Belinda O

February 16, 2023

What to Say, What Not to Say

As some of you know, I’ve been trying to write a novel. Originally when I joined my writer’s group, I had planned to write a memoir, and had gotten pretty far in outlining my efforts. I was going to focus on some of the mental health issues I’ve faced and their consequences, among other things.

Problem is, my mental health issues are tame compared to what many people face. I’ve struggled with depression and was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder not otherwise specified. In my case that meant there were identifiable episodes of bipolar depression, but it didn’t appear to be an ongoing problem. I do take medication, but for many years now there’s been no sign of anything resembling bipolar disorder.

A lot of my problems come from family issues when I was growing up. I struggled with these all through my 20s and 30s, but now I’ve gotten past them (for the most part) and have healed several of the relationships that brought me down previously.

I’ve watched young women I know fairly well deal with-or not deal with–many of the same sort of issues I faced at their age, and at least one of them is notorious for saying, “you have no idea what I’m going through.” Those of us who are older and wiser just shake our heads and say to each other, “yeah, right. Like we didn’t go through the same thing.”

If I had a better recall of the specifics of what I went through, it probably would make for some good essays, but I’ve moved past that era of my life and I simply don’t remember the day-to-day struggles. Either that, or I don’t want to.

And here’s the other thing about writing a memoir: in order for it to be any good, I have to be painfully honest, and I have no desire to do that. There’s no healing value in it for me anymore, and other people in my life don’t need to see that part of my life. I’m a fairly private person and I’d like to keep it that way.

Many people I know, in fact, think I had an idyllic childhood. I don’t necessarily want to let them keep believing that, but I don’t really want to go into any detail about why that isn’t true. It’s not that I want to keep secrets, mind you. There’s a difference between secrets and private matters.

Which leads me back to where I began with this post. I’ve been trying to write a novel. I think I’ll stick with that.

Image Credits: Daisy © Leonid Ikan–stock.adobe.com; Both line images © OneLineStock–stock.adobe.com;

February 12, 2023January 28, 2024

A Little Bit of Luck

My dad jokingly told me today not to count on him winning the lottery and making me rich. Not that I had ever considered that, mind you. He stopped buying lottery tickets after getting numerous calls from “helpful” realtors and financial advisors who had learned, because it’s public record, that some of my stepmom’s stuff was going through probate. He figured the number of calls he’d get if he won a billion dollars would be significantly greater, and managing one’s finances would be, well, perhaps a greater pain than they were worth.

I’d actually come to that conclusion myself many years ago. I wouldn’t mind winning a million dollars. That I think I could handle with some good advice. I’d put it all into a retirement account and maybe retire a little early (but not until I got Medicare, so not that early). Yes, I have a plan for winning a million dollars.

However, the plan is somewhat moot, as I don’t buy lottery tickets as a rule. I see it as a waste of money. Now, I might put some money down on one of those football betting boards–I don’t know what they’re called, but they’re the 10×10 ones where you pick what you hope will be the winning score. My odds of winning would be significantly better and it would likely be a friendly wager among friends. Still, I don’t know how much I’d be willing to put down. I’m just not much of a gambler.

There are life-changing events that make it easy to be a better person, and life-changing events that challenge us to a greater degree than perhaps we care to be challenged. Money definitely is one of those things that can change you, whether it’s being a lucky winner (and how you define lucky is up to you) or whether you lose your financial security.

I prefer not to tempt fate with my financial decisions. I’ll stick with my conservative, middle class lifestyle, save money and trust that my investments, such as they are, will pay off. That’s all the gambling I want to do. With a little bit of luck, it’s all I’ll need to do.

Image Credits: Winning Woman © denis vermenko–stock.adobe.com; Million Dollar Winner © lankogal–stock.adobe.com

February 10, 2023February 10, 2023

If you’re climbing out a window, she ain’t your soulmate

I knew our relationship was doomed as soon as he told me he was looking for his soulmate. Something in his intonation, the words he chose, told me, “he’s looking for what can’t be found.”

I was right. He wanted the woman who so innately understood him he didn’t have to explain himself, a single look could do it. The first rush of infatuation wouldn’t fade away, instead, that heady feeling would keep pace with the years.

Problem was, his soulmate would have to have been as immature as he was, and that would have been a disaster.

And as it turned out, years before, he later quietly revealed to me, he’d met her. She was the girlfriend of the lead singer in a local band, a group he greatly admired and got to know over the years. In fact, at one point their lead guitarist quit with no notice and they called him to fill in. The thrill of a lifetime.

So he and Tasha got to know each other, and when her boyfriend was out of town one weekend, she called him. Their illicit romance began. Many a night he would be at her home and Gary, the boyfriend, would stop by, leaving him with two choices: face the music or crawl out the window. He chose the window, every time.

She swore she didn’t love Gary, it was just habit, he was the one she loved. They’d be together soon, she’d make it happen. She promised. Really, she didn’t love Gary.

Then one day she told him it was over. She and Gary were getting married and she couldn’t see him any more. She walked away, crying, and he didn’t expect to ever see her again.

Except a year later he did. Nothing happened, he told me, but she looked so unhappy. She swore she and Gary were fine, but deep in his heart he knew she regretted leaving him.

“Oh come on!” I said. “This was your soulmate? You two deserve each other. Of course it was ‘wonderful’ and ‘romantic.’ It was forbidden. If you’d been up front about the whole thing it all would have ended in six months like every other one of your relationships.”

He told me I didn’t get it. He was sad for me because he knew someday I’d compromise rather than hold out for my soulmate.

“Yea, don’t worry about me,” I assured him. “Just listen to your story a little more closely.”

Today, thirty some years later, Tasha and Gary are still married, and he’s still waiting for his soulmate. The other one, that is. Surely there’s a backup…

Image Credit: triangle © belindao; gondola ©ivector–stock.adobe.com

February 9, 2023February 11, 2023

Game Changers

When I was maybe nine or ten, one night the talk at the dinner table turned to computers. My dad worked for IBM, and I’d known about computers all my life. What I knew, however, was nothing like what we have today. I can still imagine the big green machines churning out pages and pages of paper, much of it blank. My dad would bring home those blank pages for us kids to draw on.

My mom said she thought the computer had been a game changer for society, and of course, she was right. Then she said something that shocked me. In my lifetime, there would be more great inventions, she told me. Things that would once again change the way society operates. I pondered that for awhile, then said, “Like what?” My parents both laughed, because of course, the point was we didn’t know yet. But it would happen.

It has happened, many times over. But so much of it goes back to the computer. Greater efficiency, more precision. Now, however, I have to wonder if we’ve gone a step too far. AI frightens me. Talk about efficiency and precision. I was curious about the AI writing apps and was alarmed to see how many there are.

Writing defines me. In my About page for this blog, I wrote “I believe in the power of words, written, spoken and unspoken. I believe what we write and what we create unleashes who we are, even to our own surprise.” That’s the magic of creativity.

I’m wary that eventually AI will blend into the framework of our society and we’ll stop asking these questions. I have friends who remember saying similar things about Adobe Photoshop, and for most of us now, it’s just a tool for creativity. Can AI become the same sort of thing? Should it?

I don’t want to lose the connections I’ve made through this blog with other creative people, many of them writers and a few photographers. But if a computer is churning out words that I claim but that don’t belong to me, those connections will be lost. And part of me will be, too.

February 7, 2023February 7, 2023

Secrets in the Forest

Today when talking to my Mom, she commented that she’d been thinking about her late husband, my stepdad, all day. It bothered her, because what she was remembering were the tens of thousands of dollars he embezzled from the company he and a good friend had founded. She also mentioned tens of thousands of dollars she’d had herself that went missing. It all added up to one thing: she didn’t really know the man.

We all have secrets we take to the grave, and some will be revealed once we’re gone, whether we try to hide them or not. Some are amusing. My former roommate told me about a woman we both knew from church who’d tragically died in a bungled bungee jump. This woman was athletic, with a short, kind of manly haircut. We all thought she was gay, and perhaps she was. But under her bed and deep in her closet her roommate found dozens of romance novels of the bodice-ripping genre.

Other secrets are heart-wrenching. A good friend of mine found clues her brother left for her before he died of cancer, revealing that he was gay. This was a man who was conservative in his faith and his politics, which may have been why he stayed in the closet. He came out to a few gay colleagues, who comforted my friend after her loss. The thing that got to me when was she said she wondered if he’d loved someone and couldn’t–or wouldn’t–do anything about it. That broke my heart.

I have my secrets, but I don’t think any of them are bombshells that would shock friends and family after I’m gone. At least I hope not. I don’t want anybody close to me saying they didn’t really know me, at least, not in a negative way.

I think of secrets as something we keep hidden in the forest of our lives. Some are delightful, some are devious. Only we know the path to many of them. I have no words of wisdom here, only to say, your secrets are safe with me.

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