Monthly Archives: October 2016

Grateful

I’m “reading” (thanks to Audible, I’m actually listening during my 2 hour per day commute) a book that was recommended to me (The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah). It takes place during World War II in France. It is the story of a family during the War and how their lives changed. Even though I’m not yet done, it is really having an impact on me. It brings to light how truly easy my life has been.

Early in my life, we lived in “the projects.” But we had electricity, food, and family. We didn’t have to worry about standing in lines for what bits of food were rationed out or sharing our home with armed forces. Roasted pigeon? Seriously?

As I was growing up, I had a curfew, but the entire town did not have a curfew that they must abide by or suffer severe consequences–including death–for missing curfew!

My whole life, I could talk to anyone I wanted to or play with children of any religion or color. I did not have to wear something signifying that I was “different” than someone else, I did not get my name on a list of people of a certain religion, and I did not get rounded up onto buses of people on that list to be transported to camps away from friends and family. The idea that that kind of thing actually happened makes me really sad.

I recently was able to visit the Civil Rights Museum in Nashville at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. Walking through the museum, looking at the persecution that people of color were forced to put up with and thinking about the stories that my parents told me also makes me sad. It makes me sad that so much of this actually happened during my lifetime. I wasn’t really old enough to know what it was about, but I was alive. So, obviously, while it is “history,” it is not history that is hundreds of years old.

Both of these things make me grateful that those people made such tremendous sacrifices so I couldĀ live my charmed life. I think I’m a strong person, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to do some of the things they were forced to do. I am not sure they pictured themselves as strong, they were just doing what they had to do to make it day-to-day. The worst I have to do to make it day-to-day is my daily commute to a fabulous job of my own choosing which requires that I drive through Phoenix rush hour traffic–in my fairly new car, with air conditioning, gasoline I can buy on just about every street corner, listening to my book, a podcast, or music that no one is editing or censoring, with hundreds of others doing the same. I have, indeed, lived a very charmed life.

 

Beautiful

img_1477I love this t-shirt I recently picked up at Torrid with a Marilyn Monroe quote. I never considered myself beautiful. I have acne scars, stretch marks, eye bags, floppy skin, and some (actually a lot of) extra weight, in addition to scars from falling off bunk beds, falling off bikes, wrecking a motorcycle, getting my gall bladder taken out, and basically living life. One of the greatest things about getting older is that first, I don’t care so much about that stuff, and second, I know that I have earned every bit of it.

Just because I don’t look like the women in magazines and on TV doesn’t mean I’m not beautiful. I’m beautiful in my way. My husband thinks I’m beautiful, my children think I’m beautiful (I think they do anyway), and my grandchildren think I’m beautiful. I know that because they have all told me so. And still, when I look in the mirror the first thing I see are the scars and imperfections.

In high school, I had terrible acne. When I was 30, I finally used prescription medication to get a handle on the acne and have since not had so much of a problem. Now, however, I have the scars to prove that I didn’t die from acne, my boyfriend (now husband) loved me even though I had acne, and I was still able to make friends and be in the top 10% of my graduating class–even with acne.

I have stretch marks both from having my two children and from gaining and losing (and gaining and losing and gaining and losing and . . .) weight for the last 40 years. The having children part was worth those stretch marks and remind me that I carried them both for nine months and loved them from the minute I knew they were there.

The eye bags are hereditary, so when I see them, I see my mom. I also see that I don’t sleep as much as I should and that I get too involved in too many things. I also know that my involvement will never change–it is an important part of who I am. Sleep, on the other hand, could change, but my daily choices so far keep me kind of sleep deprived. I know that is something I need to work on and make better choices.

So I’m not perfect. Some days I’m not even presentable. But I know that I’m beautiful in my own way and any imperfections I have are earned and are really only imperfections to others. My goal is not to be perfect but to be me–scars and all.