Here be Dragons….
I’m an introvert. The bus is one of my favourite things to do because you can be out of the house and lose yourself completely for an hour without having to do anything at all. No matter what the bus will go along and eventually take you back to where you started from.
I found this on Facebook and I love it! This is what I wish I could say to every young person from the age of about 10 up to the age where they understand and believe these words are about themselves. People may be 90 and still need to hear and understand these words. Teenagers may be those this was directed to because they are at a time of life where they don’t have a set purpose yet like children to look after, a house to pay for, or a job to show up for everyday. These are the burdens, challenges which scare us and yet give us a purpose and direction – something we have to do each day.
Young people can be in a middle ground which can be an oasis or no man’s land. (Look up no man’s land if you haven’t heard that phrase before). Just because you don’t have a purpose yet does not mean you are not needed and can not find yourself a unique purpose and direction each day. Choose something and do it. Choose something wisely, something which will make your world a better place, something which will make you happy and feel accomplished. Little things mean a lot so you don’t have to reach far to find something valuable to do.
The world loves you, especially you, our teenagers who have so much to give, so much life and so much greatness yet to come.
This post dedicated to Zack (my favourite teenager of them all).
I wrote this about my Dad, so long ago I had forgotten about it. Originally published to BackWash.com on May 28, 2004 and written when my Dad died.
My Dad would sometimes say, “If that’s supper, I guess I’ve had it.” This past week after his death that phrase has caught in my mind only I’ve adapted it to, “If that’s life, I guess I’ve had it.”
My Dad was 71 years old when he died. He was born in South Shields, Scotland in 1932. He had one sister who also came to Canada (the whole family did when he was in university). My Dad was an electrical engineer though he didn’t have the actual engineer stamp due to not finishing that last year of university. He could have many times over, but he chose not to bother. He chose not to bother about a lot of things.
Anyway, he married my Mother in 1964. They lived in farm houses and city apartments for awhile, back and forth until one run down farm in a town called Kincardine where my sister was born. She was the third of four kids. We moved back to the city from there cause the farm house had no running water and my brother and I were having asthma problems with the country lifestyle. Two more moves and we ended up in The Rouge. It was the town of Port Union then, later it became part of Scarborough and thus part of Toronto. When someone asks where I grew up I think of The Rouge. It was a very white middle class place. Nice though a bit sheltered.
Dad always loved jersey cows. He kept buying the Jersey Breeder magazine long after we had seen our last farm house. While I was growing up in The Rouge he was daydreaming about a jersey farm. He made lots of plans on paper and now and then we had family trips into the middle of nowhere Ontario to look at a farm he could buy. By that time Mom was pretty much prepared to veto them all. No more run down farm houses, no more him expecting her to run a farm and cows while he worked in the city and came back on weekends to supervise.
Dad liked to sing and whistle while he worked. Often the same old songs about ‘stay home and mind baby brown eyed girl, captain brown being down amongst the dead men and tally my bananas day o’. I’m not even sure what the names of the songs are. But I’ve heard them over and over all my life.
We started looking through his things, picking what to keep, what to display at the service and what to toss. There is a lot to toss. He wore his clothes till they were worn out, he was no fashion plate though he liked to think he looked good. Sometimes he did. Among his things I noticed an old program from a theatre performance of ‘Man of La Mancha” that he went to with my sister and myself a very long time ago. I was surprised to see that. Also one Father’s Day card from all the cards I had ever given him. Usually he left them sitting right where he had opened them and let Mom eventually toss them into the garbage. I put away the one card that he kept. There were also more pins and badges from the local Lions clubs that he had yet given to me to sew onto his Lions vest. Between my Mom and I we had kept them sewn on for him for the past ten or so years. He also had pictures of golf games and events with business associates and sometimes my brother or his current son-in-law too.
He had his first small heart attack while we lived in The Rouge. After that they came more frequently, over time, slowly. He ignored them. Even though his own Dad had died at age 65 from a heart attack which he ignored until he died in the hospital that same night. That just proves you can’t help people who will not help themselves.
I remember being in the hospital up here in Alliston with my Dad just a few days before they took him down to Newmarket for the quadruple by-pass operation. He wasn’t sure about having the surgery and I can see now that he was afraid. That makes me feel very sorry for him. But, I don’t see how we could have done differently at that point. It was likely already too late. Anyway, he had a very bad heart attack right before the surgery but they went ahead at that point cause he would have died anyway I guess. Either then or the next attack. Surgery seemed to at least give him a chance to survive. He did pull through for two more days and seemed to be feeling pretty ok for someone who has just had his chest opened and adjusted. But two days after the surgery he didn’t wake up. He was in ICU and stayed there. Being worked on, his body kept functioning with life support. The hospital staff seemed to think his chances were not too bad at that point. But he never got better and last Saturday, the very day they were going to pull the plug he died himself sometime before 6:00 AM.
Maybe it’s having the distance of time and now death, but I do feel less angry about him and things he did and said. In the end it doesn’t matter. It’s up to me to get on with my own life. On Monday we are having the memorial service. Mom is bugging me about what I will wear. I am not looking forward to having to make chit chat with people who think they knew him. Cause they didn’t really know him. Dad liked to make a show of his life. He was always Mr BigShot and we were holding him back, picking on him and making things difficult in general. He would tell his business associates, the local Lions club which he joined and others all about us, as he chose to see us. So, no, I’m not looking forward to two hours of hearing about what a good guy he was. But the service is for them I think. For me, I don’t care. He is dead and it’s over.
Right now beside me I have an old rolodex of his business cards which I’m sorting through for valid names to add to the guest list. If he could be there for the memorial he would be happy with the show put on for him, because of him. His due I expect he would think. For me it’s just something else I have to do. I wonder if I will think of him much after the wind down of everything. It seems as if we’ve been expecting and waiting to put on this last show since we were kids and here it finally is. Now we can do the show and put it into the past and leave it there. All the build up and the suspense will be gone. Just like Ian N. Brown himself.
This was in my email today, forwarded from my Mom:
Magic Bank Account
Something to think about …
Imagine that you had won the following *PRIZE* in a contest:
Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400 in your private account for your use. However, this prize has rules :
The set of rules:1. Everything that you didn’t spend during each day would be taken away from you.
2. You may not simply transfer money into some other account.
3. You may only spend it.
4. Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another $86,400 for that day.
5. The bank can end the game without warning; at any time it can say,“Game Over!” It can close the account and you will not receive a new one.
What would you personally do?
You would buy anything and everything you wanted right?
Not only for yourself, but for all the people you love and care for. Even for people you don’t know, because you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself, right?You would try to spend every penny, and use it all, because you knew it would be replenished in the morning, right?
ACTUALLY, This GAME is REAL ….Shocked ??? YES!
Each of us is already a winner of this *PRIZE*. We just can’t seem to see it.
This PRIZE is *TIME*
1. Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life.
2. And when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us.
3. What we haven’t used up that day is forever lost.
4. Yesterday is forever gone.
5. Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time WITHOUT WARNING …SO, what will YOU do with your 86,400 seconds?
Those seconds are worth so much more than the same amount in dollars. Think about that, and always think of this: Enjoy every second of your life, because time races by so much quicker than you think.
So take care of yourself, be happy, love deeply and enjoy life!
Here’s wishing you a wonderful and beautiful day.
Start spending …
Update: Again, About.com did not pick me. Another declination (that should be a word) from About.com. I’d be discouraged except every writer is supposed to have rejections and when you write for your own sites you lack that sense of rejection. So I have to rely on these random applications to About.com for my rejection slips. So… thank you About.com.
I applied for the Obesity topic at About.com today. I spent most of the day getting distracted, writing about why I want to write about Obesity for About.com, deciding which links to send them and adjusting/ adapting my web resume to send. On the resume I just took out some extras.
This is what I sent about why I want to write:
I am a fat woman, have been large sized for most of my life. I would like to give other large women the chance to live (not taking a back seat in their own life) as they are, yet be aware of health risks. To find their way through the current trend to accept fat and the other side saying accepting being fat is a bad thing. I see a middle ground.
It is ok to like yourself and live as yourself, as you currently are. But, we need to think of our health and try to improve. Not just our weight but our lives in every way. The slogan on my blog is “Life keeps happening even when you don’t look like you fit in”. This is exactly how I feel as a large woman having my own life with good days, bad days and every day trying to be myself.
Having said all that, I do read and keep track of current trends, facts and social networking. I’m really interested in the paleo diet right now. I routinely read other blogs about BBW fashion, large women and campaigns about body image. I read about health issues and experience a few personally. I network with other large women through my content curation, BBW Life, on Scoop.it.
I am not a medical professional but my life has been full of all the experiences and challenges of being a fat woman. I’ve tried diets, fitness plans and I have lost some weight but put it back on again. Like most large people I know how to get fit but I have all the trials and errors along the way which have kept me the size I am. Over all, I am ok with me, lumps, bumps and all.
I don’t think a topic about obesity should focus on diet, exercise or weight loss. Health is more important than actual size. Body image is more important than appearances. I’d like to showcase plump, chubby, fat, obese women, helping but not limiting them.
Of course, now that I’ve sent it in, the first thing I notice is a typo I missed.
20/20: Hindsight is the one thing we never benefit from in the present. Is there one moment you wish you could do over?
via Prompt for December 4 | Project Reverb .
No. I don’t want do overs of anything unless it’s a single great moment. Even then, things are always better in the moment than the second time around. You can’t have the same reaction twice, especially when you already know how things are going to end.
Do you read the end of a book while you are still reading it? Life is like that. At times we would like to know how it ends, do we accomplish everything, or anything? How do family and friends do with their own lives? So many questions to ask and yet having the answers leaves us without all those questions.
I think we need those surprises, questions and all those moments of suspense and even fear. If we had a book of our lives to read from how dull that would be. To already know how your every moment will be…. Wouldn’t that be sad to just be waiting around for things to happen instead of wondering what will happen next?
