CHANGE OF PLAN

None of us can predict what the new day has in store for us. Having a routine and leaving a little room for the unexpected allows you to adjust to both the unexpected problems and the possibilities which may be coming your way. Life teaches us that even when things seem relatively normal, suddenly you, or someone near you, might find yourself dodging some unexpected curve in the road.

Yesterday for example, was a fairly normal day. Personally, I did not have any particular or urgent problems. Among other things I got a haircut, which as most women know, usually helps you look better and translated for females into feeling better too.

When I saw a friend passing by the café I was in, I made a point of talking to him and asking about our mutual friend who is undergoing Cancer treatments at this time.

  

Meanwhile, my own situation was not giving me big problems and the rest of my day involved a fairly mundane and routine day, such as congratulating my nieces on their graduation day tomorrow and checking that my cards to them arrived. The day ended with doing a large laundry.

So, you wake up today and things again seem relatively normal. We all know the routine, stagger out of bed, make a coffee, look at what we have to get done today and plan to go to the bank as well, both to pay a bill and get some cash for the upcoming long weekend.

A call to a friend to make plans for a get together causes us to have to check for which day we are meeting someone else for our appointment with them. The second person tells us his wife had a mild heart attack last Sunday and hadn’t wanted any phone calls right away. Also, their car just broke down last night and needs repairs. Our meeting with them will be delayed.

Your normal day is slightly changed. However, their days have not been ‘normal’ for a week. Any plans you were making with them have to go on hold. Their situation is obviously more serious, as was that of your friend in treatment.

The point is, whatever you expect might be happening today or tomorrow, you will be able to accommodate them better life leave some room for the ‘change of plans’, life may require of you.

The changes are not always in response to some emergency, it is just being realistic and leaving a bit of time for what comes up unexpectedly in your day. Then, when you have a change in your plans it does not cause quite as much upset as it might if you didn’t have any flexibility and were solidly loaded down from morning till night.

P.S. And then tonight, a friend says that she has just learned she had a ‘silent’ heart attack at some point. As I said, it started as a normal day for me…but life takes off and goes on all around us. Best to leave some room for the unexpected, so it doesn’t throw you too far off kilter.

GOING BALLISTIC

Usually most of us don’t want to live our lives being angry and upset about everything. We find instead that most situations are lived with, and usually easily resolved, by our using common sense and making reasonable judgments in the course of our daily lives.

I think it is safe to say, even about subjects we feel more strongly about, most of us don’t often abandon cooperation and diplomacy. Of course, things sometimes happen which might be delay or upset us, but usually few people are seriously harmed when some of life’s small daily inconveniences intrude briefly in our lives.

  

Even when we feel we need to voice stronger opinions or disagreement with someone else, most of us will pick our battles. 

   

I personally save my greatest indignation for people who I consider just plain stupid. Particularly those making thoughtless statements that can be fatal to others, are what annoys and even angers me.

What I go ballistic about is someone declaring that, if they were they to get Cancer, they personally will not permit treatment.

I usually suggest that anyone who knows such a person, should respond to them by asking what type of flowers this person would like sent to their funerals.

I also wouldn’t advise them to go running their mouth on this subject in front of me.

I worry especially because such declarations, unlike a lot of gratuitous (and often worthless) free advice, is different in that it might actually prove fatal to someone who paid attention to it, rather than to what their considerably better informed medical people suggest.

Instead of talking rubbish, I think I have a nice tidy solution to any little frisson of discomfort such a tricky subject might arouse in them.

I think they might buy themselves a nice T-shirt and matching running shoes; then pose for the media in their cute little outfits. Maybe, if they can spare the time, they might perhaps pass out badges or water for a few minutes at some charitable fundraising event. 

They will be able to congratulate themselves on how noble, kind and generous they are for another year. Later, after they stop on the way home to buy themselves an extra serving of organic veggies for dinner, they will feel reassured that they take so much better care of themselves than everyone else, that such a problem will never be theirs. An added bonus is that they can also tell their friends of their noble contribution to this ‘terrible problem’.

I feel no qualms about my own righteous indignation on this subject since I long ago needed to personally decide whether I was going to play ‘russian roulette’ with my own life by declining treatment.

Facing your possible imminent mortality is something most of us would wish to avoid at almost any cost. When you are given no choice, however, it is truly ‘crunch time’. Often there is an added concern that often there might be no time to waste.

I wrote about my own experiences in an earlier essay a few years ago about what life is like Before Cancer and how it changes your life irrevocably After Cancer is diagnosed.

I expect that the rather undiplomatic hospital department head who told me and the other doctor’s in the room, ‘this patient can live, BUT not without treatment’ might actually have prolonged my life since the Millennium.

I was quite upset and wanted to run away. I remember that I felt the need to get dressed quickly. However, I also realized that I had better quickly make a decision to accept the hospitals generous offer.

I sensed that I had few alternatives, and there were likely so many, many other desperate people who would appreciate any help at all. The added concern is that, if I delayed I might make a decision quickly enough to save my life.

Yes, it’s a personal choice, but one with consequences for your life and that of anyone who cares for you. Choose wisely.

Let others, who have the luxury of philosophizing about it theorize about what they think they might do should they someday be placed in the unenviable, possibly life threatening position in which you presently find yourself.

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

It’s true that breaking up with someone you’ve had a relationship with is hard to do. It sometimes feels like there is probably enough pain and sorrow to last us all a lifetime. Mercifully, although occasionally it does last a lifetime, usually it does not.

Yesterday someone told me that they were trying again to permanently end a 3 year relationship. She also said that some young guys in our building were also suffering recent break ups.

I can’t say I’m surprised. In fact, I suspect these days there are probably more people than ever walking around with heartache and sorrow about recently broken relationships. 

In general, I think that probably most people no longer hang around to work on a relationship, even when it might have worked out; they seem instead to push off and go on to the next one instead.

However, experience teaches us that healing emotionally takes longer than just physically leaving a relationship. In fact, when a breakup is fresh, it is hard to believe we will ever feel better and that one day it will all vaguely be part of your past; but it is true. 

Time really does heal all wounds and wounds all heels, but not for a while.  

I found it personally interesting a week or so ago when I spotted someone from a few years ago. He did not see me and we did not talk as I was going by in a bus. I briefly remembered thinking about how long it took for me to get on with my life because I took a long time to say goodbye for good and not let him come back into my life over and over again with occasional phone calls.

  

Seeing him again, after all this time, I thought, he looks tidy and neat. He is wearing a nice pair of sunglasses. I wondered what he is doing in my area, last I heard he was running a business out of town? Finally, and perhaps significantly, I wondered who he might be sponging off now. Very different observations from those I would have made while we were involved.

Nevertheless, each of us in our own time eventually is able to take our own advice and practice what we preach. We finally, if belatedly, do KISS YOUR EX GOODBYE – AND – tell them not to call again. Shortly after you realize you can begin to move forward again.

Long ago I wrote an essay: KISS YOUR EX GOODBYE – FRIENDS I THINK NOT. Like most people perhaps, it just took a while for me to take my own advice and get my life back.

MOVING YOURSELF FORWARD

I was lucky to have not ever needed to be PERFECT. I remember meeting this very beautiful girl in my 20’s who became, and still is my best friend. One day however, several months after we met, to my astonishment, she suddenly burst into tears. The cause was apparently because she was not Perfect.

Meanwhile back in my world, I had already been told that I must be terribly conceited if I thought that people seeing me among all the people they saw, especially pointed me out and commented on my flaws. After my initial shock at being called conceited in the face of my own timidity and shyness, I saw the point.

It’s been a long time since either of those events but I have come to believe that in reality, most of the people out there have enough of their own concerns, including about their own appearance, to give more than a passing thought to mine.

The latest craze for selfies is something I find very odd. Maybe it translates into a belief that you are the ‘star’ of your own life. That’s the only reason why I could see someone wanting to chronicle so much of their lives in photos. Meanwhile the ‘photo bomber’ approach to someone else’s photos strikes me as crude, rude and childish* However, considering how often it’s done, maybe other people think it’s stellar.

I think the rest of us are more likely to be somewhere in between on just how much notice we deserve and how much we get, especially based on looks. Likely safer to say that, your average person (texting virtually non-stop) can probably hardly be counted on to see anything they aren’t taking a photo of.

Generally, I suggest that you leave most of your self-consciousness at the door, along with most of your ego. In short, work on Getting Over Yourself. Everyone else probably has moved on to someone more interested in people other than themselves. Who knows you might learn something new, make a new friend, or just generally feel that the people you saw, seemed glad to see you and enjoyed your company. Sounds good to me.

*PHOTO BOMB - pho·to·bomb - ˈfōdōˌbäm/ - spoil a photograph of (a person or thing) by unexpectedly appearing in the camera's field of view as the picture is taken, typically as a prank or practical joke.

TIME PASSAGES

The end of something often makes us think back to what has gone before. Perhaps we are just made this way. Possibly it is how we mark the passage of time in our lives.

Last night one of my nieces went to her High School Prom. Next week both of them will Graduate from High School. If such an important day in their lives doesn’t remind us that time is passing, probably nothing will.

At the same time, this particular event usually makes each of us reflect upon our own graduation. We later realize that this day is really important in our lives because it actually turns out to be the first time most of us realize that we have grown up and are adults.

We can’t help but remember how we felt at that time in our own lives. Most of us heard somewhere that our whole lives were ahead of us and the world was ‘out there’ and filled with opportunities. Something in us seemed to tell us that ‘the sky’s the limit’ and everything in life was ready to welcome us with open arms.

Do you remember when you still had no sense of mortality? Many of us do feel, and act with some sense of immortality, especially when we are that age. For some reason, you think you are going to live forever, or at least, many of us act as if we do. We seem ready to try anything, go anywhere and charge forward. It is, I remember, really exhilarating as well.

Meanwhile, when I meet my mother’s friend and contemporary who is 92 now and we have lunch together, we reflect on the fact that my mother died 21 years ago next month.

We also remember that the nieces who are graduating next week never met their grandmother. Something in us makes us pause and realize again that time ‘marches on’ and is again undeniably taking us through a new generations passage into adulthood. How can you not marvel?

An interesting song by Al Stewart and Peter White from 1978 called Time Passages reflected that ‘the years run too short and the days too fast’ and ‘the things you lean on are the things do not last’.* In retrospect we know how right they were in seeing this, when they and we, were still pretty young. I would say however, that they just saw this a lot sooner than most of us did.

Perhaps the rest of us just play catch up with what is important when we pause and take the time to mark important events and ‘rites of passage’ in our own and other people’s lives.

Maybe it doesn’t matter when we become wise enough to acknowledge important events in our lives and in the lives of those we care about. Maybe the important thing is that we somehow have reached the point where we understand that to go forward, you need to be smart enough to acknowledge and reflect upon where you have been. 

To consciously move forward in life, I think that, most if not all us, must be willing and able to take a breath in between, the passages of time in our lives.

*Time Passages by Al Stewart and Peter White, 1978.

DUSTING OFF THE BUCKET LIST

Another half year passing has me looking at my current Bucket List. Usually I have one going and although I don’t write it down, always somewhere in the back of my mind is a great long bunch of things I’d like to do.

This year for example, I began watching ALL of the Anthony Bourdain programmes I could access. Pretty soon, I had seen all of the No Reservations and other series, begun reading his books and bought the Les Halles cookbook. I found myself really enjoying these.

However, as the saying goes, I CREATED A MONSTER because, as usual, one thing lead to another. Soon I found myself viewing DVD’s and programmes about as many of the 3 star Michelin chefs as I could, then buying their books, then watching programmes about food bloggers and A Year in Champagne etc. The above is, I assure you, just the tip of the iceberg.

Ultimately the result is that I have seen wonderful programmes and series and my DVD and book collections have vastly increased.

For good or ill, Chef Jose Andres has with his 2 season ‘made in spain’ series, reinvigorated my interest in visiting a lot more of Spain and shoved it right up to the top of my Bucket List.

Considering that Spain has become a Culinary Mecca and also since I have found that the food (and wine?) leaves me feeling so healthy, I am pretty happy about dusting off my Bucket List and, at the very least, making another trip around this fascinating country ASAP. So much so that later this year, my major trip of the year will be to Spain.

If like me, you have wondered where the time has gone this year, perhaps like me, you too will dust off your own list of hopes and dreams and check off a few more life experiences you want to have while you can.

Hope you move along with yours, and wish me well with mine. Meanwhile, I can already taste the delicious Valencia orange juice, olives, Paella and think the Prado and flamenco and even sunny Espana in general might just be what I need to give the latest Bucket List a good kick start. Ole!

STILL STANDING or STANDING STILL?

You wake up again in the morning and you realize that another half a year has passed. Every time you do this, you are a bit shocked. It’s not however the first time you’ve noticed that time seems to be flying by. Perhaps that’s what makes it easier to push the thought of time passing away and go on with your day. This is something we all do.

None of us however, especially if we are Women, has not on some occasion or other had a friend or relative, or especially a parent, remind us that we are not getting any younger. The value of pointing this out is perhaps debatable. Nevertheless, they may also be reminding us, and themselves that there are things we want to accomplish before we are finished with this life.

I think this is what the passage of time signifies and why each of us to some extent is effected, or possibly sometimes even ruled by the clock. Even when we don’t think we are, some helpful soul comes up and says ‘chop, chop – 'tempus fugit’ or some variation of the same.

Would I be ‘raining on your parade’ and my own, if I mention that they are right and we know it? I say this because next week another half year has passed and my latest ‘bucket list’ has been on the back burner for far too long.

Time truly feels to us as flying by, passing far too quickly with each passing year. Possibly the person who says ‘there is no time like the present’ to get moving on some project, or plan or dream is the wise one. Maybe they are more aware than most of us are and actually have or may actually accomplish more by being more conscious of this reality.

Meanwhile, instead of continuing to push our hopes and dreams back, we might actually take a moment when next we realize that time is flying by to finally consciously bring something from our ‘wish list’ into our lives.

I fear and suspect that this is probably the only way that we might ever include and bring our dreams and hopes into our actual lives. As people say, ‘time waits for no man’ and it truly does seem to ‘fly’ by otherwise.