unhappiness

i think what motivates us is our unhappiness.

i think that our happiness, which comes from having done what our unhappiness motivated us to do, further motivates us, but the origin of motivation, i think, is unhappiness. and most of us are unhappy for the wrong reasons.

most of us work because we have an existential anxiety (read: unhappiness) about what will happen if we don't. the fact that we may love our work (and, sidebar here - which isn't so on the side at all - most of us do not love our work; most of us, at least many of us, loathe it or, best case scenario, tolerate it)....the fact that we may love our work isn't the reason we do it. we do it to make money. because at the root of it, we are terrified (unhappy) about the prospect of not having money. and yes, we may do our work because we have a sense of self-responsibility, but that's not why we do it, either. we do it because the idea of not having money makes us unhappy. even the fact that our work may benefit others isn't really why we do it. we do it because we're unhappy if we don't have money.

i am not saying we shouldn't be unhappy if we don't have money. but i wonder if there is something better to be unhappy about.

most of us reach out to others - in whatever form that takes - be it community activism, forming friendships and hangin' out, or going to the hospital to visit someone who's sick - because we're unhappy -not because we want the world to be a better place (although we do). and not because we like beer and wine and having someone to be there for us - and we for them - when they need us and we need them (although we do). and also not because we wish to be supportive and helpful to the sick - although, as you have probably already determined, we do. 

all of these things are the benefits of reaching out - not the motivation.

and yet, despite all the benefits of working and despite all the benefits of reaching out, most of us aren't on top of the world with joy. most of us are not content. why not? 

because our unhappiness is the best thing that ever happened to us. it is a gift. and most of us screw it up.

our existential unhappiness is God's way of nudging us off the couch - not just to go to work. not just to be nice to that old lady in the hospital. those are good things - very good things - but they are not enough to make us happy. not for long, anyway.

what God is trying to tell us with our chronic, unending, gone-for-awhile-but-always-creeping-back unhappiness is that He is the answer to our problem. He is the only thing - not even His creation and all the things in it (like a job and great friends) - but He - He is the solution to unhappiness.

God is trying to tell us that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD5uPZzBr5c

pray anywhere - but don't pray anywhere.

the notion that you don't need a church to pray is right. the notion that you can pray on a golf course is right.

as is the notion that you can - and should! -  pray anywhere/anytime.



the notion that a husband doesn't need to buy his wife an anniversary gift to show his love is right. the notion that a wife can love her husband while sinking a hole-in-one is right.

as is the notion that a person can - and should! - love his partner anywhere/anytime.



(see where i'm goin' with this?)



we have to be careful, i think, that we don't get lazy. and, i think, the danger in the "what does it matter where" point of view of prayer is that, well, the "what does it matter where" point of view is lazy. and wrong.

where you pray matters as much as whether or not you're ever home to change the baby's diapers. it matters as much as whether or not you call your husband and tell him you love him but you're working late. again.

it matters as much as whether or not you show your love for your beloved only in the way you want to show it (the lazy way. admit it.) or in the way your beloved wants you to show it. your beloved generally wants flowers - not another quart of milk.



by all means........pray anywhere.



by more means.......pray someplace special.

get your kicks on route 33.

i drive route 33 to and from canal winchester and columbus dang near everyday - and have for almost a year - and i just today totally realized that depending on which direction you're travelling, you either have the hills of southeastern ohio in your rear view mirror or out your windshield and/or the downtown skyline of columbus in your rear view mirror or out your windshield. 

it's a sign. it's gotta be a sign.

it's gotta be a sign of:

• what's ahead might look better or what's behind might look better but right where you are is pretty frickin' good! because where else besides right where you are can you see your past and (at least some of) your future? face it.....you gotta be somewhere and the view from right here is awesome. so i recommend being right here!
• it's also gotta be a sign that i need to pay more attention.
• as do you.
• we drive, walk, bicycle, run, work, play, eat, sleep right through our lives, people. right through them!
• and we never pay any attention.

but, most of all, 33 x 2 (driving to and from) = .......... 66!

if that's not a sign......

i don't know what is.

 

shut up and pray.

praying is hard. that's why people talk when they do it.


while it might take a certain talent to write and deliver moving, meaningful prayers, it takes a bigger one to shut up.



yesterday in my office, i had a family of 4, and they all talked at the same time. i asked them repeatedly to take turns and they'd comply for awhile and then go back to yack, yack, yack. i couldn't hear them, they couldn't hear each other, and no one could hear me. including me! my head was too busy trying not to explode to be able to hear!

the ironic thing is, they - and i - probably all had something good to say. something important to contribute. not the least of which was - some truth. (which, you gotta hope, is why they came for help in the first place - to get a new perspective, a truthful perspective. but, sadly, they all knew too much already - supposedly - to take the time to listen to more.)


when the appointment was over and i finally got to leave the office to go home, first thing i did when i hopped in the car was crank up the radio loud as it would go. (especially since it was a sunny and "warm" - this is ohio, folks - spring day.)

i cranked up the radio and first thing i hear is poor mick, still not gettin' any satisfaction. (sidebar here: no foolin' he's tried and he's tried and he's tried and he's tried! dang near 50 years now and he's still workin' at it!)


and then.......it hit me. 


of course he can't get no satisfaction. hard to get satisfaction when all you do is yell about how you can't get none. maybe what mick needs to do is........shut. up.

mick needs to shut up, my clients need to shut up, you need to shut up, and i need to shut up. because even though God can hear us over the din, we can't hear Him.


and, so........i turned off the radio.


turns out, mick? satisfaction is God.


and He's as close as your quiet ears.

first full day of spring and my dog gets a bone

first full day of spring and my dog gets

a bone.


beef marrow,

from the thigh,

REAL THING.


i bought it in the winter,

(froze it)

when every. one. was. bitch. in.

bout. every. flake. that.

fell.


but, no one's bitch. in.

now.


not even the rabbit

or the robin

or the little kid down the street who says,

hey, 

that looks good,

can i have some and my dog says,


hell.........


no.

we've lost that lovin' feeling.

i don't understand why so many of us continue to fight hatred with hatred. it's like we're not paying attention at all.


there's this photo going around on facebook and it says:

never forget 3 types of people in your life:

who helped you in your difficult times

who left you in your difficult times

who put you in difficult times

the first type, obviously, yeah. but the other two? so, like, what? hold a grudge forever?

now.....technically speaking.....i actually think this little ditty is right. not forgetting is not the same thing as not forgiving. mattera fact, what glory is there in forgiving someone if you can't even remember what they've done?

besides.

forgetting isn't safe. we're called to forgive, not to forget. we're not required to put ourselves in harm's way a second time. and if we forget what has been done to us, we very well might.

all of that aside, in reading these words of dr. farrah gray which are circulating on f/b, i am struck by what sounds like practical advice, yes, but also harshness. he doesn't mention the word "forgiveness" at all. why not? 

his words don't sound friendly. not to me, anyway. they sound hostile.

but what's worse than all of that, to my way of thinking, is that this photo is floating all over the place and is being re-posted and re-posted and re-posted by well-meaning, good folks who, well, frankly......

need to learn to love.


(and so do i.)

clean your windows if you want to be a saint

people often tell me that i am a good example of what a faithful Christian should be and that they admire me. and that they wish they were as strong - and as forgiving - as i am. ha!


ha! on two levels. one, the better a Christian you are, the worse a Christian you realize you really are. 

(father robert barron, a catholic priest in the archdiocese of chicago, says that the real difference between a saint and a sinner is that a saint is a sinner who really knows it. he says being a saint is kinda like looking through a window in the sunlight - you see all the smudges then. when it's cloudy, you don't notice. being a saint, that is, being someone who is trying to be oriented to the Sonlight, reveals how unsaintly one really is.)

(not that anyone's accusing me of being a saint!)  :)


so......i am not as good as y'all might think. just drop by my place on a sunny day and you'll see.


second.......there's no secret - no trick - to being a "good" Christian. nike would probably shrink in horror to realize it, but their famous slogan sums up Christianity quite well - "just do it."

if, in any way, i am an inspiration to anyone, it's not because i know something y'all don't. i probably don't know half of what y'all know. it's because what i am doing is just doing it. in spite of the fact that 90 percent of the damned time, i don't want to.


just do it. (thanks, nike.)


and clean your windows. (thanks, windex.)

an open letter to you about my open letter about per

since posting yesterday about finally learning why my husband left me, i have, not surprisingly, gotten a lot of feedback. 

• yes. i agree. he is a (fill in the blank).
• yes. i agree. being miserable with how he blew it, he is reaping exactly what he sowed. or, in the vernacular, getting what he deserves.
• yes. i agree. i should - and would - never take him back.

here's my thing:

• i am called - you are called - (commanded, actually) to love more than to be loved.
• to forgive more than to be forgiven.
• to understand more than to be understood.

i don't take that lightly.

here's my other thing:

• i have looked in the mirror. 
• who am i to judge if my sins are "better" than his?
• what challenge might i someday be confronted with and find that my character test has its shameful limits, too?

" For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life." - st. francis of assisi

here's the story of why my husband left me.

you folks know  how i often write funny stuff. well. this isn't funny.

this isn't funny - far from it -  but it also isn't something that i want you to get enraged about (and you might). it isn't something i want you to rush to judgment about. it's something i want you to read with an open heart - notice i didn't say mind - and try to understand. if you don't think you can do that, then maybe you should leave this particular post now - while we're both ahead.



my husband, per, left me because........he didn't want to be a grandfather.



yes, he knew it might happen. he figured it would happen. and he wanted it to happen. that is, until it did.

well, not exactly until it did. when it did, initially, he was happy. he loved those two little munchkins. loved feeding them swedish black licorice - at 6 months!

then, when eli lost his job the very same day that he and abby were scheduled to close on their new house, per said to me, before i even had the chance to say it to him, "let's ask them to move in with us. until they get their feet back on the ground. it's the right thing to do."

and so, they did. eli and abby and baby charlie and baby olivia moved in with us for three months. three short months, i thought. but they were longer for per. except i didn't know it.

i didn't know it because he didn't tell me. he didn't tell me that he didn't enjoy having these kids in his house. he didn't tell me because he figured his original feelings would return once they were out of the house and not so immediately under foot. he didn't tell me because he was too ashamed of himself to tell me. 

he didn't know what to do. except wait. wait for them to move out, into their own place, and then he and i would have our regular (and wonderful) life back and he would again have fun with the twins, bouncing them on his knee. and sending them back to their parents when their diapers got too full.

and so, he waited. it was only three months, but i guess it felt like 300 to him. only i didn't know. i didn't know because he didn't tell me.

he didn't think he needed to tell me. he was sure this was temporary.



and then........it wasn't.



abby and eli and charlie and olivia moved out.

and per's feelings didn't change.

he loathed being a grandfather. it wasn't what he wanted. he thought he was a monster for not loving kids like everybody else seems to love kids. 

like i seemed to love kids. these kids.



he didn't know what to do.



and so........one day........sort of flippantly and off the cuff, he told me that he wasn't sure he liked being a grandfather. i remember it well. i was dusting furniture at the time and he was sorting through the mail. i remember saying to him, "well, that makes sense. i can understand that. you're young! (per is 12 years younger than i am.) you're young and at the prime of your career. and these aren't even your grandchildren - they're your step-grandchildren and, well, i can see that." and he said, "yeah. i guess." and i said, "besides.....if you don't want to be a grandfather, you don't really have to be. show up for the holidays, an occasional sunday dinner, their birthdays, take them for 'pony' rides on your back (which he used to do), and that's that. you don't have to be heavily involved in their lives. i can do that part (i was retired at that point in our lives - that changed, too, but that's another story - and so i was spending a lot of time with the twins)."

and he said, "yeah. i guess. it just bothers me, though, you know?"

and i said, "yeah. i know."

except apparently, i didn't.


it bothered him so much - and i misread how much - and he didn't know what to do.

so........he did nothing. he did nothing but continue to wait it out. surely, he thought, these awful feelings will go away.

but, they didn't. they grew. they got worse. he withdrew. he was ashamed. the more he withdrew, the more ashamed he got. the more ashamed he got, the more he withdrew. he didn't know what to do. luckily, he thought, his work began demanding more and more travel - almost all of it internationally. surely, he thought, getting some distance between me and my horrible, petty feelings will help. i just need some distance. some space. some breathing room. that's what i need.

except, it wasn't. it got worse.


it got very worse.


when he would return from each trip, he was less and less like the per i knew. sullen. withdrawn. distant. no fun.

i asked him what was wrong. (i had, frankly, forgotten about the grandfather thing. i hadn't realized what a big deal that was for him. i thought we had moved on from that.)

he said he didn't know. that he just needed some time to himself to sort things out. i said, is it me??? is it us??? and he said, no. it's not you. it's not us. it's me. i'm just.....i'm just....i don't know. leave me alone. give me some room. give me some space.

i did. i gave him "some space." (yes, read sarcasm.)

the traveling became more frequent.

the phone calls home while traveling became less frequent. and then.......non-existent.


i begged him to do something! do something, per! our lives are slipping away! do something! let's go to a counselor, per! let's go!

no, he said, not we. me. this isn't about us, nancy. it isn't about you. it's me. there is something terribly wrong with me and i don't know what it is. (by that time, he didn't know what it was. not anymore, at least. by that time, he was sure that it wasn't as "simple" as not wanting to be a grandfather. but what? what was it? he loved being married to me. he loved our life. what the hell was wrong with him????)

now, sidebar here, per isn't one to go to counselors. like many people, perhaps especially men, he prided himself - still does - on his ability to cope on his own. and so, he dragged his feet about going. which is to say.......

after several months, he finally went to 2 sessions. and then......conveniently for a man who didn't want to need a therapist anyway......his travel schedule intensified. problem "solved." bye bye, therapy.


and, as it would turn out, bye bye, marriage.


the traveling became constant. the withdrawal became worse. the times we did spend together were miserable. he'd just sit there and not talk and i'd just sit there and try to get him to talk. and he'd just get mad.

and he wasn't willing to do anything about it.


and so, on january 11, 2013, we were divorced. he wasn't even there. he hadn't been there for any of the proceedings. he was overseas. i didn't even know where for sure.


we were divorced - without him there -  and i didn't even know why. you try living like that. it was hell. i remember being jealous of couples who split up because one of them cheated - at least the jilted party knew what happened.

i even envied couples where one of them died. 

at least they knew what happened.


i didn't know what happened. all i knew was that i had lost the love of my life and he was never coming back. i had to get on with my life.


and so, i did.

and, eventually, i grew to accept the fact that i would likely never know - not in this lifetime, at least - what happened. that's a hard, hard thing to grow to accept, but i did it.



and then.......4 years after abby and eli and the kids moved out.........i get a phone call from per. ready to tell me what happened.

and the story unfolded.



he didn't want to be a grandfather.



he didn't want to be a grandfather and he didn't want to tell me that he didn't want to be a grandfather to my grandchildren. my beloved grandchildren.

he didn't know what to do. he thought the feelings would go away but they didn't. they just grew and got worse and overcame him and......he blew it.

he blew it. 

he handled the whole thing in the worst possible way. by not handling it. by running.

he blew our marriage. he blew our lives. 

he blew the character test. big time.

he was a little, little boy. not a man.

he blew it.


but.


he blew it for the "right" reasons - he didn't want to hurt me (although, of course, he did). he didn't want to hurt abby and eli. he didn't want to hurt those precious children.

and......


he didn't want to make me choose.


he didn't want to make me choose between him and them. and so, he chose for me.



and that's what he told me when he called me and finally told me.


and i believe him. as you are reading this, you might not believe him. you might think there's more to this story than he's telling me but i know him. 

and he's telling the truth.

and the truth is, he's an awful, awful, selfish, selfish man. who, ironically, actually did us all a great big favor.


and so, he and i sat on the phone and we both cried. because what else was there to do? 


it's a tragic, tragic tale. and i hate him.


and i love him.

throw back thursday? ten-o-six!

i love bonne bell cosmetics. did you know that you can still get their entire line by mail order (not online)? how freaking cool is that. love!

the first bonne bell cosmetic i ever used was their ten-o-six lotion. well.......they called it lotion, but it was actually astringent. it was thee acne buster par exellence among the junior high and high school crowd. even if you weren't lucky enough to go steady, you could at least control your zits like the popular kids did.

the next thing i tried - and they still sell these in the stores - was their lip smackers. lip smackers came and still do in every flavor freaking imaginable. it's a great world when your lip gloss tastes like dr. pepper.

they also made (still do - mail order!) this stuff called "white white." i bought my first tube just because i liked the name. i mean, how late did somebody have to stay up thinkin' of "white white?" about 5 minutes, that's how long. i loved how the un-originality of the name made it so original.

white white was (is!) whatever you wanted it to be. you could use it as concealer (gotta be careful, though; don't wanna look like a raccoon)or as eye highlighter or cheek highlighter or hell, if you were nancy bridgman (one of the popular kids where i went to school), you could even get away wearing it as lipstick. anybody else woulda looked dead - and maybe nancy did - but everyone thought she was the bomb. (or, as we used to call it back in the day........"tuff.")

bonne bell also makes this wonderful gel cheek color. it comes in pink, red, peach, and tawny. i use red, which sounds garish but really it's not. it's so clear and transparent and glowy. i have used no other cheek blush since 1967. i still use it to this day. every day.

true story.

there is absolutely nothing else in the whole wide world that i have done every day since 1967. well, besides breathe.

bonne bell makes a killer breath mint, by the way.(just ask nancy bridgman. she got kissed. a lot.)

you CAN still ask a question on jeopardy!, can't you?

i miss the days when you could ask a question or say, "i don't know" to somebody else's and someone didn't immediately send you a link answering it. 

i miss the speculation surrounding a question: "well, it could be because of...." or "maybe (this) or maybe (that)," and my favorite - "huh. i don't know."


nobody doesn't know anymore. used to be, someone would say, "is it really true that a bunch of catholic priests tried to figure out once how many angels you can fit on top of a pin," and somebody else would say, "whaaaaat????" and a third person would say, "yeah......that sorta sounds familiar. i think it was the pope, though. i think some pope somewhere along the line tried to figure that out," and the next guy says, "it was the cardinals. the college of cardinals or whatever they call it..........why do they call themselves cardinals, anyway?"

you used to be able to have a conversation like that and nobody had the final answer. y'all just shrugged, said, "oh, well," and went out and had a burger and fries.


nowadays, though, nothing's left to the imagination. nothing's left to discuss. ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, here's your digital answer. 

i hate that.


wonder how a burger and fries came to be such a popular combination in the u.s.?


wonder how many of 'em you could fit on a pin?

we've got some 'splainin' to do.

increasingly, people don't want their food fake. 

they want it natural. not genetically modified. not processed. organic. whole.

their reasoning is that what goes in the body in a natural state will help to keep what else is in the body (organs, tissues, vascular system, etc.) in a natural (non-diseased) state.


but then, we put metal plates in our head.

we put plastic joints in our hips.

we put balloons in our heart.


and then, we eat at health-food places.

brown rice.

free-range chicken.

whole wheat artisan bread.


but then, a mother does thee most unnatural thing of all - she aborts her very own child.


and then, she uses chemical herbal essence in her shampoo the morning she does it.

about 11 hours into lent and already i'm challenged

a man at the store, upon seeing the ashes on my forehead today, gawked and said, "what the hell happened to you???" 

another man at the gas station said, "lady, you got somethin' funny on your face."

a co-worker said, "what's that????"

i explained to each one that i am catholic, today is ash wednesday, and that it's customary on ash wednesday for us to receive ashes on our forehead. i said that it's a religious practice that i - and many others - observe.

did they apologize?

no.

did they appear to feel badly that perhaps they had been insensitive?

no.

did they do anything?

yes.

they snickered.

all three snickered.

now......

let's just say that one of these people - or all of them - had, oh, i don't know - maybe a rainbow painted on their forehead......or maybe the equality sign......or......maybe a muslim symbol (which, no. i would not recognize a muslim symbol if it slapped me in the, um, forehead. and don't call me a bigot. unless you're gonna call the folks i'm talkin' about who didn't recognize a Christian symbol bigots.).

and let's just say i would have said, 

"what the hell happened to you?"

good thing this is the first day of lent and my resolve to be a good Christian is still strong, strong, strong. 

heaven, not harvard

not that there's anything wrong with going to harvard - going to harvard is a great thing - (although this week's news about student sandra korn who wants the school to fire any professor who doesn't toe the radical left line - is there a professor like that? - makes going to harvard sound like it's not for the smart people everybody thinks it is)......not that there's anything wrong with going to harvard, but i think your #1 goal should be to go to heaven. 

if you don't believe in God, you won't give a rip about going or not going to heaven. (supposedly. i don't really believe anyone who tells me that they are so 100% certain that there's no God that they never - ever - have that tiny little voice naggin' at 'em, tellin' em that maybe they're wrong. i don't believe it.)

but......supposedly........if you don't believe in God, you won't give a rip about going or not going to heaven. getting into harvard, however - either yourself or your son or your daughter or your grandchild or your best friend or your somebody - probably holds a decent amount of appeal. (or princeton. yale. wellesley. whatever.)



"if you believe in forever, then life is just a one-night stand, if there's a rock and roll heaven, well, you know they've got a hell of a band."



you "smart folks" are gonna miss out on the best (everlasting) concert of your (not-so-everlasting) lives. 

why it's better when olives still have the pit in

olives without the pits in 'em make me happy. but.......they shouldn't.


olives with the pits still in 'em force us - or should force us (i don't know about some of you gluttons) - to slow down. olives with the pits in 'em mean you can take more time to taste the olive! who knew?!

that's why God put thorns on rose bushes - to slow your sorry ass down.

it's also why God made winter. it takes time to count the snowflakes. hell, it takes time just to walk in the winter!



it might sound strange, but i am going to spend this winter storm warning day eating olives.

i need to spend my whole life eating them.


so do you.

now that black history month is over, let me say this:

one of slang's main purposes is to unite. and it accomplishes that quite well. sadly, it also unties. there are few things that make one more of an outsider than not speaking the same language as everybody else. 

one of the rudest and most unkind things a person can do is to speak in a foreign language in the presence of people who don't understand it. they may think they're just jabbering between or among themselves and it's no big deal but it is a big deal. it's saying, we're in and you're out. (i always admired my ex-husband, a swede, for never doing this. i loved him for it, actually.)



i have always thought that what divides blacks and whites in this country as much as skin color - sometimes even more -  is how we each talk. i remember taking a cultural sensitivity quiz in high school once. we were given a list of, i don't know, maybe 25 slang words and phrases that blacks typically used in that day. we were supposed to translate their meaning. hardly any of the white kids got any of 'em right. it was like trying to read mandarin. 

the whole point of the exercise was to make the white kids more sensitive to the black kids. that's not what it did. what it did was make the white kids feel like outsiders. and when one of the white kids raised his hand and said, this little test of yours makes me feel like an outsider, most of the black students cheered. they cheered one of those "now you have some glimpse into what it feels like" cheers. which is to say, not a cheer at all. because cheers are meant to inspire, uplift, and unite. this one tore us further apart.

i can still hear those cheers ringing in my ears. it was cruel. it wasn't as cruel as beating a slave, but it did nothing to advance our getting along. the whole damned thing backfired. i can pinpoint to that day when race relations got worse at my school. 

there isn't anything i can do about the color of my skin and there's nothing you can do about the color of yours. but there's plenty we can do about how we talk to each other.


provided, of course, we really want to.