot of things came together once it was presented to me: I am extremely blunt to people, so much so that even things that I’m not emotionally attached to (hey, you should go to this restaurant it’s great!), can sound like strident directives. People who know me, know that inside I’m a mush, which is why I suspect many of my friends have stuck with me. What I put out is Marine Drill Sargeant. I am diligently working on this trait. It bugs me that my normal self can be so offensive and off-putting. So now I try to pause, “Is this kind? Does this matter? Does it need to be said? Can I say it softer?”
Finally, there are parts of me that I don’t see and others don’t see either. Again, a personality test helped me see that I really have a low energy level and need more time than the average bear to re-tool. This too, was difficult to swallow. I had made a life burning the candle at both ends. People who see my “slowed down life” now laugh. But I have slowed down comparitively and work constantly to simplify my life.
There is more about me, but my point in bring this all up is this: w are more than meets the eye to ourselves and to others. Often our vision of ourself is as distorted as the image we see in a mirror. It looks like us, but it is not us. It is an approximation of the superficial.
It makes me wonder: what else don’t I know about me? Surely the tests aren’t sophisticated enough yet to pick up everything. What other traits could be modulated or better managed so my life is happier and more fulfilling and my relationships prosper?
It takes more than a little courage to truly see ourselves. It takes commitment to follow through and change. In my experience, the benefits of doing so have been enormous: I parent better, my marriage has improved and my professional life is easier.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
–Richard Feynman
Antibiotics CAUSE Resistence
Tuesday, July 19th, 2005
Antibiotics cause and increase in the likelihood that you are carrying an antibiotic resistant bacteria. Check the link below for the study.
Milton Freedman said, “There is no free lunch.” He was speaking in economic terms and meant that somebody was paying for your lunch. (Nice thing to remember about medicare, medicaid, and every other governmental function.)
When it comes to your health, there is no free lunch either. Antibiotics, while a life-saver in critical situations, causes problems when overused or used for frivolous reasons.
Long term, antibiotics used more than once a year are linked to breast cancer in women. And that is just one instance of scariness.
Remember, too, that every piece of meat you eat, egg you cook, and milk you drink is coming from an animal that has drowned in antibiotics before you ingested them. It is no wonder bugs are rampaging over antibiotics and ravaging bodies.
My kids pediatrician said that she has at least one case of antibiotic resistant, flesh-eating bacteria per week! I was absolutely stunned. She said that the bad part was, that parents like me who use antibiotics as an absolutely last resort with their children, still had to worry about it with their kids because the bugs are so strong and so easily passed around.
So, stop popping antibiotics like they are candy. They have consequences short and long term for you and those you love and the strangers that you many never meet but whose life you will touch.
Lance Armstrong: Mental Toughness
Monday, July 18th, 2005
A real skinny Texas dude rides a bike through the Pyrennes in the Tour de France as this post is written. He will likely win. Again. For the 7th time. He will likely win the most grueling sporting event that exists.
Most of us, by comparison are big losers. If we have any awareness of our talents (a minimum start to greatness), we give up developing them for a variety of reasons. We are tired. We are spread thin. We can’t make money at our gift. We stink on the playing field. (It’s unfortunate when our only talent is lackluster when tested against other peoples talents.)
We lack the single-mindedness needed to succeed. We lack the genetic gifts to succeed (Armstrong is gifted with lung capacity and muscle recovery that other athletes, even professional ones, just don’t have).
That single-mindedness thing is what interests me, though. On some level, it is a little weird to love baseball (I went to High School with Johnny Smoltz, the Braves pitcher and he would pitch against his garage over and over and over and over again in rain, snow, whatever. He didn’t date, really. I wondered if he’d ever get married, he was so driven and focused.), or basketball, or bicycling, or computers (Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are a little weird), or anything so seemingly meaningless in the big scheme of life that much.
But these guys do.
Another group of people are single-minded and usually have one area that they “stim” on: autistic people. What I wonder, is how are autistic people different than high achievers?
First, autistic people don’t usually focus on socially relevent activities. They focus on spinning plates or memorizing bus schedules or knowing every make and model of train.
Second, autistic people have difficulty communicating their knowledge to others. Temple Grandin, is a notable exception. Through her own need to calm down internally, she created a machine that calmed her down and transferred that knowledge to cattle. Her ability to do this depended on communication and executive functioning.
Third, autistic people have little interest in or ability to integrate other people into their talent focus.
For example, Steve Jobs saw a need, had the ability to put something together and recruited help to bring his computer system to the world. Bill Gates has Steve Ballmer. Michael Jordon (although not originally) saw the need to help other people become better, thus making him a better player. Johnny Smoltz has a team. Sure he’s the lone gun pitching, but he receives encouragement from a catcher, input from a coach and can integrate it.
And that crazy cat, Lance Armstrong. He is single-minded for sure. He too has a team and a coach and an emotional support system. His passion and dedication inspire others. His excellence keeps them supporting him when his love for the bike seems like a psychological dysfunction.
Is Lance Armstrong autistic? No, but it is interesting that achievement and pathology can look so similar.
Oprah’s Dogs
Sunday, July 17th, 2005
Do you ever wonder why people treat dogs so well when they could have just had a kid already? What are they afraid of anyway?
And how about the cat ladies? What is going on there?
Lonliness is too easy an answer.
Alzheimers: Beliefs Create Reality
Friday, July 15th, 2005Every once in a while the religion “science” is faced with new information challenging long held dogma. Today is one of those days.
In the journal Science (apt) www.Science.com, researchers led by Karen Ashe of the University of Minnesota reported that mice whose genes had been “turned off” thus creating the dementia seen in Alzheimers recovered their memories when the genes were turned back on. This is good news for Alzheimers patients and their families since it implies that the same could happen in humans.
“I was astonished. I didn’t believe [emphasis added] the results when I saw them,” Ms. Ashe stated.
She couldn’t believe it. Why? Because the accepted dogma is that Alzheimers is irreversible, that’s why.
Cancer: irreversible. Diabetes: irreversible. Heart disease: irreversible (oops! not irreversible. Dr. Dean Ornish has loads of research reversing it, but you do it with diet, exercise, stress management and familial support. I know, it’s just not nearly as sexy as an exotic potion like a drug or a dramatic intervention like surgery).
Yep, scientists are unbiased, blank papers looking for the answers, certainly not ministers preaching dogma looking for evidence to back up their beliefs.
