Author: Belinda O

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what the future holds

Years ago, fresh out of college and discouraged because I couldn’t find a job in my chosen field, I was debating accepting a lesser job, the kind of work I’d spent years pursuing my degree to get away from. I had been an “adult student,” someone who went back to school later than usual and took classes part-time instead of enjoying the luxury of being a full-time student (well, it seems like a luxury when your options are bit more challenging, as mine were).

Crossroad with signs of priority of passage
 

However, I needed to pay my bills, not to mention buy groceries. I was talking to a close friend about it and she said, “Take the job. We don’t know what the future holds.”

I’ve remembered those words ever since. I wish I could say that job ultimately led to a position with the best company ever, but it didn’t. Eventually, however, I did work somewhere I was able to fulfill my dream. More or less, because reality usually falls a little short.

Now the phrase has taken on a new meaning. I have multiple friends facing chronic, progressive or terminal illness, and they’re still young. Loved ones are frightened by the loss, emptiness and responsibility that lies ahead. Once again, I’ve come to realize, we don’t know what the future holds.

It is what it is, and will be nothing else than what it’s going to be. I fear what looms ahead for me, and I don’t even know yet what will happen. The challenge is something I’ll have to take on, though, because I will control what I can and accept what I can’t. It may take time to get there, but it is a road I’ve come to know well.

Photo Credit © rasica — DollarPhotoClub.com
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women with sharp claws and sharper tongues

woman wearing grey felt hat in retro stlyleLast summer, a young woman I work with took a few days of her precious vacation time to be in a childhood friend’s wedding. It turns out the other bridesmaids were sorority sisters of the bride, and Lindsey didn’t hit it off with them.

Since they were the only guests at the wedding she even halfway knew, she spent most of her time alone at a table, talking occasionally to relatives kind enough to stop by and ask how she was doing.

The maid-of-honor had something to say about this. In a pseudo-friendly manner, she reached out to Lindsey and said, “you know, you’re kind of a sweet, socially awkward nerd.” The other bridesmaids laughed a little, and reassured her, “we mean that in a nice way!”

MRRRREOW.

That comment is #1 on today’s list.

After she related this story to us the following week, I told my young co-worker, “better to be a socially awkward nerd than a catty bitch.”  I wasn’t even certain about their assessment of her. But no matter.

Lindsey is hesitant to call anyone her longtime friend would have in her wedding a catty bitch. So to help her identify these types in the future, I gave her – and now you – six examples of CB conversation (as I mentioned earlier, #1 the bridesmaids provided for us). We’ve all heard these things said in one form or the other:

#2 “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that’s the dress I gave Goodwill last year.”

Sandwiched by insincere compliments.

#3 “It’s a shame the bride didn’t stick with matching just the color of the bridesmaid dresses.”

Said near the presumably (excuse the pun) misfit bridesmaid.

#4 “Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure in the right lighting that lipstick works.”
labios3
 

Unsolicited, to the woman standing next to her at the mirror in the ladies room.

#5 “My husband has a shirt made of the same fabric as your dress, but I refuse to let him be seen wearing it in public.”

Zing! Zing! Multiple targets there.

#6 “Is shrimp supposed to taste like this?” (Granted, in the right situation that may be an appropriate question.)

Most often said when eating chicken.

Stick with being a socially awkward nerd, Lindsey, if in fact that’s what you are. You’ll grow out of it, but these woman will never change.

Photo Credit (woman with cat) © evasilchenko — fotolia.com (lipstick) © piresphoto — fotolia.com
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my song

In my baby book, my mother recorded that from the time I could stand in my crib, I would dance and sway to ballads, and there is no better ballad than “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin.

This song was climbing the charts the day I was born, and I like to think it was the first song I ever heard played on the radio. We’ll never know, so it might as well be so.
Crashing Waves at Sunset
Over the years, it has never failed to charm and soothe me. Yes, it’s romantic, but that wasn’t its first appeal for me. Or perhaps it was, but in a different sense.

As a child, my family would sometimes spend an afternoon at the beaches in Monterey, CA. These are beautiful, scenic waterfronts, the ones with the otters, and I’d look out in awe of the vastness of the ocean. To me, it held wonders known and unknown, for how could we be certain what lay at the bottom of the sea?

When I heard my song, I pictured another imaginative soul, wearing clothing from a bygone era, also standing on the shore in wonder.

Today when it plays I close my eyes and dream of dancing with the ideal partner to this music. Others on the dance floor stop and clear the floor as we move in perfection. It’s truly a dream, for I am not a dancer, and it’s a rare man who could match my vision.

Whether or not it was the first song I heard played on the radio, it no doubt was one I heard often in my earliest days of life. I hope it’s one I continue to hear all my days, and it never loses its charm for me.

Image Credit © wolterke — fotolia.com 

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sometimes light as snow, sometimes dark as hell

Ah, snowfall.

It’s coming soon for many of you. I may get some too, but it’s a little different here. I won’t experience anything like what surrounded me during a situation I once thought of as the most embarrassing moment of my life, a story I knew better than to tell. Until now.

It was my first significant snowstorm

since moving to Minnesota, and light, powdery snow was piled high all around. Stir crazy and not particularly savvy about wintery road conditions, I bundled up and blithely took a walk a few blocks down to the grocery store.

Not a good idea.

Sidewalks were snowed over, so on my way back, rather than walking on the street, I chose an obviously safer route across the parking lot and down a hill. Obvious, that is, to a lifelong Californian.

What I foolishly didn’t calculate

was the three feet of snow now jutting out from the side of that hill. As I plowed through the fresh powder on the ground, suddenly the earth gave out under me and I dropped five feet straight down.

Damn. What to do now.

I waited until I was pretty sure all current traffic at that stop light had passed before working my way out. Then, with as much dignity as I could muster, (which is to say, not a whole lot) I proceeded home.

Fortunately, I was new to the area, not to mention bundled up and resembling a cookie jar, so likely no one recognized me.

Seriously,

that’s my most embarrassing moment? OF COURSE NOT. Comical, perhaps, and a good mental laugh-inducing picture, but I’ve lived through a lot worse since then.

But you won’t hear about those moments from me. It’s taken me decades to tell this story, and it’s more funny than embarrassing. No doubt you’ve lived through one or two of your own, and I’m always up for a good laugh.

Some of the other moments, well, best to lay those memories to rest.

Which makes me wonder how many really painful memories others have that they wisely don’t tell, except that sharing them might make the rest of us fools feel a little less lonesome? I’m talking those times we behave outside of our own character, seemingly controlled by demons unknown to us.

If that resonates with you, those demons, if it wrenches your heart, then you know what I mean, the divide within yourself.

picture of me I’m not promoting a soul-wrenching, innermost-self baring session for anyone with anyone except on your own terms in your own time. You need to guard your heart.

But every once in awhile, I’d like someone to say the words, whatever they are, that would tell me the anguish of my most humiliating moments isn’t mine alone. Maybe each of us, most of us, or even just some of us, go through the same thing at times in our lives.

If you know those words, let me know.

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truth to tell

And then...and then..
“And then…and then…”

It’s at times entertaining to watch a pre-schooler try to lie their way out of a sticky situation. So endearing, in fact, parents may pretend to believe everything the little tall-tale-teller is saying, just to hear them say it. They’re so earnest and sincere.

Not my second grade teacher, though. Mrs. Smith didn’t take falsehoods from anybody, in particular her son, Tim. One day she told our class Tim had only lied to her once, back when he was three years old. She caught him, and he was so ashamed he never did it again.

Not one kid in our class bought that story. She stuck to her guns. Tim was as honest as the day was long.

A few weeks later this poor guy, now 19, showed up at our class to drop off car keys for his mom. He innocently walked into a room full of skeptical, disapproving seven-year-olds, having no idea of the tale we’d heard. In short order, his face was as red as his scruffy, shoulder-length hair. He didn’t look like a saint to us and we had no problem saying as much.

Maybe we weren’t being fair and he actually was that good. I can’t imagine any child NEVER lying to their parents, but I’m not sure what it said about us kids that we were so jaded about telling — and hearing — the truth.

I was visiting a friend last summer and as I approached the front door, a child about the age of her youngest daughter came running up to me. With hair cropped short, jeans and a team-logo sweatshirt, I assumed it was a little boy, probably a neighborhood friend. It wasn’t. It was her wild child five-year-old girl, who told me she’d cut off her shoulder-length hair the week before. All by herself.

blue scissors II smI laughingly asked Pam about it, and she signaled me to come inside.

“That girl’s hair was cut short and straight across the back,” she said in a low, firm voice. “And there wasn’t one single scraggly piece I had to trim. No way she did it herself.”

Right at that moment one of Pam’s older daughters walked by. “We told you what happened!” this one said defensively.

“I know what you said,” she replied mildly, then turned to me and continued in the same low, yet clearly distinguishable to those eavesdropping, voice. “They’re not telling me the truth and it’s obvious what happened, but since no one was hurt, I just punished all of them for leaving the scissors out.” Older daughter walked away.

Pam looked at me and sighed. “I have no idea what happened and I can’t get them to budge on their story.”

No illusions on her part. I don’t think her girls are particularly dishonest or deceptive, in fact, I think they’re fairly transparent. Well, two are teenagers now, so let me revise that: for the most part I think they are, at the heart, trustworthy girls. One of whom probably cuts hair.

When I was young, I was always afraid what would happen to me if I was caught being wrong. That was how I saw it, by the way, being wrong, not doing something wrong. I became a pretty decent liar. I was clever, with a good imagination and even better memory. Fortunately, I got tired of it, physically, emotionally tired, and I stopped well before adulthood.

My parents were not abusive, so I can’t say what it was that caused that fear, probably a more subtle message they weren’t aware of and didn’t intend to send to their highly sensitive child. What could they have done differently? I don’t know.

I’ve said it before: parents, you have an impossible job, but you do it. Hang in there. Believe in your children. Believe in their overall character, not their occasional deeds. Know that lying is something any child is going to do, if not this day, the next, for his or her own reason. Deal with it, of course, but save up a few stories to laugh at when they have kids of their own.