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Posts Tagged ‘baggage’

  1. I’m the Captain of this Ship Now

    May 12, 2014 by Diane

    Sailboat

    You start off with a nice little sailboat.

    You’re bobbing along, enjoying the cool breeze, watching the white gulls dive for fish. You’re kicking back and gazing up at a brilliant blue sky that seems endless.

    Then life dumps a crate on board, and another, and another, and each crate seems heavier than the one before. Eventually you need a barge to haul them all. Before you know it, black clouds have thundered in, obliterating that infinite blue. You’re riding a roller coaster of gray-green water and you’re barely hanging on–unable to even navigate. You’re headed to the middle of nowhere on a freight that’s loaded down, sinking.

    I have a friend who is stuck on just such a freighter.

    I hesitated to write on this topic. There’s nothing amusing about breast cancer and skin cancer and having no health insurance. There’s nothing laughable about a lack of income, or pets that become chronically ill, or unrelenting anxiety, or landlords that boot you out when they sell their property. There’s nothing cheery about roommates that die, leaving you to find their body.

    Life is weighing down my friend with one crate after another, and it felt too raw to write about.

    Then I took a walk in the neighborhood. I noticed a crumpled dollar bill on the sidewalk and thought,  it’s my lucky day! As I bent to pick it up, I had this flash:

    The only way lighten the load is to fill those crates with all the good things in life.

    It might take ten, twenty, a hundred good things to balance out one of the bad, but stockpile them anyway. It might take a freight-load of willpower and gumption and stamina to find something to uplift you, but look for it anyway. The Law of Attraction might be nothing more than a fantasy, but fantasize anyway. Seek out each moment that makes you feel happy anyway. Go out of your way to gravitate to the good, because the other stuff is easy to stumble over. And little by little you’ll turn that barge around. You’ll rise up, lighter in spirit, and raise a fist Scarlett-style, and vow: “As God is my witness, I refuse to be licked. I’m the captain of this ship now. And I’m turning this monster around.”

    We can’t change what life hands us, but we can choose to view ourselves as lucky instead of cursed. We can’t stop the rain (and we need it to grow, anyway), but we can hold onto the knowledge that above the dark clouds the sky is always an everlasting blue.


  2. Top Ten Dating Tips (Since You Asked)

    April 7, 2014 by Diane

    Romantic date

    I went on a non-date with a guy. It seemed like a date: an outing at the coast, dinner, he drove, he paid. But there we were, sitting at an outdoor café after a lovely stroll, when my “date” leaned forward and asked me for dating advice.

    I sipped my tea thoughtfully, mentally banging my head on the table, and then offered up one of the gems on this list. (Guess.)

    Tip number 1: Don’t ask your date for dating advice.

    Tip number 2: A getaway to the shore, with dinner, is likely to be construed as a date. If you also pay for everything, most women will agree…it’s a date.

    Tip number 3: If you ask for a woman’s pedigree on the first outing and then slot her into the category of “having too much baggage,” take a breath. Everyone over the age of fifteen has baggage. Instead, be mindful of how the baggage is handled. Is she still dragging it around? Has she turned it in for a newer model? Or has she dealt with everything in the bags, moved up the evolutionary ladder, and now travels lighter?

    Tip number 4: If you’re only seeking women who have advanced educational degrees, you might miss out on women who have advanced wisdom. All the college in the world won’t teach wisdom. That comes from life experiences, awareness, and inner work.

    Tip number 5: If you’re only seeking women who are “hotties,” look deeper. If the inner package doesn’t match the outer, those hot looks might start looking a whole lot chillier in a month.

    Tip number 6: Be yourself. If you can’t be authentic from the beginning, someone will be in for a rude awakening later.

    Tip number 7: Ditch the list…the one with unrealistic expectations in a mate. Instead, write down the ways you want to feel in a relationship. Does she make you feel respected? Do you feel intellectually stimulated? Do you feel attractive, sexy, turned on? Do you laugh when you’re together? Do you feel like she “gets” you?

    Tip number 8: Don’t check your cellphone multiple times when you’re on a date. It sends a clear message that you’re bored, and you’re checking the time to see how much longer this particular boredom is going to last. Or worse…you’re checking for text messages. From another woman. Turn it off. Be with the person you’re with.

    Tip number 9: If she asks you on a date, either accept it or turn it down. Don’t wait to see if a better deal comes along, shuffling women around like cards in a magician’s deck. You either want to see the person or not. End of story.

    Tip number 10: Men and women can be friends, regardless of what Billy Crystal said in When Harry Met Sally. Just make it clear up front. How? Go dutch. Later, after you’ve established the friendship, you’re more than welcome to pay for everything.

    That’s it. The top ten. Ladies, the advice applies to us, too.

    (And no, the tip I offered to my non-date wasn’t numero uno. It was number 7.)

    Want to add to the list? Here’s your chance.

     


  3. Insomnia: The Uninvited Guest, Part 1

    August 24, 2013 by Diane

    Family Travel with four Suitcases

    At three o’clock in the morning my mind clicks on and does its periscope thing, scanning the environment for danger. A truck rumbles off in the distance. My ears ring. The refrigerator makes refrigerator noises. I resist the urge to look at the clock. I know what it will tell me: it’s three o’clock in the morning and you’re scanning the environment for danger.

    I groan.

    I flop around under the covers.

    After twenty minutes of flopping I drag myself from bed because that’s what the experts say to do; those comatose logs of human flesh who never experience life at three o’clock in the morning. Get out of bed, they say, do something soothing. So I stretch. I pace. I shake my limbs and roll my spine and crank my neck around. And then I lunge for the bed, grabbing the quilt and hurling it to the floor, pummeling the mattress with my fists. “Why won’t you let me sleep!”

    Insomnia blinks at me from the extra pillow, chewing gum. “We have things to do,” it says. “We haven’t finished ruminating.”

    I palm my eyes. “We dealt with everything already! Before I went to sleep…remember?” I flip through the pages of the notebook stashed on the night stand. “I wrote it down.”

    “Did you come up with any solutions?”

    “Yes!  Meditate every morning.  Turn off all electronics by nine p.m. Read inspiring texts before bedtime. Don’t you remember any of this?”

    Insomnia pops a bubble. “You’re the one who woke up.”

    “Because you’re still here! Why won’t you leave me alone?”

    “I’m keeping you safe.”

    “You’re keeping me awake!”

    Okay, freeze frame. I know Insomnia is not an actual person. I know that; but it feels real. It feels like one of those uninvited guests who shows up at the front door saying, “Hello, we haven’t seen each other in ages and I thought a visit was in order, just a night,” and you sigh because you see the stack of suitcases on the porch; and the uninvited guest barges in and heads for the refrigerator while you’re trying to find a pleasant way to say “no.” And just as you suspected, just as you knew in the marrow of your bones, one night becomes two, and then three. You’re grinding your teeth, your heart is doing the rumba, and a week later you look out the window and see a U-Haul in the driveway, and the uninvited guest is unloading boxes.

    …to be continued