30 Challenges: use words that encourage happiness

This year 2012, the year I hoped would be easier after last year's separation and bankruptcy, has proved to be even more difficult. My own shizzle I can dizzle with, you know? But the shizzle of someone else, especially someone I love... when I can't fix it I descend into a funk. As Mandy struggles with her own marriage and choosing her own path, the best I can do is walk by her side and cultivate my own strength.

In that spirit, I'm embracing the 30 Challenges over at Mark and Angel Hack Life: "...make small, positive changes every day over the course of at least a 30 day period." This post appeared on Christmas last year, but seeing as today marks the 1 year anniversary of the first night I spent in my own place, by myself!, it's as good a day as Christmas to start.

Use words that encourage happiness. – Typically, when I ask someone “How are you?” they reply, “I’m fine” or “I’m okay.” But one lazy Monday afternoon last month a new colleague of mine replied, “Oh, I am fabulous!” It made me smile, so I asked him what was making him feel so fabulous and he said, “I’m healthy, my family is healthy, and we live in a free country. So I don’t have any reason not to be happy.” The difference was simply his attitude and his choice of words. He wasn’t necessarily any better off than anyone else, but he seemed twenty times happier. Spend the next 30 days using words that encourage a smile.

Yesterday at Target I ran into a preschool mom from five years ago! I couldn't remember her name, but I remembered her daughter, Kelsey, who was in my second preschool class. We spent a good deal of time talking there by the registers beneath the fluorescents. She said I looked good. We talked about her daughters. We talked about the preschool, where I no longer teach. She asked after my husband, because she remembered he was on the school board and the playground committee. So I told her, "We're in the middle of a bankruptcy suit and when that clears we're filing for divorce."

Words that encourage happiness?

Sometimes I think I divulge too much in talking with acquaintances, or people I've just met. I'm a firm believer in presenting myself honestly. I'd be glossing over a big part of who I am right now if I didn't talk about the bankruptcy and the divorce. Those are big topics, though, and conversants don't know what direction to take that. Kelsey's mom was awesome. She said, "Well, bankruptcy and divorce look good on you!" I smiled and thanked her, following up with, "Financial difficulties were just a catalyst for divorce. It was brewing for years."

You can encourage happiness even while acknowledging difficulty. Happiness is an embraceable state even in the midst of opposition. Happiness isn't always words, but finding vocabulary to express happiness helps deepen appreciation of it. Happiness is an attitude, an awareness. Happiness is gratitude for the sweet pink cast of the sky at sunrise, the three little birds singing by your doorstep, the hitch of breath as you push yourself to finish the last mile of your run. It's a sip of hot coffee. It's a sing-along-song on the radio. It's a conversation with someone you haven't seen in years and don't even know all that well, a conversation in which you reveal the truth of your being and smile in the revealing.

surprise

airport security

HNY

Each year I resolve to write more. Is 2012 the year I make it stick?

more often than not

More often than not the beef you have with others is more about you than it's about them.

Today I sat in the foyer at Cecilia Whitby Studios, anticipating Jack's performance in the Parent Sharing Program. I'd attempted small talk with the woman seated behind me. My overtures were coldly rebuffed. As we waited for the latecomers, the woman behind me (let's call her WBM) chatted up her companion. It soon became evident to me why she turned me off.

"I took piano from second grade through tenth, and then again when I was in college. I took piano when I was working on my PhD., not because I needed to improve my skill but because I found it so relaxing. Cecilia really is a wonderful teacher. You know that black piano at Albert's house? That's mine. I keep a smaller piano at my house while the children are taking lessons. Ryan is singing Silent Night. He's singing another song? Oh, 'As If We Never Said Goodbye'? That boy's voice is taking him places. I'm hoping he has a growth spurt over the summer. He's 13. When I was 14 I grew 8 inches in one year. I was 4 foot 10 in 8th grade and 5 foot 6 by the end of 9th grade. I'm tall and his father is tall and we come from tall families. I just know he'll be tall. That year I grew 8 inches? It just hurt. I'd lay in my bed at night and cry because my bones hurt so much. Blah blah blah."

That woman prattled on and her companion hung on her every word, and I pretend barfed into my shirt. After Jack finished his two pieces I could hear WBM whispering to Companion but I couldn't hear what she said. Then, when Ryan came on and butchered Silent Night in a heavy handed Lady Gaga fashion, I couldn't help feeling smug. Then when he freight-trained through the Sunset Boulevard classic, missing every possible karaoke cue, I was positively gleeful. Little fruitcake fairy will find his lack of musical ability hinders him from landing anyplace his fine castrato voice might take him.

So what's the beef? WBM earned my disdain, but mostly because I covet what she possesses. PhD? Confident son? Ability to trumpet her own horn? Those are things I feel I SHOULD have, or I'd LIKE to have, but haven't accomplished. Therefore those in possession are somehow more worthy than I am, so I ridicule them to camouflage my own perceived inadequacies.

Am I perceptive? Insightful? Reflective? Retarded?

Maybe all of the above. But I still don't have a PhD.

disdain

it occurred to me, as I walked alone from my car to my apartment, that I harbor a certain amount of disdain for those "vulnerable" women, and I don't consider myself of their ilk. I consider myself an attractive, substantial woman. I consider myself safe from the advances of delinquent men. I carry myself with confidence, aware of my surroundings. The day I'm assaulted will be a true day of reckoning. I'll have to reconsider my self awareness, reassess my standing in the "vulnerable" department. I don't relish that at all.

a day of debility

Mom treated us to nail spa services in Scottsdale yesterday. Mom had a pedicure; Mandy had a mani/pedi; I opted for acrylics. "I want to try something different," I said. "Maybe they'll stop me from biting my nails."

They stopped me from doing just about everything. Including, but not limited to:

• unpacking
• putting away the clean laundry
• chatting on facebook
• picking my nose
• cleaning the sink
• bookkeeping
• petting the cats
• applying facial moisturizer
• thinking clearly
• wiping my ass

In a matter of 24 hours those acrylic nails reduced me to blithering befuddlement. I lost IQ points. Couldn't think straight. Ana went with me to a local salon, where Debbie (whom I'm not entirely convinced started life as a woman) spent a good hour alternately soaking my fingertips in acetone and scraping at the acrylics with an emery board before resorting to the dremel.

At one point during the procedure she chuckled.

I asked, "What's funny?"

She said, "Oh, that acrylic is so thick even the dremel is bogging down. Sounds like a chainsaw."

"Maybe that's what we need."

On the walk back to her house, Ana observed that the things men perceive to be beautiful make women vulnerable: long nails, long hair, high heels. Long nails prevent you from making a fist. Long hair is easy to grab and use against you. It's impossible to run in high heels.

At least I'm not vulnerable.