Month: October 2019

Before you grab your tissues thinking about the movie, this is not a post about The Notebook starring the super hot Ryan Gosling, the regal Gena Rowlands (love her hair in this film) and the late James Garner (I’ve loved him since The Rockford Files and adore Barbarians at the Gate, and I told him so when I ran into him at the Charlotte airport years ago.) Again, this post is not about the movie. Nope, this post is about actual notebooks.

            People have various purchasing weaknesses. For my husband, it’s Cheez-Its and LPs. For my daughter and son, it’s unicorns and Matchbox cars, respectively. For me, it’s purses, shoes and, you guessed it, notebooks. 

            Look throughout my home and you will find all kinds of journals. Some have been written in and some not, but each one offers promise. I look at notebooks/journals the same way as I view the change of seasons — they’re mini New Year’s Eves. And right now I need all the fresh starts I can find. 

            Amid losing my mother, supporting my dad, revamping my career and realizing that The Tots have one-way tickets for the “tween train,” I am completely unmoored. For a normally decisive person, any decision for me these days is agony (just ask the sweet soul who cut my hair this morning at Great Clips). Acting on a decision once it’s decided is even more impossible, so I grabbed a notebook from my stash and began anew this week. 

            The satisfaction I get from writing my name and contact information in the front of a new notebook with a favorite pen (I fluctuate from Sharpie no-bleeds to Profiles) is right up there with getting to the bottom of the laundry basket or buying a fresh sheet of stamps. As I carefully print my name, I fill with excitement about what will become of my notebook. I’m using this particular one for daily to-do lists and blog ideas, so it will help me remember to send in money for my children’s (I mean tween’s) recorders, as well as remind me to write an entry about my obsession with Harris Teeter’s Fuel Points program.

            The paper in my new notebook is nice and cushiony, and the cover is bright pink and orange (I can’t deal with dull colors in any facet of my life.) I look forward to writing in it every morning, and sometimes I even write in it at night if I’m tapped into my inner Martha Stewart (rare). 

            It’s a little thing, but if my 47 trips around the sun have taught me anything, it’s that little things carry just as much weight as their large counterparts. Sometimes a bad day can be revoked by a good parking space. Sometimes a stranger’s smile at the dry cleaners can make you realize that people aren’t so awful after all. Sometimes a warm blanket can make you feel like everything will be okay when things are so not okay. And sometimes a new notebook can give you the confidence you need to believe that things will get better. 

            That said, I will continue to write down everything I need to do each day, whether it’s picking up apples at the Teeter (points!), finding a gift for a kid’s birthday party or scheduling dinner with my dad, because each piece helps me build a future, and that’s no small thing. 

            For years my husband has begged me to not care so much about what people think of me. It’s not that he doesn’t want me to care at all; it’s just that he doesn’t want me to put so much emphasis on other’s opinions of me. He’s onto something, as it’s important to care a little, but it’s toxic to care too much, which happens to be where I’ve lived most of my life. .

            I’m the one who leaves parties replaying conversations in her head to make sure she didn’t say anything offensive (even if it was what I really thought). I’m the one who then apologizes to the friends (or random souls) that I happened to converse with at said party about a comment that they no longer remember. You can see what a huge waste of time and energy this is, and the truth is that it’s not all about me. It never has been, and it never will be.

            When you finally realize that every single action in your life doesn’t have to please, let alone affect, every single person in the world, you can begin living your own life. I’m just beginning to follow my arrow, and there are plenty of times when I relapse into my people pleasing tendencies. However, I have found that when I’m true to myself, things go so much better for me — and ironically for everyone around me. 

            We live in a world that is obsessed with perfection. It seems like almost every television show features a competition. You can’t just make a good cupcake. You have to make a cupcake that’s infused with bacon, looks like a geode and leaves a taste of marmalade in your mouth. Even if you accomplish this baking feat, there are three to four perfectly coifed judges (many with exotic accents and who look as if they’ve never been in the same room with a cupcake) that will tell you what you did wrong. 

            Don’t misunderstand me, constructive criticism is essential to becoming better at anything, but these shows revolve around petty comments and vapid commentary. They aren’t improving anything except their inflated opinions of themselves. 

            While you can turn off your television, which I highly recommend, you can’t turn off people’s tendencies to judge and critique. I’m judgmental, and I hate that about myself. If I see someone wearing what I deem is a ridiculous outfit, my mind instantly puts them on a Glamour Don’t page. It’s a terrible habit that I’m trying to break, but the problem is that our society isn’t trying to break it at all because it’s all we do. (I feel obligated right now to share my stance on the return of “high-waist mom jeans.” Anyone who was a teenager in the 1980s knows that this is a dreadful mistake that has no place in anyone’s wardrobe. No one looks good in these things. I repeat no one. Make it stop.) 

            Last week I went to a performance at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. This is sacred ground for country music and music in general. My dear friend who just moved to Nashville treated me to a Dolly Parton tribute concert. The level of musicianship I heard that evening was astounding. These folks could play and sing anything on demand. 

            At the end of the evening, a singer came on stage and began singing Parton’s hallmark hit I Will Always Love You (aka the Olympics of belting). The band gave her one note, and she began beautifully singing the first verse a capella. When the band came back in, she was way off key. Instead of pretending it didn’t happen and switching to their key, she stopped singing and asked if she could try it again. The keyboardist gave her the note, she sang the first verse beautifully once more and this time when the band came in, she nailed it. By the end of the song, folks were giving her a standing ovation, and I was one of the first ones on my feet. 

            This young woman had a magical voice, so much so that I’ll probably attend a tribute concert for her one day, but what I loved about her the most was that she screwed up and tried again. She owned that she wasn’t perfect right in the middle of the Ryman Auditorium stage. It was one of the coolest performances I’ve ever seen, and it made me respect her not just as an artist, but also as a human being. 

            I’ve screwed up a lot in my lifetime, and I’m not finished making mistakes. For years I would hide my blunders — think SAT scores, bangs, taking the wrong job, my lack of knowledge regarding literary classics and believing that Sun-In was a viable hair-coloring tool. I was afraid that if people discovered I wasn’t perfect or that I wasn’t the perfect person they envisioned me to be, I would disappoint them. It’s only been in the past couple of years that I’ve realized how much that doesn’t matter one damn bit.  

            I am who I am. I’m messy. I wasn’t a debutante. I hate iceberg lettuce. I’ve never read Little Women or seen The Sound of Music. My 47-year-old face still breaks out. There are people in this world that I really don’t like. I don’t understand why folks are obsessed with the Kardashians. My teeth are chipped because I grit them so hard when I sleep. I go to IKEA to buy my good furniture. I never watched Downton Abbey until I went to see the movie with my friends. And I hate snow skiing. There, the truth is out. 

             I AM NOT PERFECT, but I am perfectly good at being me. Slowly but surely, I’m beginning to see that that’s not so bad, and that, my friends, is a tremendous Wink of Goodness. 

            The beauty of our lives is in the messes we make and what we do with them. If we kick them under the rug, they lose their power. If we bring them out into the light, we can study them carefully, reaping wisdom by the score. 

            This past year has been one of the hardest of my life, but I know that I will forever refer back to it because of the lessons I learned. If 2019 had been all sunshine and rainbows, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. So while society keeps perpetuating its obsession with perfection, I’ll be applauding for the singers out there starting over. 

            It finally happened. Summer’s fever broke. This past Saturday, I awoke to what can best be described as a crisp fall day, complete with a few rain sprinkles and fallen leaves for extra credit. 

            As soon as I breathed in the cool air, I began making plans to give my front stoop the makeover I had promised. For weeks, I walked down my front steps while scorched geraniums stared back at me with the expression of “really?” I reassured them that once it was cool I would take them out of their misery, but I refused to replace them with anything that was remotely living until I knew that we were indeed autumn bound.

            By Sunday afternoon, the back of my minivan was filled with yellow pansies and orange pumpkins. (If my car weren’t so messy, it would have looked like a Lands’ End ad.) I quickly slipped on my garden gloves and went to work, casting away plants made crunchy by a relentless summer and a lazy waterer. It felt good to rip away the old and replace with the new. 

            As I tucked the yellow blossoms into their new home, I knew that I wasn’t just planting flowers. I was laying a foundation of hope for the fall — for me and for so many of my friends. Recent conversations (and posts for the matter) have brought me to the conclusion that almost everyone I love is going through something challenging right now.         

For some, it’s health issues — big ones. For others, it’s work transitions, complicated marriages or kid troubles. Regardless of the details, it’s all for real, and one of the best ways to show that you believe things can get better is to plant something. By sticking a plant in the ground, you’re telling yourself and the rest of the world that you think it has a chance of becoming something better, something that can make people happy. There’s no reason we can’t think the same of ourselves.

            I’ve always looked at the change of seasons as little New Year’s Eves. They offer us a chance to start fresh, make new goals and even dress differently. And the best part is that it’s not a big deal. Yes, people want to scarf down anything pumpkin –flavored as soon as the calendar turns to October (I keep waiting for pumpkin-flavored cough syrup), but the world isn’t forcing you to set resolutions and reinvent yourself every Halloween. This is your little secret, and that makes it a powerful Wink of Goodness. 

            If things are going well for you, by all means, continue cruising through the calendar. But if your summer was a hot mess, which it literally was if you live in the South, this is your opportunity to go a different way and see what’s down another road. If you’re at an intersection, open your eyes and you’ll see me trying to figure out which way to go. I haven’t charted a course yet, but I have faith that I will. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have planted flowers. 

Every Friday I share the Winks of Goodness I experienced throughout the week in the hopes of inspiring you to do the same thing. I’ve found that writing down and formally acknowledging these suckers gives them more power. I encourage you to share your own Weekly Winks on my site (still figuring some technical stuff out on that if you have trouble) or social media. So look around and write it down — share the goodness.   

Saturday — A yellow butterfly flew by as we were packing our minivan in the driveway, preparing to leave for Lake Tillery. Thanks, mom. 

Sunday— I met my friend’s new baby during his first trip to Lake Tillery. This adorable bundle of goodness is less than two weeks old. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. It’s all about the circle, and he was such a beautiful reminder of that.  

Monday — During my run at the lake, I saw two bluebirds immediately after I passed a house with a bluebird flag and mailbox. Later in the day, two more bluebirds flew to the top of our gazebo. To understand the significance of bluebirds at Lake Tillery (Stanly County), click on The Little Bird tab on my homepage. 

Tuesday— Our next-door neighbor at the lake did her homework early so she could play with The Tots. A junior in high school, she took the time to fish, canoe and swim with them. And it was all her idea. 

Wednesday— I woke up with two cats snuggling next to me. They missed us just as much as we missed them while we were gone. 

Thursday — I interviewed a man who truly loves his work. Inspiring. 

Friday— Miami Sound Machine’s Conga came on the radio as I drove Graydon to school. He immediately closed his book and started dancing in the backseat. It made my whole day!

Happy week!