Have you ever been wrong? I mean 100% certifiably incorrect. I found myself in that position recently. For years (like decades), I thought ameliorate meant to wipe out. In reality, ameliorate means to make better. This revelation came as quite a surprise. If you are a lover of words like me, imagine my shock when I realized I had been mistaken and misspoken for years!
I wonder what people thought when I used the word ameliorate incorrectly? Maybe:
What an idiot!
Huh?
What the heck does ameliorate mean?
I’m a big believer in reading with a dictionary nearby. In fact, when my nieces were young, we had a book club every summer. I instilled the habit of using a dictionary by asking them to explain the definition of unfamiliar words we read. I loved those book clubs. I think the girls were 7 or 8 when we started, and we continued until they went to high school. If you have littles in your family, I highly recommend a summer book club. It’s a wonderful way to spend time with them…and…they are reading in the summer! What a great way to ameliorate their reading skills!! (See the difference😊)
I am not a fan of the word retired. For many people of a certain age, their lifelong goal was to retire, leave the rat race, and enjoy a life of leisure. In 2021, retirement is being postponed for all kinds of reasons, most of which necessitate working well beyond the golden age of 65.
As I was contemplating my next chapter, I found the word retired unpleasant and unsettling. For me, the word beckons images of boredom, aimlessness, and a further spiral toward senility. Who looks forward to that? I grew up in a home where a strong work ethic was instilled early and often. My father supported his wife and seven children on a plumber’s salary. The older children helped with the littles, we all had chores, and everyone pulled their weight. Some of us drove a wrecker when our father opened a salvage yard. Slothfulness is not in my DNA.
I found the idea of sitting around doing nothing much more appealing than actually sitting around doing nothing. In fact, I never got to that stage. Before I left my 8-5 job, I decided I wanted to “redesign” my career, a word I find more palatable. My son suggested I create a wish list of new occupations I wanted to try. My list included teaching, working at a nursery surrounded by plants and flowers, leading meditation walks at the Denver Botanic Garden, and opening a private grief counseling practice. In addition, I wanted to continue working in end-of-life care but scale back to part-time. A year after I created my “redesign,” all of those opportunities had come to fruition. And now, four years later, it’s time for a new list. For starters, I’m creating this blog.
What’s on your wish list?
I am blessed to have a mom that always knows exactly what to say:
“If you don’t tell me when something’s wrong, how will I know what to pray for?”
“I don’t have a favorite child; all seven of you are my favorites.”
“Cindy, Denise, Gary…whoever you are, quit doing that.”
“Just think what he’d be like if he didn’t go to church at all.”
“Those expiration dates on bottles don’t mean anything.”
“If he’s still here, there’s still hope.”
“I’ve never really exercised; I had seven kids to keep up with, that was enough exercise for me.”
“Say to yourself, this is what I’m going to do, now how do I make it happen?”
“It’s the only way I can accept that they are gone.” (When asked why Thy Will Be Done was chosen for her sons’ headstone.)
Happy Mother’s Day to the wisest, most faith-filled woman I know.
When Gregg Allman and Eddie Van Halen went to the SRO gig in the sky, the soundtrack of my life went with them. It’s not that I don’t enjoy all types of music, it’s just that those two were my jam. Feeling sad and melancholy, listen to the Allman Brothers. Wanna rock out, turn up Van Halen…really, really loud. I’ve run hundreds of miles with Dave, Sammy, and the VH boys keeping me company. There are people and places that will always and forever be memorialized by their songs.
I used to wonder what would happen when the G.O.A.T. were no longer with us. I imagined it would feel similar to when you ejected your favorite cassette and the tape got stuck in your boombox. I guess the older generation felt the same when Frank and Dean got the call to perform for their celestial fans.
Thankfully, JoBo, and Derek and Susan, continue to pick tunes. Van Morrison still sings my personal theme song, Brown Eyed Girl, and Rod Stewart may say he’s Forever Young but in reality, he’s like 150 so I’m not sure we can count on him for many new tracks. Thank God for Eric, Buddy, and Gary Clark, Jr. They give me hope that rock and roll will never die.
I once thought turning 21 was an automatic entry into adulthood. The clock strikes 12, the 21st birthday arrives, and adulting commences. Now that I have myriad decades of experience to draw from, I now know adulting is cyclical:
Leaving for college – quasi-adulting
Investing in college – adulting
Vacationing without your parents – adulting
Vacationing with your grandkids without their parents – adulting
Leasing an apartment without a co-signer – adulting
Buying a house and a sectional to furnish it – adulting
Moving across the country for the person of your dreams – adulting
Saying “my wife” or “my husband” for the first time – adulting
Buying a car without your dad – adulting
Looking in the rearview mirror and realizing the car seat, and the baby in it, belong to you – adulting
Orthodontia, broken bones, car insurance – adulting
Hearing aids, broken hips, health insurance – adulting
Burying a beloved friend – adulting
Learning your baby is having a baby – adulting
Discussing end-of-life wishes with your aging parents – adulting
Being the aging parent – adulting
What did I miss?
The word surrender has gotten a bad rap. I think a lot of people hear the word surrender and envision waving a white flag and conceding defeat. The battle is over. There is a definite winner and loser. Visions of fight or flight come to mind. However, that’s only one definition.
A kinder, gentler version of surrender suggests allowing circumstances to unfold without expectation or attempts to influence the outcome. A leaning in, if you will. We consciously loosen our grip and wave the peace flag, surrendering to the experience. We breathe deeply and ease into the situation trusting that a higher power, or God, or the Universe wants the best for us. We focus on peace and acceptance. Most importantly, we relinquish control, because quite frankly, we never had it in the first place.
Recently, a friend was purging her wardrobe and invited me to choose whatever I liked from her discard pile. As we approached her closet, she asked innocently, “What size are you?” That very innocuous question stopped me in my tracks.
Over the years, I’ve been a size 6, a size 12, and everything in between. I’ve bought outfits too small “for when I lose weight.” I’ve refused to buy new jeans until I was a size Something. I have dresses that still fit 10 years later and clothes that will require surgery if I’m ever to wear them again. It seems a strange paradox that, as my height diminished, my weight did not.
Sadly, I’ve been known to secretly accuse the dry cleaners of shrinking my clothes. I’ve been reduced to doing squats to stretch tight pants and who hasn’t laid on the bed to zip their jeans? It seems to me Large is the new Medium and size 10 may or may not fit an average body. Which begs the question, what is average? When I find my weight on the BMI chart, I’m reminded I need to grow a few inches.
After spending way too much time contemplating the question, I’ve decided I’m a size comfortable. If it pinches, puckers, or pulls, I’m not wearing it. This decision inevitably results in me wearing the same outfit every time I leave the house but at least I can breathe, sit, and eat without fear of an embarrassing roll (not the buttered kind). I’m hoping to rekindle the elastic waistband trend of yore. Comfort or bust!
Why the aversion to using a blinker? Were you absent the day proper blinker usage was taught in drivers ed? Did the car salesman fail to point out the location of the blinker? Do you lack the strength to push the blinker up or down? (If so, bicep curls may be in order.) Have you forgotten how to use the blinker? (That’s a scary topic for another rant blog!)
Where I live, people either do not use their blinker at all, or use it at the exact moment they merge in front of another vehicle (and then slam on the brakes). Evidently using a blinker is not a high priority in Colorado. I am not a perfect driver by any means, but I cannot understand why using a blinker is so dang difficult.
And while we’re on the subject, let’s review stop light rules. Didn’t everyone learn the ditty:
Red means stop; Green means go; Yellow means go slow!
Nowhere in the song does it say, Red means continue through the intersection.
Again, where I live, you can absolutely, positively count on one car going through the intersection after the light turns red. It is not unusual for another car to join in just for the fun of it. And, on an especially perilous day, three cars may parade through the intersection. I don’t get that either. Is their time more important? Don’t they mind endangering the lives of others? Do they own multiple vehicles so that when their car is in the body shop after causing an accident, it’s not a giant pain in the rear end?
Full disclosure, the other day, I rolled through a stop sign. I looked both ways and proceeded slowly through the intersection. A cyclist, who was nowhere near the intersection but observed the violation, yelled, “You rolled right through that stop sign. You’re supposed to STOP.” At first, I was offended; how dare he yell at me! Would he have yelled at a male driver? In the current era of road rage, such an outburst seemed pretty risky. However, as the day wore on and his tirade stayed with me, I had to admit, I did roll through the stop sign and I need to be more diligent about coming to a complete stop. And so, thank you, Mr. Bikeridingyeller, for the not-so-subtle but effective reminder to drive safely.
I have a friend who has the most beautiful hair; her hair is thick, curly, and coveted by all. She won the jackpot when hair was being bestowed by the Giver of Hair. I, on the other hand, must have been in the elbow line and ended up with the hair no one else wanted.
It’s not that I don’t have hair, it’s just that it has always been fine, thin, and straight. I’ve spent my children’s inheritance on hair products. My hairdresser and I have a deep and meaningful relationship; she gets me and my hair. Suffice it to say, no one ever wished they had my hair.
What’s been astonishing is the new crop of thick, curly hair I find other places. If only the hair on my head would grow like the hair on my chin! Each day, a new harvest of wiry, stubborn embellishments appears for the tweezing. I swear, one minute my chin is as smooth as butta, the next minute I look like Colonel Sanders.
A few years ago, I spent some time in the Big House (aka hospital). I was blessed to have family and friends there 24/7 to make sure things went as planned. What didn’t go as planned was their failure to attend to my chin hair. I am absolutely, positively sure we had a pact that we would always be there for each other and our chin hair. When I got home and looked in the mirror, I had a full beard. When said family and friends were reminded of our pledge, this was their reply, “Ya know, we were just trying to keep you alive. Your chin hair was the least of our worries.”
My advice: Appoint someone who doesn’t love you to be in charge of your chin hair.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the word meditation starts with m-e-d as in medicine. When I meditate, it feels like medicine, an alchemy that relieves stress, improves mood, and calms nerves. However, unlike medicine, meditation does not require a prescription or a co-pay. You can take it whenever you want, as much as you want, with or without food, and there are no negative side effects reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association. My hope is that no one from the pharmaceutical industry reads this blog and decides to patent meditation!
Mentioning meditation elicits interesting replies:
“I’ve always wanted to try that but I’m too busy.”
““Who has time to sit on a cushion and stare at their belly button?”
Meditation doesn’t have to be sitting in the lotus position seeking enlightenment. Meditation may occur the moment you pause to feel sunlight on your skin, when you delight in a child’s laughter, when you refrain from negative thoughts about the jerk driver that didn’t use a blinker, when you allow tears to fall unapologetically while listening to a special song, when you take a moment to breathe deeply, when fear grabs ahold, or gratitude fills your heart. Meditation can occur on a nature walk or a walk around the block. Meditation is appropriate whenever, wherever, it’s a magic elixir that benefits all ages, is free of charge, and the side effects are a few moments of repose, reflection, and renewal.
Have you taken your medicine today?