Category Archives: Opinion

Behavior, Biographical, Mental Health, Opinion, Personal, Psychology, Relationships, Social Rules

A Mixed Message (A Wild Variety Of Me)

12/21/2021 X Teri 4 Comments

“Life is like looking for your phone. Most of the time, it’s in your hand.”

Today’s brooch was made from a very old badge my manager discovered last week. I wrote “252” on it. That’s how much I weighed in the picture. I’m 105 lbs. lighter now. The part that continues to remind me is the new people who come into my life. They didn’t know me as fat. A couple of them had to be convinced. That’s a strange, wonderful thought. None of them have inaccurate misconceptions of me, either, so they look at me as if I’m just X. That’s wonderful, too. It reminds me of decades ago when I changed my name; it allowed me to easily identify those who loved me for who I was without regard to my name. Not a day passes that my name doesn’t bring a question, a laugh, or a story. Having a ridiculous name saves me the trouble of needing to tell people I’m probably eccentric. (Whether I look like a professional bowler or curler is up to you to decide.)
*
^

“I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low
Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know”
“You Say,” Lauren Daigle

All of you who can feel God’s love are fortunate. I mean that without snark. All love is housed in one’s heart. Believing that you’re loved in any form is something to strive for.

*
^

Because of my blog, people find me and read the ridiculously long and circuitous path of my life I’ve left there. It’s told higgledy-piggledy, with huge omissions and P.S.-sidepaths; it’s just the way I like it. It is both consoling and astonishing when someone discovers it and finds something worthwhile in it or me. When you commit things to writing and especially publicly, there is no return to privacy or withdrawal. It’s both faith and lunacy. As direct as I’ve been, there are hundreds of stories that I haven’t shared, mostly because of the overlap in other people’s lives. A lot of my joy and anguish are difficult to share for that reason. It’s not that I don’t want to. I’d prefer to spill it out. I can’t imagine that I’ve experienced much that a lot of other people haven’t – that’s the joy of peeking behind curtains in life.
*
^

“State your truth” is such a vulnerable thing to do. Or say. I’ve become so open about it that I’ve forgotten that people need camouflage. We are all so similar in our vexations and pleasures. Knowing this at 54 is almost a superpower. But I do revel when I am able to witness someone letting the wall down and just sharing, even if it astonishes them as they do so. Sunlight and revelation bring peace. So many people are carrying secrets or thoughts of a different way to live. They don’t see the options until they see no way to continue.

“Buried emotions are always buried alive,” someone smart told me once.
*
^

“Some people are empaths. I’m a telepath; people want me as far from them as possible.” – X
*
^

“Hey X, do you smoke marijuana?”

“No, I prefer the natural flavor.”

That one took him a minute to understand.
*
^

I think I’ll forego a regular walk or run today and see if I can run 100 floors of stairs. That seems fair, doesn’t it? My heartbeat objects. Maybe it knows the inventory of my allotted steps in life? Either way, my heart owes me a debt for liberating it from the sheath of excess that I put on it for two decades. And I owe it an apology. I’m lucky I didn’t give up, even as I constantly failed. Until I didn’t. It’s not the path that matters so much; it’s where you end up.
*
^
To a specific friend, if you read this post, a phlebotomist I met at my doctor’s appointment LOVED your catchphrase: “Nothing tastes as good as this feels.” His eyes went wide and then he laughed. “Exactly!” he said. “I’m going to steal that without question. It’s perfect.” He’s a bodyweight fitness nut and looks like a flattened barrel in his upper torso. He wanted to know my story and secrets – and I shared both your phrase and The Blue Dress Project’s catchphrase, “Choose Your Hard.” He couldn’t believe my transformation and I told him that between the bell going off in my head and seeing people like you do it with a lot more obstacles than me, that I knew I was supposed to succeed. He understood, having done it himself. Don’t be surprised if it ends up on social media.
*
^
The man who taught me one-on-one how to end an altercation quickly (and violently, if necessary) recommended a browser-based productivity timer. It works crazily well. I can set it for 5-minute increments. When the alarm of my choosing sounds, it’s time to do another interval of weights and/or stairs. Because I do most of my writing sitting at the computer, it’s a great way to create thoughtless and repetitive chunks of exercise. Because of the law of increments, I can artificially get a lot of movement each hour instead of relying on my motivation. The cat hates it though, especially if he’s perched on my lap as I type.
*
^
The Lexapro is working very well. So is therapy. And time passing. As the curtains of other people’s lives continue to open to me, I realize that my problems are real – but inconsequential compared to the complexities that other people are living. It’s great that some parts of my life are a motivation to people. It’s also okay that some parts should serve as a warning. None of us are pristine or untouched by trauma, loss, indecision, doubt, or wanting.
*
^
My “Ask” project is working well for me. It’s failed consistently, but that failure is changing me. I can feel it and observe it as it works its way into my nature. Some of the ongoing “No” has hurt me in a way that surprised and upset me. But I’ve kept asking, feeling the wave of “No” click a meter in my head. I don’t know where the true fulcrum of some of it lies; I’ll trust my instincts when it does. Once the meter has run to zero, we have to accept the truth of whatever we’ve been asking.

Ask
Ask for what you want or desire.
If you don’t, it is a certainty you’ll never get it.
Ask of life and ask of people.
The answer, though bitter or not what you sought…
It’s at least the truth.
Everything starts from there
Ask
*
^
I walk past the place where the deceased are kept until they are retrieved for their funerals and remembrance. I walk past a lot. I’m surrounded during the day. By love, concern, fear, hundreds of individual stories unfold. How odd it is that such finality and drama barely pierces people’s consciousness. I know we have to protect ourselves or otherwise be flooded. Sometimes, though, we need to remember the hourglass sifting sand invisibly behind us. It’s a valuable motivator to know that your day is not a promise. It’s a gift, one which many of us waste on triviality.
*
^
Somewhere In Time

I had another life, a Lowenstein of my own.
She walks the planet, fulfilled, and not alone.
The lesson is that everyone has a tightly drawn curtain.
When they fling it open, there is beauty and assertion.
To see someone from within their own head is a joy.
It’s agony when the curtain closes again, a closure that can destroy.
Every nuance and experience in life will change us,
if not derange us.
There is no return to the before.
There is only the after and absence,
paired with infinite reenactments.
Time does not cure us; it erodes us.
To know that somewhere in time,
that your life did not branch away from you,
is a breathtaking comfort and inner chime.

Out there, somewhere in time.
*
^

I know this is an unusual post.

And that’s okay.

Love, X

Behavior, Diet, Exercise, Health, Opinion, Personal, Psychology, Relationships

Me By Default

12/19/2021 X Teri 3 Comments

One of my favorite things was my Die Hard ventilation shaft Xmas ornament, one I made. It even had a hole in the back of the fake ‘shaft’ to illuminate John McClane’s outstretched lighter as he crawled through. Because one of my neighbors is a Die Hard fan, I walked over and gave it to him. His face lit up. Even more in the Christmas spirit, as much as he was surprised and happy, he said, “Oh man, my mom LOVES Bruce Willis.” Without hesitation, I said, “Give it to her then and pay it forward. We can’t stand between Bruce Willis and your mom’s infatuation.” My neighbor’s son celebrated his first birthday yesterday. I’d already given him the decorated and painted ornamental box I made, for when his son is old enough to put his special things inside. I love imagining some future day when someone sees something I made and thinks about the randomness of strangers. And I think all the time about much I misjudged those neighbors when I was first around them. I like to be surprised and reminded that appearances can be so deceiving.

In my personal life, I am struggling so hard with another variant of “Choose your hard.” I’m stuck at the nexus of a decision that it is intolerably emotional. My therapist told me once to imagine that if I had died instead of surviving my emergency surgery. And from that vantage point, how hard would such a decision seem from there? She’s right. Have you heard this saying: “If you’re okay with something you shouldn’t be okay with, you’re not okay.” Experience tells me that it’s true but wisdom tells me that I’m weak. Such self-knowledge is not something that warms me.

Yesterday, I gave everything I had to try to run a mile in under six minutes. I didn’t quite make it; I missed by six seconds. Though I failed and for the last half of the mile I was sure I was going to make it, I look at six seconds and know it’s a stupidly small amount. P.S. My heart was trip hammering so hard I could s-e-e it beating through my shirt like a drum.

One of the advantages of living upstairs is well… the stairs. Between sets of exercises, I can go out and do ten floors at a time. It doesn’t take any time at all to accumulate a LOT of floors and stairs. I like to watch the law of increments add up. My goal is to do at least 50 flights of stairs by 9 a.m.

One of my favorite people recently compared me to another person and described us both as obsessive-compulsive about goals. She’s not wrong at all. This Fitbit accentuates it because I can see it in real-time.

Do y’all know what “you by default” means? It’s used by some interviewers now and it helps you figure out where not only you are in your journey, but also to measure other people in your life.

You By Default

A lot of people haven’t heard this line of thinking regarding behavior, usually involving exercise and sometimes healthier eating. It was powerful the first time it was explained to me by someone who walks the walk.

If exercise takes a lot of effort – or adds procrastination or stress to your routine – it’s not you by default. It’s something you’re doing rather than what you simply do. If you miss a day or several, it isn’t important in the scheme of things. You’ll go back naturally to it and without stressing that you might not ever return. All of us have weird and surprising enthusiasm and commitment cycles in every aspect of our life. Exercise. Diet. Love. Irritability. Dark chocolate.

If you need willpower and constant self-talk to avoid eating chips at 10 p.m. or fast food twice a day, it’s not you by default.

“You by default” becomes your natural process, one that doesn’t require a lot of cognition or secondary support to maintain. You’re active because you are an active person. You eat healthier because you are a healthier eater. You behave kindly, well, because you ARE kind. You’ve internalized natural or learned behaviors. It is possible.

You show love and lovingkindness because it’s “you by default.”

Find a way to become whatever goal or attribute you want in your life. It’s now a part of you, never to be stripped away or requiring intangible willpower. It is a type of discipline turned to automatic.

Whatever it is that you want to do or become, practice. Even if you don’t know the vocabulary to describe it. If you can overcome the natural reluctance slope that allows new behavior to become permanent, you will find that you can do this in other areas of your life, too. You will have shifted your default.

It’s also interesting from an interpersonal point of view. If people haven’t shifted their internal values, their behavior isn’t their default. They’ll revert almost every time and abandon their attempts to change. It’s not impossible, but it is a rarity.

Love, X

Behavior, Mental Health, Opinion, Psychology

You’ll Get There!

12/18/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

Odd that we expect life to be linear, one foot in front of the other, with a clear view of how to live our lives. Everything is circuitous, convoluted, and seen imperfectly.

With goals, we forget that one day or three doesn’t derail us or our commitment.

Science teaches us that we all fight a reluctance curve with results.

Wisdom teaches us to be patient with the ridiculous setbacks we’re all going to encounter.

You can drive around the roundabout 247 times if you need to.

It’s the final turn, the one that gets you where you need to be, that matters. Our path and past are still a part of our story, but it is where we end up that gives us our measure.

Love, X

Health, Lemon Moment, Mental Health, Opinion, Personal

Forever Radiant…

12/14/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

I know this can’t go on forever, this radiant burn and energy.

Can you see it in my eyes from the picture?

I’ve earned the wrinkles and the scars. I’ve earned the smile today, too.

I’m sitting here with the door wide open, enjoying a warm December afternoon. Güino, my tuxedo cat, prowls the landing outside, awaiting another squirrel’s visit. I watched a few divebomb the bird feeders outside today, collecting pecans, peanuts, and even suet from the songbird’s offering plate. It’s cloudy outside but such clouds have never brought melancholy; quite the opposite.

When I went outside this early morning and felt the air, I wanted nothing more than to put on my other shoes and take off walking across Northwest Arkansas. Work of course pulled me back to reality. I used the pace of work to draw me into a blurring zone of activity; hallways, concrete, and lots of stairs. Now that I have a Fitbit, I realize that I’m logging 50+ floors each day, which tickles me. I can walk 25,000 steps without giving it a second thought. As my friend Tammy taught me, “Nothing tastes as good as this feels,” the occasional realization that I don’t realize that I’m walking without another hundred pounds of me on my back. It feels like I’m gliding on air a lot of the time. I wish I had done this transformation twenty years ago.

I got to hug Kathy, a coworker of mine who has logged 30+ years there. She’s retiring Friday. I made her a personal canvas with a departing message, one conveying the bittersweet goodbye of her approaching and permanent absence. I didn’t start greeting her warmly or with a hug until a little over a year ago. Covid aside, that’s a shame. Personal connection helps all of us nullify that urge to be ‘professional,’ aloof, or behave in ways that violate our obligation to treat each other as people first and foremost.

Even after work as I wandered Walmart in search of people and stories, I felt like I was radiating an aura of energy. I helped three people while I was there. My biggest reward was saving someone a few hundred dollars on an alternate laptop. I gave the woman my email address and told her to write me if she has any issues with her Chromebook. I wished a few dozen people “Merry Christmas!” as I glided around the aisles. I saw the biggest afro hair I’ve ever seen there. I watched as someone cleverly misused the self-service kiosk to avoid paying for an item. (You get what you make us pay for Walmart.) Another man pulled at least twenty jugs of milk out of the cooler to inspect some unseen quality that only he could see. And I handed the Salvation Army bell ringer her choice of diet or regular soda. Thankfully, she chose regular, leaving me to down the entire bottle of Coke Zero in about two minutes.

If I felt this way every day, I’m not sure it might not be too much. It’s a wondrous feeling while it’s happening. I find myself mourning its eventual loss, though, as ridiculous and odd thing as that might be to say.

My sister wrote me, telling me that she’s still having difficulty, especially now that another round of inevitable physical symptoms creeps up on her. I can’t imagine struggling with addiction and past patterns. The ones I have are enough to keep me dancing; her shadows are longer and deeper than mine. Our pasts overlap and because of that, I understand the complexity.

Meanwhile, I’m going to step outside and take another short walk. I feel like I might be leaving visible energy trails in my footprints. I hope so.

And I hope that some of y’all are feeling exuberant, too, even if you can’t identify the cause. For many of you, it’s Christmas season, when exuberance is supposed to infuse your life like the first observed lightning bug of the summer.

While energy cannot truly be erased, our measure of it is limited by the burning fuse of our lives.

I can FEEL my fuse burning. I know I sound crazy sometimes. But if you can imagine looking up at the sky and sun and thinking to yourself that the same force that powers the universe powers us, it might be more relatable.

What goes up must come down. That’s okay. I’ve captured this day-long feeling of radiance and bottled a bit of it in my memory.

Nothing momentous happened today. And that’s precisely why it felt so precious.

Love, X
.

Opinion, Relationships, Romance, Social Rules

Sample Advice Column

12/04/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

(Note: recently, I was asked to write some sample advice columns. Here’s an off-the-cuff one for you to read…)

Question: “My girlfriend doesn’t reply to my texts for a long time but answers other people constantly. What should I do?”

Well, because it’s important, what kind of shoes do you wear? I hope you say Nike or Adidas because they’ll pay me the most for mentioning them. #payme

I hope running shoes is your answer. You need to buy a nice, comfortable pair. Put them on – and then run. Away.

I’m not going to ask you what you mean by “a long time.” I am assuming you’re not obsessive or crazy. I could be wrong. If you’re writing me for advice, you might need to reconsider your life choices.

Another assumption is that if you’re writing me for advice, that it’s a deal-breaker sort of problem if it isn’t addressed to your satisfaction.

Her failing to answer you (her person) isn’t a question of boundaries. It is of course her right to answer when and if she chooses. But if she chooses to ignore yours while texting other randos, she also is free to face the consequences of failing to appreciate that’s she in a relationship that requires open communication and time.

I am assuming you’ve already discussed expectations, reciprocity, and feelings about this? If you haven’t, you’re part of the problem. No matter how scary it is, you must be able to reveal what’s on your mind and in your heart – even if it might initially sound needy or negative. If you can’t risk doing so, you need to practice. You’ll never be happy with anyone if you can’t. Ms. No-Reply can find someone who will tolerate being treated as lesser.

There are a lot of fancy words for that kind of behavior. She’s clearly showing you she doesn’t prioritize you with her time. We all have a limited amount of time in our day. If she’s choosing to ignore the closest person in her life, there’s a reason. No matter how she explains it away, it’s just that she’s not that into you. This is especially true if she’s being funny, witty, or exchanging multiple long messages with other people. She’s investing her time and energy elsewhere. You should do the same.

Being honest with her again about your feelings isn’t going to help. She’s going to be defensive and gaslight you about your totally understandable reaction. And probably make a snarky TikTok to poke fun at you. If she does, laugh if you can. Someone else will appreciate your earnest desire to share your life and thoughts with them.

Adults answer their lovers with at least the same frequency and enthusiasm as they do others. The Enthusiasm Rule dictates that they should.

The no-texting is a clear starting gun.

You’ve already got your running shoes on. Use them.*

*And if you don’t have running shoes, remember: Nike or Adidas, please.#paymetwice .

0 Comments

Diet, Exercise, Health, Mental Health, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules, Weight Loss

Personal Post, December Edition

12/03/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

The screenshot is of this week’s sleep for me. Months ago, part of my therapy was to learn to sleep again. My benchmark is 6 hours, which probably seems low to most of you. It’s not. I CAN sleep more, but my natural rhythm at this weight is six hours. At some point, I’m going to take a week and see if I can sleep for eight hours and see if it lowers my motivation again. It did before. I’m not sure I actually fell asleep as early as I did on some of those nights; the Fitbit interprets low heart rate and breaths as light sleep, even if I’m awake and listening to music or a podcast, or wrestling with my cat Güino.

In February, I wrote a post titled “Shirtless in February.” I never felt too weird about people seeing my body. We all know what people look like, more or less, whether they’re layered in two shirts, a tunic, and a bathrobe. It’s anatomy, not magic. (Although there is magic and chemistry in the process of seeing someone, that’s for another post.) 🙂 We fool ourselves by thinking we’re being clever. In my case, I wish someone had been creative enough to tell me to stop eating and lose weight twenty years ago, and in such a way that I would have HEARD the concern. We don’t have a way to lovingly talk to someone about this sort of thing without setting off a firestorm of defense or anger. That’s a problem.

As a side note, the world would also be much better off if you accept the compliment if someone thinks you are pretty, beautiful, handsome, or attractive. There is no universal standard for such things. Can we stop insisting there is? One of the most beautiful things is a quick smile and a sense of humor, even if the teeth behind it are crooked. I’m being serious. There’s no single formula for beauty or even attraction.

Yesterday, I had tons of energy. I ate an abnormally large lunch and then had a therapy session. We laughed a lot, which is always a good sign. As I often say, she can laugh easily because she’s billing me. I already knew I was feeling better due to the volume of pranks and creative things I’d been doing. After, around 4, I felt anxious. Having a Fitbit pays off in these circumstances. Because I have the premium option, I could see the metrics in real-time and progress. Seeing the physiological effects helps me deal with it.

Today, I woke up feeling like I was walking on air, which is becoming very common -and when I don’t feel that energy, I wonder what causes it. I realized that I expect that I will always wake up ready to ring the bell and step into the day. I wanted to go running all morning. Unfortunately, work intervened. Work “let” me walk 15-20K steps, though. It wasn’t until after work that I realized that not running yesterday affected my level of anxiety in the afternoon. It should have been evident to me. I’ve only missed a couple of days of running in the last couple of weeks. If I find myself incapable of constant running, I switch to running in intervals and burn through the miles or minutes that way. Anything incremental is better than not doing anything. I’m not sure I will continue running. I’d do it if someone agreed to chase me each day. Add a little danger and/or mystery to the equation.

I hit the streets this afternoon. I enjoyed the incredible 75-degree afternoon. Weirdly, I could sense this might be the last such incredibly temperate afternoon to enjoy – maybe for weeks. The Upper 70s in December? Yes, please! And so, I ran. After a few minutes, I took my shirt off. The slight breeze gave me wings. Even though I didn’t want to, I stopped. I felt like I could run ten miles, which would be a discomfort payment I wouldn’t want to make tomorrow. I did run up and down the apartment stairs a few dozen times when I got back, though.

An actual test of whether someone cares what they look like is if they can run without a shirt on. Forget swimming without one; the litmus test is running, where there’s no water to hide your body. For 54, I look normal. My scar left what looks like a second belly-button indentation a few inches above my real one. The surgery left a “pooch” between the two indentations. When I think back to how I looked and felt before, it is still hard to believe I fooled myself for so long. I’m not a fan of people being ashamed of their bodies, no matter what shape they are in. I understand it, but when you compare the vast variety of body types and shapes, everyone has something they hate about themselves. Except for me. I accept it all because it’s me. I did the work needed to remove the excuses I kept whispering in my head. Looking normal is something I hadn’t anticipated.

Don’t worry; I’m still not going to ACT normal, so you can cross that expectation off of your list.

I’m going to put a picture below. Not so that people could say something nice – or mean. Anyone who wants to snark is welcome to as long as it’s creative. I love creative snark, and I need to practice not caring that other people think I look like Danny DeVito grown up and thinner. I’m not sucking my gut in. I don’t have one. I have a weird pooch that can’t be fixed without surgery, which will not happen. I already lost a knife fight with a surgeon. He got the last laugh with the catheter.

People keep telling me to stop losing weight. I haven’t lost any weight since before my surgery. I’m just working to change my body mass. I ate a donut and seven Ghiradelli chocolate squares this morning.

I’m still experimenting with the ‘how’ of it. There are days when I’m glad I’ve done it all for no other reason than to know I did it. The future could hit me with any number of calamities or illnesses. It’s a question of when not if.

I’ve encouraged anyone interested in doing something to change themselves. No matter what else I’ve done, I can’t imagine how I would feel if I still weighed 230, 240, or 250+ lbs. The voice in my head answers: “Dead.” You don’t have to go to the gym, buy supplements, or do a lot of cardio to lose weight. You don’t even have to invest a lot of time. All it takes is a change of mind about how you want to look and feel. Small changes, constantly reinforced. Because I’ve learned to say so, I’ll include the caveat that there are exceptions. But I’m not writing about the exceptions. As the year winds down, the barrage of New Year’s Resolutions and commitments ramp up. And I reply, “Why wait? You can do one thing today to start. And you can do it right here and right now.”

If you’re happy with your body, stop struggling to worry about your weight. And don’t worry about how people perceive you. You can’t change that.

Take it from taller Danny DeVito.

Love, X
.

Art, Artist, DIY, Humor, Jewelry, Opinion, Personal, Psychology, Social Rules, Uncategorized

Once More Unto The Brooch

11/29/2021 X Teri 4 Comments

“You’re only given a little spark of madness, you mustn’t lose it.” — Robin WIlliams

As for my smaller lighter brooch I made and wore today, it was wildly successful. Sure, I had a couple of eyerolls and a bit of derision. 98% was effusively humorous. One person asked me to make one for her husband, who struggles to avoid losing lighters. I imagined him on the construction site with a lighter-brooch on his shirt, while his coworkers chortled at him. The woman at the gas station thought it was both practical and creative. The booth clerk at the flea market said, “Art is in the eye of the beholder. That’s fairly creative, X.”

Though I make these things to be creative and for self-amusement, I also accidentally discover human behavior lessons by doing so.

You’ll hear me say with regularity, “Anything can be made into a brooch if you’re audacious enough.” The fact that I have one made out of a pregnancy test should be proof enough of that.

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” -Oscar Wilde

Rare is the person who directly expresses displeasure. Not so much about the specific idea or implementation; rather, the IDEA of such a thing. Those people are to be avoided. It belies a lack of enthusiasm for creativity and the autonomy of others to be ridiculous. People who can’t engage in random acts of ridiculousness aren’t part of my tribe, to put it mildly.

People who directly say, “It’s not that clever or not appealing” either do so because they are honest, which is truly a great thing, or they can’t help but to express negativity, which is its opposite. I’m carefree about people’s reactions but I do notice when someone isn’t engaging in a spirit of enthusiasm or encouragement. Life is bland enough without encouraging more of the same.

To everyone who thought it was clever, thank you. To those who didn’t, I can’t hit all home runs. But out of the hundreds of people I ran across today, my cigarette lighter brooch was the most singular thing I saw anyone wearing today. And that’s a home run each and every time – in part because it gives people the opportunity to be amused, annoyed, or to interact. I can’t be certain that NO ONE has ever made a working cigarette lighter brooch. But I am certain that the idea came to me from the mist of my own mind – and that no one I know has ever seen one. Until today. That makes me happy.

The best line I came up with today was a play on words: “Can I send you a Bic pic?”

“Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” – Albert Einstein

Love, X
.

PS The next picture is added for varityletter…

Christmas, Holiday, Opinion, Personal

Xmas Love

11/28/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

This is Santa on Dec. 26th.

Unfortunately, it represents a lot of other people, too.

Xmas doesn’t have to wind us up, tear us down, or obligate people to cook, clean, or let the holiday grind them into fatigue.

There’s another way: it is simply a matter of choice and the realization that it doesn’t have to “be” a certain way at all.

For a holiday that’s predicated on the essential spiritual meaning for so many people, I hate watching people get trapped into obligations that sap them. It’s supposed to be full of love, giving, and celebration.

Not exertion. Nor expenditure.

If you find yourself overextended, tell your friends and loved ones. Ask for help. Choose something different. Just be happy with whatever you choose.

If you can’t afford to give a gift, give your time and love instead. Encouragement. A phone call, a card with a shared memory, or a hug for no reason. Good people never fault someone for being unable to spend on them. Our value lies elsewhere. Time and presence are the gifts that enhance us and neither are replaceable.

Xmas can be whatever you want it to be. You can celebrate however you want and in a way that lets everyone relax and enjoy the season.

God’s love is an embrace for so many people.

And for others, it is the presence of people, family, and friends that light them up. For those lucky enough, the season is wrapped with God’s love and closeness with those who energize them as they are.

I hope you find your internal Xmas light this year.

All of you.

If you do, let it shine.

Love, X
.

Exercise, Fashion, Mental Health, Opinion, Personal, Relationships, Social Rules

I Asked

11/27/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

I moved my bedroom from the living room into a bedroom this morning. If that sounds byzantine, it was. I’ve lived in my living room for almost four months. I also exercised and then went running. Whether it was toward something or away, I’m not certain. But I ran. And it felt glorious. It was the fifth time this week and the first in a long time where I felt like I might become airborne as I did so. I bought a set of athletic pants that fit me properly. They are 28-30 small adult/child size. Someone nicknamed me “Babypants.” I don’t take offense. I earned the size. And if you see me running and think I’m doing it strangely, that’s more than okay, too. Doing the work and looking stupid is okay by me. I’m going to look (and sound) stupid quite often. I look forward to it. It puzzles me that people are afraid of looking stupid, saying the wrong thing, or believing that other people have the magic formula for style, method, or appearance. We owe it to ourselves to be as strange as we naturally are.

When I got back from running, the husband of a caretaker for one of the tenants here spent his time waiting by blowing the leaves off the walkway. He watched as I ran up and down the staircase a few dozen times. “Getting your cardio in again? I saw you run up from the road.” I laughed. “Well, I have 30 years worth to catch up on.”

Earlier this week, I did a reset and asked the universe for a couple of favors. Not because I’m deserving of them – but because I’m not. It’s the first time I’ve dared to do so in a long time. The biggest ask is that I avoid calamity or demise for at least another year. A year is long enough to transform anything.

In the same way, I’ve diligently said, “I don’t know” with much greater frequency this year, I’ve also started asking. It’s a tangent to my propensity to state my truth without trying to wrangle someone into a specific reaction. It’s been a wild ride! Those who respond with incredulity that I ask are forgetting the fundamental truth: it’s never wrong to ask; it’s only wrong to respond irrationally on either side of the asking. It’s the cousin to honesty, a thing everyone claims to desire yet few embrace without grimace or discontent.

As I write this, someone texted me in response to another ask. Life can be so precious and quixotic at times, can’t it?

Love, X
.