Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I fell in love with him the moment I saw him

Posted: April 24, 2012 in Uncategorized
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I didn’t expect that to happen, but I’ve heard that it can. When it does, it’s like a lightning bolt that hits you from your head to your toes and you never want the sensation to stop.

I was minding my own business one Sunday afternoon. It was a very hot day. I had my hair pulled back, a summer dress on with sandals and no make-up. Yeah, it was that hot.

I had some errands to run and was feeling a bit cranky from the heat. I was tired, it had been another long week and I still had so much left to do that day.

I parked my car and jumped out to run into the store. As I was walking up, I saw someone standing there in the sun and I knew I wasn’t in the mood to give anyone money. I had my own problems and really didn’t want to deal with it, so I kept my head down as I walked past him, but that didn’t work. I heard his voice and turned around and looked at him.

He had said “I hope to see you smile someday.” That was all he said.

He was a black man, tall and thin with gray hair. He was holding something in his hand but he stood motionless. He just smiled at me and I smiled back. He didn’t say anything else so I turned around and went into the store.

As I walked away, I heard him say “That’s all I wanted to see.”

The sincerity and kindness in his voice resonated with me. I couldn’t shake it off. I tried to because, well, it was just a sudden act of kindness from a stranger.

When I came out of the store, he was still standing there but looking far away. He was in the hot sun and I stopped, turned around and went back into the store and bought a bottle of water. I could see other people ignoring him, just as I had, but he did not speak to them.

I walked up to him and handed him the water. He just looked at me, smiled and took the water from me and drank it. I watched him and then looked at what he was holding in his hand. It was a small flyer or newspaper. When he was done, he thanked me.

“What do you have in your hand?” I asked.

He told me what it was – I don’t remember – but he was selling them for $1.00.

“I would like to buy one,” I said.

I dug through my purse and only had $5.00, which I decided to give him. He would not accept that much. I insisted, but he was more stubborn than me.

“It’s only $1.00 and since I haven’t sold any yet, I’m afraid I can’t charge you more than that. It wouldn’t be right.”

“OK, then let me go get some change and I’ll be right back.”

“I have a better idea, ma’am.”

“Oh yeah? And what that might be?” I asked. I could not help but grin back at him because that was the effect he had on me. From the moment I saw him, I wanted to smile at him.

“I would like to sing you a song and if I can get you to smile just one more time, my life would be complete. You have the most beautiful smile I have ever seen.”

And that was the exact moment I fell in love with this man. He oozed sincerity and kindness and an abundance of goodness.

“Really?” was about the most intelligent response I could give because I was starting to blush. “Deal.”

He took my hand and stepped back and began to sing. He had the most beautiful voice. I don’t know the song he sang, but it was the first time in all my years that someone actually sang a song to me. To my heart.

Even though I had “seen” him when I first arrived, standing there and listening to him was really the first time I “saw” him, the beautiful spirit that he was. I fell in love, right then and there, hard.

When he was done, I gave him the $5.00 and hugged him. I couldn’t help it. He hugged me back and for a moment we stood in that parking lot, holding hands and smiling at each other.

I never saw him again after that and I would often look. I would go by on the weekends and see if he was there. He wasn’t and I was always sad.

I love that man and if the day ever comes that I no longer love people, that is the day I need to die.

The teacher who tried to kill me

Posted: March 19, 2012 in Self-esteem, self-respect, Uncategorized
Tags: ,

She spent two years trying to kill me emotionally and spiritually and to this day, I still don’t know why. But I know she tried and failed.

It was in the 5th and 6th grade when this happened. The school I was going to was right down the street from me and all of us students knew each other. We all lived within walking distance and were all friends for the most part.

There were always new students coming and going, but being female and of the age where what others thought of me defined who I was, I didn’t always get to know the “new kids” simply because I had so many friends that I had grown up with.

The school decided that since we were going to be attending Junior High soon, they would acclimate us to having to move from one class to another rather than having only one teacher for the entire day.

This bothered me because I loved my teacher, Mrs. Aronson. She was VERY old since she was probably in her 60’s and I was 10 but I loved her and she had been the only teacher I had known since first grade.

But the “Powers That Be” wanted us to learn how to go from classroom to classroom and have all of our materials with us, so the journey began and I was put in a Math class with a teacher called Mrs. McDougal.

The moment I saw her, I froze. She was much younger than Mrs. Aronson and very pretty. She dressed sharply and had the most beautiful hair I had ever seen. It was straight where mine was curly. She was thin and I was approaching puberty and starting to have very strange things happen with my body.

She stood at the front of the class and glared at us. She then did roll call and quickly rearranged where we were to sit. She didn’t know most of us and I had never seen her before, but she pointed her finger at me and said “Susan, come over and sit right here,” which was the first seat in the first row, closest to her desk. I got up, grabbed my books and sat down. She then pointed to another girl, whom I didn’t know, and had her sit next to me. Her name was Donna. Once Donna sat down, Mrs. McDougal sneered at us and then looked at the class.

“This is where the stupid people sit,” and then laughed.

I didn’t understand what she meant and Donna and I looked at each other. When it dawned on me that she was referring to both of us, I felt my face turn red and the tears sting my eyes. Donna had the same reaction and we said nothing and could hear the other kids laughing at us.

For the next 2 years, she picked on us. I never said a word to my parents because I thought she was right because she’s a teacher and teachers know everything, right?

Plus I then became convinced that I was stupid and I didn’t want anyone to know. My brothers had always called me that and I gave as good as I got, but that’s just sibling’s doing what we do – tease each other and then be friends again.

But now I had someone, an ADULT, telling me at least twice a week how stupid I was. Sometimes she would call Donna and I up to stand in front of the class and point to us and say “This is what a stupid person looks like” and then have us sit down again.

I can just hear you, the reader, shaking your head and wondering why I didn’t say anything. Well, if you don’t know why, then maybe you don’t understand what it’s like for girls at that age and how vulnerable we are. You might not understand or remember what an adult’s words can do to a child.

They are worse than bullets and do much more damage. This is the reason I will always believe what a child tells me. Always, no matter what.

I somehow made it through her class after 2 years, but to this day, I have never been good at math. My parents hired a tutor for me and for a while, it got better. I can figure other things out and my IQ is high enough, but I will always consider the day that calculators were developed to be a holy day for me.

Years later, when I was married, I said something about this to my husband. To say he went sideways is an understatement. Up until that point, “me being a stupid person” was something I felt shameful about and was always afraid someone would find out. It took a lot of talking with him to pull the whole story out of me.

When I told my Mom about it, she almost cried. She had no idea and if she had, she would have been down at that school, told them what was going on and had me pulled out of that class. She understood why I never said anything but I suspect that it has never set right with her. It wasn’t a matter of trust in talking about it. That was not why I hadn’t said anything.

It’s a matter of shame regardless if it’s misplaced or not. If you believe it, then it’s true for you. All other points of view are not valid. What you think and believe about yourself is what matters.

Ironically, what happened to me is something that I value because it has made me very good at my job. I teach and I know what it’s like to learn something new and be confused and yes, somewhat stupid until you master it. It takes the right materials and the right person to guide you through it.

It takes someone who knows what it’s like to feel stupid and to understand that you aren’t stupid – you just don’t know something.

As an aside, after I told my husband about it, he asked me if I knew where she had lived. I did as it was right down the street from my old childhood house. He got a wicked look in his eye and asked me if I wanted to go visit Mrs. McDougal. I said I did, so we jumped into the car and drove over there.

I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the house. It had been many years since I had been there and I was convinced that she had either moved away or hopefully died. We walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. I held my breath.

She answered the door and at first, I wasn’t sure it was her. She had not aged gracefully, which made me feel better. Her skin was badly wrinkled, she was no longer attractive and her hair was the same. I then realized that the hair I had envied for so long had always been a wig.

I asked if she was Mrs. McDougal and she hesitated for a moment. She was hunched over and was wearing a dirty robe even though it was late afternoon. She nodded her head and for half a second, I felt sorry for her but that was all.

Here was a woman who was evil. God knows what other lives she had destroyed.

I told her who I was and it did not register with her. That pissed me off. I explained that she was one of the worse human beings I had ever had the displeasure of knowing and that there was no excuse for what she had done to me and Donna.

When I said Donna’s name, I saw the light go on in her eyes. My husband was standing next to me and never said a word but glared at her.

“Oh, you remember, don’t you?” I asked. She stood motionless.

“Well, I wanted you to know that you didn’t succeed. I am fine and I turned out to be a really good person, despite your efforts to kill me. But if I ever see you again…” I said and let the sentence hang in the air. She nodded. We turned around and walked away. She didn’t close the door until we had driven off.

I hope she’s still awake, waiting for me to come back.

It’s official. I am fat. I should either be quarantined or taken out and shot.

Posted: February 2, 2012 in Self-esteem, self-respect, Uncategorized
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I just read this article and almost slammed my fist into my monitor: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2085226/PLUS-Model-Magazines-Katya-Zharkova-cover-highlights-body-image-fashion-industry.html

Or this one: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/most-models-meet-criteria-for-anorexia-size-6-is-plus-size-magazine/

Earlier I had read this article and cried:http://www.popeater.com/2010/12/30/model-isabelle-caro-dies/

Why? Obvious reasons to me.

I think it comes down to one thing and one thing only – a hidden agenda. An evil hidden agenda that states the only way to control someone, is to keep the truth from them and don’t let them see. As long as you can get someone to agree that there is something wrong with them, you can convince them that you have the answer.

What do some not want you to see? How wonderful and fabulous you really are and you shouldn’t change.

Does this sound like a conspiracy theory? It sure is.

What would happen if women, in particular, accepted themselves just as they are?

What would happen if women learned to love themselves and their own unique beauty?

What would happen if women were encouraged to work together and not against each other?

I can tell you what would happen. First of all, it would ruin the fashion industry as it currently is. We would laugh our asses off at what they are selling. Don’t forget, fashion is a business just like any other and they WILL cater to what the majority wants. It’s good business.

It would just about shut down the TV industry because women and young girls would see how unrealistic TV is and turn off the station and read a book or better yet, write a book. Or two. Or three. Maybe take up painting or any other creative endeavors and work on who they think they are and not what someone else is trying to sell them.

What would happen if you looked in the mirror and liked what you saw? I’ll tell you what would happen – you wouldn’t spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on the beauty products you and I both know don’t work. You know they don’t do what they claim.

You would realize that aging is a natural and beautiful thing and then you would question why all the models and celebrities are photo shopped and you would boycott the products. We might even be doing them a favor. Can you even imagine the amount of pressure these women are under? What would happen if we loved them just the way they are? They might just become a bit happier with their work and focus on their work and not their looks. Wouldn’t that be cool?

You could bring the beauty industry to its knees and they would not recover until they started to finally tell the truth in their advertising. The truth is NOTHING can alter the shape or texture of your skin. NOTHING.

You would stop reading the evil women’s magazines that oh-so-subtly tell you that you aren’t quite good enough. You are too tall, too short, your breasts are too small or to big. It doesn’t really matter, you see, how you are. You’re wrong so buy this product…

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look nice AS LONG AS YOU DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU! As long as you look outside yourself, you are going to get slammed and I have to say, that’s on you.

You can change how you feel about yourself in one easy step – just decide that you love yourself and that’s all there is to it.

There is no magical formula. It doesn’t matter how many books you read about it or how many people you talk to; until you decide to DECIDE, it’s all bull shit.

Get rid of the external influences. Shut off the TV, don’t buy the women’s magazines and just love yourself just as you are.

Boycott the things you disagree with. I do that all the time. It’s kind of fun. I’ll disagree with anyone on anything simply because they are trying to get me to agree. It doesn’t matter what they are saying. They could have the best idea in the world, but if I get one hint of someone trying to convince me of something and not address my own intelligence, I’m not going to do it.

I’m a bit of an ass like that, but I’m good with it. I can make my own decisions and decide what is right for me and the second I get a sense of someone is trying to get me to think a different way, my alarm goes off.

They are trying to sell me something that will benefit THEM. Nope. Sorry. Not gonna happen.

You can stop the insanity right here and now. Just disagree and tell others to also. It’s in your hands and no one else’s. Your self-esteem is in your control completely.

Stop looking elsewhere for validation. All that you need is right there.Tap into it and it will rise to the surface.

Stop buying into all the nonsense.

Why I need strong and intelligent women in my life

Posted: January 28, 2012 in Uncategorized
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Because I like to be among my own kind where I am accepted and not competed with.

I also have an almost uncontrollable urge to slap the shit out of weak women.  So, yes, I need that balance.

I find weak and needy women much more pathetic than weak and needy men. With men, you just put him in the category of a friend or co-worker or whatever category seems to fit at the time. It really doesn’t matter.

But I expect more from women and I always will. We procreate, we are the final responsibility for the human race continuing and some whiny little bitch is NOT going to get the work done.

Every so often, one of these will show up for some training. By me. All day. For a few days. It’s not a pretty sight. You almost could feel sorry for them if it wasn’t so annoying. Almost, but not quite.

Some of my clients will send one of their ladies to me and give me a heads up. “Susan, I’m sending Missy (Missy? WTF kind of name is that?) to you for some training. She needs help with her job and I told her about you, so she knows.”

Ahem….”Knows what, exactly?” I ask as I sharpen my blood-red nails and dust off my broom.

“Knows not to whine.”

“Oh, that! OK, then she knows what not to do. What else did you tell her?”

Pause. I hear the sound of the client clearing her throat and getting up and closing the door. “Well, I told her how you are, you know?”

“How I am?”

“Yes. How blunt you are and you don’t accept failure.”

I smile. This is good.

“Are you sending me a lamb for the slaughter…again?”

And that’s what it seems like when I get around a weak and not-to-bright women. Because I don’t accept that. I won’t accept it. Not now and not ever. I don’t buy it that this little lamb cannot speak up for herself. That she cannot make her own decisions and do her job well. I do not agree with that philosophy that any woman cannot be bright, strong and beautiful in her own way.

I do accept, however, that some people are just bitches and get away with it because someone let them.

I’ve been known to throw a book at a woman who was whining. Now, it wasn’t a hard cover book and it didn’t weigh much, but I did pick one up and toss it at her and had it land in her lap. She was trying the crocodile tears on me and it didn’t work, so she got louder. When that didn’t work, she told me I was being mean to her. I explained that if I was mean, I would have yelled at her. Instead I sat there calmly and told her I didn’t buy her little act.

I need strong and intelligent women in my life so I have someone I can talk to and relate to. I need them to make me laugh and be there for me when I need it. I cannot do this with men. I have tried countless times and realized that it’s not them. It’s me. Hard as they may try to listen and understand and as sweet as that is, it’s just not the same.

Men are great but they are not my best friend. Women always have and always will be my best friend. Many men are great friends of mine but they don’t understand what it’s like to be worn out, stretched too thin and work your ass off and still feel like you have failed.

Men don’t know what it’s like to have these bodies that are up one day and then down the next. Men don’t understand why we take on more than we can chew and still stress about the little things we still didn’t get done.

I am constantly coaching women to delegate and smooth things out and I know it falls on deaf ears. I know this and I do the same thing, so it’s hard for me to get on a soap box about it. But at least they have me to listen to them and understand.

Weak women can be helped to be strong by being with strong women. But I think we scare the shit out of them.

Or so I’ve been told.

What is was like before Gloria Steinem spoke up and started pissing people off.

Posted: January 13, 2012 in Self-esteem, self-respect, Uncategorized
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I can’t believe that there are young women who don’t know who Gloria Steinem is.

Many of them are clients, some are friends of family members and some are young women I run into or talk to from time to time.

This came up, again, recently and when the young woman asked who I was talking about, my head really did hit the table. I lost all my steam and couldn’t fathom how someone could not know who this woman was. I lifted my head back up because she was worried I was having a stoke or heart attack (I get that I’m a bit older, but for God’s sake, I’m not that old) and I rubbed my forehead and then my eyes. I assured her that I was fine and stared back at her.

“You really don’t know who I’m talking about?”

She slowly shook her head and said she had heard the name, but had no idea. She looked as if she was in trouble and her voice wavered a bit. I put my hand across the table and told her I was going to tell her who she was and what she did for me personally.

I was born in 1955 and am considered a Baby Boomer, though I’m not sure what that means and I am certain that I don’t care, but it’s important to some people.

What it means is I’m the tail end of a generation that was last raised with what we call “traditional values.”  We grew up believing that the world was structured a certain way and that was just the way it is. I then became a teenager in the 60’s and all of that changed as if overnight. It really is one of those things that you would have to experience to fully understand, but my generation changed so many things in a very short period of time.

But this post is about Gloria and what she did and how much better things are for women because of her and the movement she started (or contributed to) and why she’s important.

I’m not going to talk about her specific actions. Much has been written about her, but I want to tell you what it was like before she spoke up and you can make the comparison with how things are now. For you.

Girls had to take typing classes. I am glad that I learned to type, especially now with computers and the internet, but this was long before then. The reason was because the only jobs available to us was clerical or nursing or working in a library or teaching. We were expected to go get married either right out of High School or college but our main focus was to find a husband and become a mother. We were told that was our future and typing was a skill we would need in case we didn’t get married right away and had to get a secretarial job.

It was very common on job applications to ask you and insist that you gave details of your period. I remember filling out an application one time and I read that part and felt myself blush and stammer and not know what to say. I got up from the chair I was sitting in and walked up to the desk to ask the woman if I had to answer this. She was much older than me; I was 17 and she was in her 30’s and she smiled and said I had to. I asked why and she said it was a precaution in order to determine if I would miss work. She looked a bit startled by my question and I think she never thought about it. This was the usual and you’re not suppose to question “What everybody knows” so I sat back down, lied and continued filling it out.

In High School, I was not allowed to take auto shop because I was a girl. Simple as that. I had also asked (there is a reason my blog is called what it is called) if they could make an exception for me. I had a new car and my boyfriend was taking the class and he was completely into cars. Many a night I sat by him in the freezing cold or sweltering heat, handing him tools while he was under the car. He explained things to me as he went and for a brief moment in High School, I understood how cars worked. Now I wanted to learn how to fix them and was told that I wasn’t allowed to. The teacher even told me to go back to Home Education and learn how to cook because that was the skill I would need when I graduated.

My first “real job” was at McDonald’s when I was sixteen and I could only work the front counter because, well, that’s all that girls were allowed to do. At that time, McDonald’s was a great place to eat. We made our own fries and milk shakes. Girls weren’t allowed near the machines nor were we allowed to cook. Ironic, isn’t it?

We were paid at least 1/2 of what men were paid and I’m not sure if that’s improved as much as it should, but it is better.

It was not unusual to be handed empty coffee cups by men and told to get them a cup of coffee nor to do only the clerical work only. It was well understood that you would never get promoted and shouldn’t expect it. It didn’t matter if you were smarter or better than a man, you would never get promoted. HE had a family to support and you were just some silly woman with nothing better to do than to work.

Talk about sexual harassment? It was common, accepted and to be expected. Men were allowed to slap you on your ass, make comments about what you looked like, what you were wearing and ask any and all personal questions. You had no one to complain to and if you did, you were told you were overreacting and being irrational.

I’ll never forget the time that a sales rep walked into an office I was working at. I was sitting at the front desk at the time and was the Office Manager and was catching the phones while some of the staff were at lunch.

He walks in, doing his door-to-door cold calling, and sees me. He asked if the owner was in and I told him he wasn’t. He looks me up and down and takes something out of his briefcase and tells me he wanted to leave it. I said fine and then he realizes it’s his last copy. He hands it to me and tells me to go photocopy it.

I stare at him. He tries to hand it to me again and then slowly puts his hand down. I point to the photocopier and tell him to do it himself and if he doesn’t know how, then he was shit out of luck.

I could see him bite his tongue and think about what to say. He asked when my boss would be back and I let him know he’ll never get an appointment to see him and that we aren’t interested in his products or service.

He calls me a bitch, turns around and walks out. He had given me his card, so I immediately call and ask to speak to his supervisor. I get him on the phone and tell him what happened.

“So? I guess you were rude to him and have forgotten your place.”

“Say what?” I ask and he repeats what he said.

I hung-up and lit up a cigarette and cursed the male species.

This post could go on for a long time, with many stories and I haven’t even touched upon most of it. But if you don’t know who she is, find out.

Gloria made us visible and important and helped us to find our voice. She told us we were worthy of equal rights and respect. No one had told me that before and I didn’t know until she arrived on the scene. Love her, hate her or just don’t care who she is, your life is better because of her work.

I am humbled.

Posted: December 5, 2011 in Uncategorized
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There are moments in your life that can knock you on you ass and it’s always seems to be when you need it the most.

For me recently, it was right before Thanksgiving. I was having a very rough time of it between car repairs, laptops dying in the midst of NaNo and no way to pay for any of it and trying to get my writing done long hand, which I hate to do. I can barely read my own handwriting and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get it done and logged onto the website before the deadline.

Plus I was trying to see my family for the holidays and nothing was going to stop me.

For two days, I had gone sideways. It was just a period of time in my life where it seemed like I couldn’t get anything to go right.

I did handle things, of course, because I may or may not be many things, but I am not a victim. I just have bad days where I sit down, have a good cry and then get up again. But that night when everything seemed to have come crashing down on me, I sat on my couch and cried. It was all a bit too much right then. I was tired of keeping my chin up and being stoic.

And I’m so tired of being alone with no one to help.

I needed a pity party and I threw a huge one for myself. I gave myself 10 minutes for it and I timed it. I looked at my cell phone, noted the time and cried. I only last 3 minutes, but still…It was pity.

I go up and see my family and have a wonderful time. They are my rock, part of my soul and I’ve always been taught that blood is thicker than water. No matter what happens, we circle the wagons and it’s there that I can relax, eat and sleep and laugh and know that if I say or do something stupid, it’s OK. I am family and I’ll always be accepted.

I get back to work on Monday and I’m still worried about a few things, but I’m doing OK.

And then it happens. It. Suddenly. Happens.

I read on G+ a post asking for help from all of us. This post had been shared and it was from a friend of a woman who had lost her 3 children and ex-husband in a plane crash the day before Thanksgiving.

No. Dear God, NO!

I sit at my desk at work and start to cry. It all comes crashing in. All of it. My losses, my disappointments, my successes, my heart breaks and those of my friends and loved ones.

It’s all too much for a moment. I get up, go outside and look around. It’s a beautiful fall day. It’s cold and the sun is out and I cry some more.

I love this woman who I have never met and I grieve for her and her loss. I can’t help it. It’s who I am.

The next two days are one of enormous gratitude for who I am and what I have and the people I know. No matter what my problems and struggles and difficulties may be, I did not lose my 3 children in a second and I never will.

I’ll never go hungry.

I’ll never be unloved.

I’ll never be without the people I love.

I’ll never, in a million years, suffer that kind of loss.

I’ll never be without electricity and internet access.

I’ll never be without animals and clothes to wear and wine to drink.

I’ll always be able to vote.

I’ll always have a voice and will always use it to make a difference.

I’ll always be me and have the things I have.

I am humbled and have been changed in a way I would never have expected. I think about this woman every day and I wonder how she will make it through all of this.  I’ve known people who have lost children and I lost a brother over 20 years ago and until recently , I had parked that pain away, but no more.

No matter what may happen to me or where life may take me, I am grateful and humbled by those who have suffered so much more than me and still manage to smile and be kind to others and somehow get through every day. If I could take away everyone’s pain, I would. But I can’t anymore than they can for me. But we’re not supposed to or we would do it immediately.

OK, enough of being sad.

I am blessed and I’ve been taught that lesson, once again.

My job is to make you stupid. Sorry about that.

Posted: October 27, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Yes, that’s what I do. I make people feel stupid. It’s amazing that I get paid to do this.

And I am really good at it. In fact, I love it.

Why do I do that? Because that is the ONLY way to get a human to learn. I didn’t make the rules on this, but it is the way we learn.

You think you’re afraid of failure? Nope. You’re just like the rest of us, you’re afraid of looking stupid. See, when you fail, you look and feel stupid.

When you slam a hammer down on your thumb rather than the nail, after you stop screaming, you feel stupid. Well, it was a dumb thing to do.

If you trip and fall and the whole world sees you, you feel that horrible redness take over your face. You want to run and hide or wish the earth would open up and swallow you. You want to go back in time – rewind and re-record it before you slipped on the sidewalk. You knew, right before you fell, that you should be paying more attention. You should not have been walking and texting at the same time.

You feel so stupid for having dated/married THAT person. Your friends told you not to do it. Your family begged you to break off the engagement but NO! You went ahead anyway and when it didn’t work out, you felt like an idiot. Well, you probably were one. And I know it took you a long time to let people know it was over.

But, think about it. You know that burner is hot and not because you read about it. There is no owner’s manual for a human. You know it’s hot because you can feel it and probably have burned yourself once or twice on it. See? You know it’s hot but you still burned your hand.

You know that pizza needed to cool off for a few minutes before you dig into it, but you don’t wait and burn the roof of your mouth. How many times have you done that? I do it every single frickin time. No lie.

You knew it was a bad idea to send that money to the poor orphan in Nigeria who was dying of cancer in a jail and who only had you out of 6.5 billion people to help him. You were the only one that could save his life.

No one likes to look or feel stupid, but that’s how we learn. That’s what I do for a living. I teach. I teach business owners how to run things better and in order to do that, they have to see what they’ve been doing wrong. That’s where I come in.

I don’t do it to be mean. I do it to help but unless you’re willing to smack your head against a wall a few times, you will never learn.

I have to get them to see why bribing employees is not such a great idea when they’ve been late, non-productive and a Queen Bitch from Hell and that maybe giving them a raise won’t improve their behavior. It actually makes it worse, just like giving a child candy every time they have a temper tantrum.

I have to go over, in great detail, why the person answering the phone needs to be friendly and not say “WHAT?” when picking up the incoming call, even if she’s his niece and is in desperate need of a job because no one else will hire her.

Then there’s the time I had to make a guy feel really moronic in getting him to stop hugging his employees and having “daily affirmations” as part of a staff meeting and to shut the hell up about his political beliefs. Yes, I had to do that and it took a long time of me pounding this into his pinhead for him to finally say “Well, OK, maybe that’s not such a good way to run a business after all.” Ya think?

Or the time I had to make a client feel bad about being online all day rather than, I don’t know, actually running his business?  Boy, did that guy feel pretty stupid by the time I was done with him. But, he never did it again.

I have my own trail of stupidity, so you aren’t alone.

I was stupid when I thought that an abusive man wouldn’t be that way to me. Wrong.

I was stupid when I thought by ignoring the IRS, they would go away. So very wrong.

I was stupid when I thought I could walk all day in 4″ heels. Wrong and I have the damage to my feet to prove it.

I was stupid when I listened to a bonehead “friend” who said I didn’t have the talent to write. I hope the bitch is reading this right now.

And I was incredibly wrong in thinking that the “check oil” light in the car would magically go away. I ended up with a cracked block on that puppy and an enormous bill from the mechanic to prove how stupid I can be.

But, all of these things, I never did again. I don’t hang out with mean people, I pay my taxes on time, I wear flats when spending the day walking around San Francisco and I run to the mechanic anytime something is wrong with my car.

I still bite into hot pizza though. I actually can’t help it.

We all have these trails and rather than be bothered by them, learn from them. You don’t learn about life from reading books.  We learn about life from falling down and getting up again. We learn when we admit we are wrong and try to find a better way the next time.  We learn from our mistakes. We are the only ones that can teach ourselves. We are the only ones that can change who and what we are.

So go out there and make a fool of yourself. Let your weirdness shine. Smack your head against the wall a few times if you need to. Fall down and scrape your knees and get up and do it again. I always tried to tackle that very long and steep street with my roller blades. I have permanent scars on my knees, but I eventually won. It took a whole summer, but I did it. How I never sustained worse injuries than my knees I will never know.

There’s nothing to be afraid of. So what if you make a fool of yourself? Why should you be different from any of us?

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To be forgotten is the worse pain of all

Posted: October 16, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

I just found this out and I realize I’ve been working very hard to not know this.

Very hard. In fact, I’ve tried to not know this for the last 6 months but to no avail.

I’ve been forgotten. It’s true. It’s as if I never existed.

I’d rather be hated and yelled at than not ever be thought of again.

It’s a feeling that runs right into one’s soul and you can’t seem to get your wits around it.

You’ve tried every excuse and justification that you can think of.

1) He’s really busy and doesn’t have time.

2) He knows he blew it and doesn’t know what to do.

3) He thinks about you all the time and is afraid to call.

4) He found someone else and regrets letting you get away and is too proud to admit it.

5) He’s dead, sick, in a coma and can’t call or email.

Round and round it goes. Then you see his posting on Facebook and you know.

He’s fine and doesn’t even think about you. Hasn’t taken the time to respond to your email from a week ago and it’s not because he’s dead, it’s because he just doesn’t care.

You hate social networks and right now think they have all been created by Satan himself in order to torture all us rejected souls and try to make us do something really stupid like blasting someone with a posting or an email or start to obsessively check their page every hour of every day and constantly pull our hand away from the “send” or “enter” key.

You even start to battle the evil thoughts of hoping they are miserable or suffering some imagined disease because of their stupidity in not knowing how you really are worth everything, every sacrifice they could possibly make just to be with you or knowing that your friendship and empathy is so rare that it is to be treasured.

But you know your thoughts and feelings are just bouncing around inside your head and you’ll never speak them. Your friends think you are fine and the honest truth of the matter is, you’re tired of thinking about him and talking about him and there really isn’t anything left to say.

You’ve said it all, thought it all and cried all the tears you possibly can until you cry again. You have endless conversations with him in your head that range from pleasant and fun to you slapping him across the face for his stupidity in letting you go.

You met someone who touched your soul and was a true kindred spirit, or so you thought. When you  admit you were wrong or that it was one-sided, you cringe with embarrassment of your shattered confidence.

You vow never to make this mistake again and that’s the exact moment when you realize you are going down the wrong path. If you go down that rabbit hole then you have admitted that you aren’t worth someone’s love and attention and it will soon come to be.

You forget to tell yourself that the reason you have been forgotten is that it’s their insanity and not yours. You were the one that put yourself out there and you were the one that told them you loved them and when they said they didn’t love you back, you did the ultimate in human kindness and compassion; you continued to love them in spite of them.

You have not been forgotten. You will never be forgotten because someone as wonderful and shiny and beautiful as you will always have difficulty in finding another to love you as you deserve to be loved.

Your friends have told you, over and over, that its him and not you. You try to believe this, but they aren’t the ones sitting at home alone with no one to talk to. They may very well be right, but for right now, you are convinced that you have some unknown character flaw that no one can see but you know it’s there. Besides, they say to you what you’ve said to them. That’s what friends are for and you love them more and more for their kind words and love and the way they view you as perfect and worth all things. You know you are truly blessed.

You are on planet Earth after all and the only mistake you can really make is to stop being you and try to be what you think others want you to be.

For all of those out there, reading this post and feel forgotten by the ones we love,  just know that it’s not true. Maybe your goodness and kindness were too much for someone to handle or understand. Maybe you, like me, needed to learn this and take it to heart that those of us who love unconditionally will get smacked around and not understood by many.

But we are never forgotten. No matter what it feels like or looks like.

No one can possibly forget us.

(Yes, I have “unfriended” him, deleted his email address, phone number and picture from my phone).

Gone, but not forgotten.

Women I have known: Yolanda, Gun Runner.

Posted: October 16, 2011 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

I met Yolanda when I was working with a group of women who were in jail for various reasons, from embezzlement to welfare fraud all the way up to assault with a deadly weapon. How I came to be here is covered in other posts, but there have been many women I have met in my life that for one reason or another, had a profound effect on me.

Some of them are still in my life. Others have come and gone and some of them weren’t so nice, but they changed my life and helped me to be who I am today. Flawed, smart and strong, but very far from perfect.

Yolanda was in one of my classes and always sat in the back and rarely said anything but listened intently with very little expression. She was very hard to read and get a handle on, but she always smiled and nodded her head when she came in and would often give me a “thumbs up” after class was done.

On this particular night, I had just finished up a workshop (I don’t even remember what it was about) and as I was wrapping things up, I asked the group if they had anything they wanted to say before I called it an evening.

Yolanda raised her hand but didn’t say anything. I looked up and saw her with a slight smile on her face. I was exhausted from working all day and then standing on my feet for the last two hours.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She smiled and jumped up out of her chair. “My name is Yolanda. I’ve been in here for two years and I have something I want to say.”

I heard a few chuckles but I ignored them. I was dying to find out what she wanted to say and I was pleased that someone had started the ball rolling.

“Sure Yolanda, what did you want to say?”

“I don’t want to talk in front of the group, so I was wondering if maybe I could talk to you after class.” She looked to be in her mid-30’s, brown-skinned and petite. Her teeth were crooked and she had long black hair that was pulled back in a pony tail. Her skin was clear and smooth and she had dark and dull eyes. When I looked at her, it was as if she was far away and struggling to connect with the people and things around her. She was looking straight at me but there was a lack of connection between her and I.  She could have been talking to anyone.

“Sure, that would be fine,” I said and continued to try to get the group engaged in some type of communication. It was getting late and I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was go home, sit in a hot bath and polish off a bottle of wine. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded.

I dismissed the class. No one said anything to me as the filed out, headed back to their cells and to a future that looked hopeless and bleak. I tried to imagine what that was like as I could see it on their faces. As they walked by, I looked at each one and smiled at the ones that looked at me. A few smiled back and for a moment, I could see them as children, laughing and playing and wondered what could have happened that these women ended up here. I didn’t see one glimmer of hope in any of them. I saw women who were beaten down, shuffling out of one room to go back to a cell and spend the night looking up at the ceiling, knowing the next day coming would be exactly the same as the one before and the one before that.

Yolanda came up to me and smiled. We sat down and I asked her what she wanted to say.

She told me she was only 23 and had five children, four of them in foster care. The youngest one was just a toddler that was being raised by her grandmother. The other four were spread all over California and she wanted my help in making sure they were taken care of. She wanted the foster parents to adopt four of them because it would be the best thing for them.

“Yolanda, there really isn’t anything I can do about it. I’m just here to talk to all of you and see what I can do to help you while you are here and when you are released.”

She hung her head down and started crying. Her body shook violently with each sob. I didn’t know what to do or say so I just put my arms around her shoulders and held her. She cried and cried for a long time and I let her. She would occasionally mumble about what a horrible person she was, how she had messed up so badly and that she loved her children so much that she knew the best thing was for them to have a better Mom. She broke my heart.

Finally she stopped crying, wiped her face and looked up at me.

“Yolanda, what did you do that got you here?” I asked.

“The family business. We’ve been doing the same thing my whole life. Ain’t no big deal. We run guns in and out of Mexico.  I don’t really know what I did wrong that got me here though. Just a bunch of cops showed up one day, busted down the door and arrested us. Took my kids and I’ve been here since then.” She shrugged her shoulders and she said this to me as if we were discussing a grocery list.

“Well, I see. So you got arrested for illegal activities.” I said.

A blank look came over her face. “Well, that was news to me when I got arrested.”

I felt my mouth drop open. I looked at her really hard. She was serious.

“You didn’t know it was illegal?” I asked.

“No. It’s just what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.”

Yes, it was that simple. Just didn’t know. She had never gone to school. They lived out of RV’s and had very little contact with anyone outside of the business. She was sold to men here and there whenever the family needed a little cash.

She was only doing what she knew to do. She was just like me, doing what she had to do to survive. We talked for as long as we could before she was escorted back to her cell. As she was leaving, she turned around, walked over to me and gave me a bear hug. I was stunned at the warmth that emanated from her over to me and the strength in her arms. She held on for a long time before the guard pulled her away, but even then, she had a beautiful smile on her face.

“Thank you for listening to me. I like your class,” she said as she turned the corner. I will always remember the color of her jumpsuit (bright orange so they can’t easily hide) and the spring in her step.

I drove home that night, sad and happy at the same time. I was sad that she was in such a bad position and had never known any other life and I was happy that I had been so lucky for what I had been given from the moment I was born until now. I was lucky; she was not.

I can honestly say that I never judged another person after that.

Self-esteem. Lesson #7. Knock off the drama. You’re not entitled.

Posted: October 9, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

This is a fairly new word that has crept into almost daily conversation.

Drama. We don’t need no stinking drama.

I hear about people not wanting it in their lives. I see it on almost every dating website profile that I have ever read.  NO DRAMA screams the words. I see people getting fired because of “the drama.” I’ve even had clients fire employees because of it. I’ve been seeing quite a bit of it on social networks.

But what does it mean now-a -days? That’s the question that has been bothering me. This word has taken on a new definition and I’m not sure what it means. But I do know what it is when I see it. Oh, it’s oh-so-clear when you see it and I think now I have a new mission in life.

Knock off all the drama. I think I now have zero tolerance for it in myself and in others. Because I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it and I’m tired of dealing with people who think they are entitled. You’re not. You never have been and you never will be.

I recently had a heart-to-heart with an employee of a client. I had been given a head’s up to try to sort this girl out because she was bringing her personal problems to work every day. Apparently she was going through a rough divorce (they’re all rough) and was sad and snappy during the day. The boss liked her enough to send her my way but had lost patience.

There were tears and justifications during the conversation. I sat. I listened. I handed her Kleenex and let her vent. Then I was done. I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. I asked her why she acted like she did and then pointed out her job was at risk.

I wish I could have taken a picture of the look on her face when I told her that. She actually thought she could say whatever she wanted to say because she was entitled. She thought she was ENTITLED to act anyway she wanted because it was everyone else’s problem if they couldn’t deal with it. This included talking back to her boss.

She ended up getting fired because as far as she was concerned, the world evolved around her and what she wanted and what she thought and it didn’t matter what came out of her mouth, she was entitled.

She is not an isolated incident. I’ve been running into this more and more. It has been bugging me for a long time and then it hit me why someone would be so assertive to the point that they crush anyone else’s viewpoint.

They get away with it.  The more they get away with it, the more they do it. They act this way because they hate themselves and their lives so much that they lash out at anyone who doesn’t back down. Why? Because if they can take others down to their own level, it will justify their bad behavior.

It’s a very sick and twisted cycle and the more you let someone get away with it, the more they will do it.

If you actually liked yourself, you would feel no need to assert and dominate others. You would be happy and content with what other people think because you would have certainty about yourself and enough confidence to allow others to be who they are.

You want to feel better about yourself? Then stop treating others badly and having hissy fits over some imagined slight that probably never happened.

I also know when I hear someone adamant about not wanting drama in their lives, they are the first ones to dish it out, so you don’t fool me. I am just as guilty as the next person of being dramatic, but I work hard at not doing that. There are scars on my tongue from biting it and you might want to try doing that if you always feel the need to assert yourself.

The fact of the matter is, when it comes right down to it, most people don’t really care what you think. That’s a harsh reality, but if you can get your wits around it, you’ll actually be able to relax and not have everything be a battle. The people who do care about you will want to know what you think.

Good rule of thumb is not to say what you think unless you are asked.

No one is entitled to anything. Not me, not you. You are not owed anything just because you woke-up and got out of bed. I don’t care who you are.

You are not entitled to a paycheck unless you earn it.

You are not entitled to a successful relationship unless you earn it.

Your employer does not owe you anything just because you showed up for work.

You are not entitled to hurt or harm people with your words and actions. Ever. I don’t care how badly someone may be acting; you don’t get to harm them back. Treat them with as much respect as you can and then walk away. Sever the relationship if you want, but do not get dramatic.

If you care about yourself, you’ll take the high road as often as possible.

In the meantime? Yeah, you got it. Shut-up.

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