Is it what it is?

This may end up being a long-read blog entry. I’ll apologize now for that. But this has been buzzing around so much in my head that it keeps me awake at night, so I feel compelled to share it. This is my true story:

I have a new man in my life. His name is Craig. He is nice-looking (a plus), taller than me (always a plus!), confident without seeming cocky. He’s a bit younger than me (age is just a number, right?). He is both physically fit and physically active. He is a bit of a risk-taker (he’s bungee jumped multiple times!). He also takes great pride in his success and is almost like a “kid on Christmas morning” when he’s been successful.

Before we met, we talked by phone. We both understood that our ‘relationship’ would be one of physicality only, in order to meet aching physical needs.

I’ve seen Craig five times now. Our first time together was magical! I didn’t really know how deep my needs were until he satisfied them! I left him feeling rejuvenated and refreshed in a way I didn’t think was any longer possible. I got to see him a second time that week and, if possible, it was even better than the first time!

We always meet at his place. He has all of the accoutrements there to make things go more smoothly. As I’ve gotten more comfortable being with him, I’ve opened up to trusting him with, how do I say this…., different tools and positions. I got to be with him two times the next week as well, and always left him feeling so much more alive. It was fun to see him act almost joyfully whenever he got my body to respond to him, like I said, a kid on Christmas morning.

Then, last week happened…… I went to see him, looking forward to our time together. Things started out as before, and my body was learning how to be responsive to his touch, looking beyond any fleeting and momentary pain to the reward awaiting me on the other side. But last week ended up very different. In the last moments of our time together, he put me into a physical position that felt awkward. It was only slightly uncomfortable, but it was just odd. Still, I trusted him and moved and twisted as he wished. And then….. then he slammed into me with the entire weight of his body, making me cry out in unanticipated pain. And with that, my time with him was over.

On my way out, he told me he didn’t want to see me again until the next week. That raised questions, but he didn’t give me time to ask them. I wasn’t happy about that, but accepted it as what had to be.

Later, after I’d done my errands and settled down to eat and either read or watch TV, I started replaying those events in my mind. (I tend to do that most of the time – ruminate over something that happened recently.) When I stood up after a bit, my entire body felt like it was going to fold over and fall down! I ached from my shoulders to my hips and felt like an elderly lady with a serious case of osteoporosis, I was so bent over! The next day, I was still a little achy and sore and a little upset that he had hurt me like that.

Now, I’m supposed to meet up with him this coming week, and I’m nervous. I keep asking myself if that kind of pain was worth the pleasure and release from my other achiness. If I tell him, how will he react? I think he’d probably tell me he was sorry, tell me he didn’t mean to cause me that kind of hurt, and a part of me thinks he might tell me it was for my own good.

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As I said upfront, this is a true story. There is nothing in what I’ve just shared that didn’t happen. BUT, before you are ready to shake my shoulders, knock some sense into me, or plead with me to get away from him as fast as I can go, there are some other things you need to know. You see, I’ve told you the truth – but I haven’t told you the complete truth.

Craig is actually Dr. Craig (last name intentionally omitted). Dr. Craig is a Doctor of Chiropractic. I initiated contact with him because of ongoing pain in my right hip and some new pains in my neck (whiplash from a roller-skating accident 20+ years ago). Our relationship is totally of a physical nature. He has worked magic in these areas, as well as others. His accoutrements are different treatment tables and equipment, which is why we always meet at “his place”, his office. And yes, he really did contort me into a very odd position last week and then slam himself into me. My right hip was not being cooperative in aligning back where it belonged, and after using all of the tools at his disposal to try and manipulate it into position, he used his body weight. And yes, when he can get a patient’s body to realign in the way it was designed, he gets super-excited knowing he’s just relieved that patient’s pain in that area. Oh, and the reasons he slowed down my appointments are probably both for the progress that is being made as well my insurance coverage.

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And that, as Andy Rooney would say, is the REST of the story. I’ll remind you again – I’ve told you no falsehoods, nothing fake – but I set out to give you an incomplete picture in order to sway your thinking to a natural disposition based on what was presented to you. This action has been around for years, and it’s only gotten worse. Reality shows do some intense editing in order to omit things that blur the ‘idea’ of what has happened in the way they want you to see it. The concept of ‘taken out of context’ is exactly what those producers use to sway our opinions in a certain direction. Reporters, their editors, the station’s affiliates and even their commercial sponsors all seek to deceive us by giving us only information that sways us to lean towards what they think and believe. And we accept that because we trust those reporters, editors, station affiliates and brand name sponsors.

I don’t believe in the idea of “fake news”. I believe that what we are being told is truthful. I do, however, strongly believe in the idea of incomplete news, whether it be by things ‘taken out of context’ or by limiting the information so it becomes incomplete news.

So, let me ask you this…………. Is it what it is?

Guilt – the gift that keeps on giving

Recently, a fellow blogger (check her out at www.coffeekat.blog for her Views and Mews by Coffee Kat) wrote an excellent blog about guilt in friendships. Since a blog on guilt was in my queue, I decided to move up its priority while her blog was still fresh in my mind.

Sometime in my tween years, I ‘learned’ that guilt was a strong hold in the Catholic faith. I wasn’t raised in that faith, but I didn’t have reason to doubt the authenticity of that idea. Nonetheless, I suffered (and still suffer) from a lot of guilt. Back then, I felt it, but just didn’t really know what it was.

I am, by nature, both a giver and a people pleaser. As a child, I was not only the middle child but the only girl. I learned pretty quickly that my parents responded fastest to negative behaviors by their children, and those responses were never pleasant, so I learned how to try and be invisible. My mother, may she rest in peace, had a large wooden paddle – with her name engraved on it, no less – and she was not afraid to weld it. She was also quick to anger and believed in the idea of punishing first and asking questions later. I know my people-pleasing nature evolved during those years as a result.

But the Catholics are not the only ones who practice guilt. I’ve since come to understand that the ‘gift of guilt’ comes in any faith. It is a great tool for people who like to criticize or find fault in others, a great tool for people who want to express their disappointment. “If only you would……, then I…….”. In other words, what you say or don’t say, what you did or didn’t do is the reason I feel the way I do. How selfish is that? Any psychotherapist will be quick to tell us that our feelings are OUR responsibility, that our happiness lays in OUR hands. Of course, at the same time, they tell us that we are entitled to our feelings. Perhaps therein lay the conundrum?

It’s a long, often painful, process to walk away from the people who tend to heap guilt. I have no doubt that family is the first, and biggest, unit to hand out guilt like it’s a gift. They tell you that the negativity they share with you about your words and/or actions is “for your own good”. What that really means is that they want you to adapt your behavior to fit a mold of how they want you to behave. It’s not that wanting us to change, if there is a none-self-centered reason, isn’t a bad thing. Maybe we’re not aware of a way we behave that is harmful to others. But there surely are better ways to tell us so than through the gift of guilt?

I am probably always going to be a slow learner in recognizing that the guilt card is being continually played. It takes me a while to truly see how another is manipulating me for their own benefit and that our relationship exists primarily for that reason. But I’m doing it – and I’m encouraging you ALL to take a look at those relationships in which you always feel defensive and prepared for attack. And when the “light bulb” lights and you see it, be aware for guilt to be heaped upon you once you are no longer front and center in fulfilling another’s needs by overlooking your own. I still feel a small amount of guilt for friendships I’ve walked away from once it became obvious that they would remain the same, no matter how much I tried to change them. But I’ll take the small and occasional guilt feelings as a positive exchange for not having the weight of making sure their needs are met and getting nothing in return.

Guilt is, in my opinion the “gift that keeps on giving”. Once you start to accept it, it becomes more and more difficult to say, “Thank you but no thank you” and stop accepting it. But your happiness comes from within you (or so those therapists say) and you deserve to be happy in your relationships.

The Solace of Silence

I begin this post with respect for my dear friend, Ellen, who was deaf in one ear when I met her and proceeded to go deaf in the other ear as well. I can’t begin to know or understand what it’s like to live in 100% silence 100% of the time, and I send her highest regards for continuing to live her life without cynicism in this hearing world.

As I get older, I find I cannot tolerate cacophony for any length of time. That includes large groups of people, crowded restaurants, loud music (even music I like!). I live alone now, and have done so for more than half of my adult life. Roommates were tolerable because it wasn’t expected of me to be present and in communication regularly.

I shake my head at people who turn on the TV from the moment they wake up and who leave it on until it’s time for bed. I don’t understand that need for background noise. I watch very little TV – the local news is the only time my TV is guaranteed to be on daily. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t “binge watch” shows the way some people do.

And telephone conversations are almost a thing of the past. When I find it necessary to make calls for things like scheduling appointments, etc., I line them up and do them all in the same period of time. I don’t live with my cell phone nearby to respond to any alert of communication, by text, email, social media, etc.

My career required me to be upfront and present, to talk with guests and colleagues as well as make and take phone calls. I remember being so tired from all of the noise around me for those hours that I almost craved silence when I got home.

I also use a fan while I sleep. I enjoy both the movement of air and the single monotonous tone it provides that largely blocks out any other noise that might occur.

Some of you know that idea of ‘if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?’ I wonder if that’s true even in silence. Do the soft snowflakes falling from a gray sky make a sound that we can’t hear? There are videos that support that there is a sound when snow falls, though science dispels it.

Simon and Garfunkel had a popular hit back in the day called, “The Sounds of Silence”. Was the title literal or metaphorical?

Does a ray of sunshine beaming down make a noise we don’t hear; a flower blooming as it unfolds form a bud? Just because we can’t hear it, does that mean that the sound does not exist?

How hard it is for man to accept solace and comfort away from the care of modern life – away from television and subliminal requests for attention that people make upon one another. How hard others work to fill in silence, for fear that silence brings a disquieted sense of foreboding that lurks like dark clouds overhead just before a parade is supposed to start.

How joyful then, is to accept that silence, to sit unhampered by the sound of a world always in motion. It has required me to find a contentedness within me in order to accept the solace of silence. Unlike my friend, Ellen, I have the choice of when to listen to the outer world and when to be in silence. If forced to make a choice between the two, however, I’m pretty certain I’d choose silence.

What about you?

It’s a Small, Small World…..

Often throughout my childhood, I remember my mother looking at me and saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” I didn’t know what she meant, only that it wasn’t said as a compliment.

Fast forward many years later to a late summer afternoon when I am taking a guided tour of Antietam National Battleground on a date. This wasn’t necessarily something I was looking forward to, but it was of great interest to my date and I was happy just to be spending time with him. I tried to listen and pay attention because I knew he would want to talk about what we heard over dinner. And, of course, we did.

I recall this scenario as if it were yesterday, because it was a ‘lightbulb’ moment for me. When I asked, “What was the most memorable part of the tour?”, the response was about the bloodiest day in history and how many people died in that single battle. Then, I got the same question asked of me, and without pre-thought, said, “When the guide talked about the battle being so aggressive that if your buddy next to you went down, wounded or dead, you just closed ranks and continued moving forward.” My date had a picture of the entire forest, and I was centered around and focused on one tree.

Yep, the lightbulb went on. And processing that later, I came to realize that my world – the world I live my life in – is a small picture, a very small picture – based often on the effect to one or a few rather than the affect to many.

I don’t watch the World News or any of the ‘all the news all the time’ channels. It’s not that I wouldn’t glance at it if I were somewhere where it was on, but because I absorb so much mentally and emotionally within my own small world, I simply don’t feel like I have the capacity to grasp anything going on outside it.

I don’t call myself an empath, and I’m not sure I’d qualify as one. When someone is feeling something, I don’t really feel what they are feeling. What I feel is what I think I would feel if I were in their shoes. I may be 100% accurate, or I may be 100% wrong. I just always seem to be in some state of feeling – it is emotionality that I believe is at the center core of me. Nonetheless, there is plenty to absorb in my small, small world, and I suspect I absorb more than my share.

I’d like, on some level, to be well-traveled like my friend, Marnette. She’s always flitting off to this country or that country, she loves history and architecture and experiencing other cultures. It doesn’t hurt that she studies the area she is planning on visiting, so that she is able not to feel overwhelmed by it all. I get to live vicariously through her photos and tidbits that she willingly shares on Facebook, and I feel content with that.

While that sounds exciting, I truly do prefer staying here in my own small world, traveling to places close by or already visited. I’ve learned to accept that I will never be knowledgeable about what is going on in the world, contenting myself with knowing that I have plenty to see and learn within my small world boundaries.

Yes, it’s a small, small world, and I’m happy to live within it…..

O

Does “Big Brother” know more than we think?

This little something-something is from my beloved brother. We are the only family each other has now, as close as two people can be while living in two separate bodies (his is better looking – and younger – than mine!). He’s a really great story teller and has some of the funniest yet strange things happen to him. He shared this with me and offered it to me for my blog. So here it is…..

Just noticed this situation this morning. So you know that when you search for things on the internet, your ISP provider knows what you look for. That is why they can push ads on a page that are geared to your interests. I remember when I was shopping for camping gear, I would get ads on Yahoo mail from all types of outfitters and camp equipment manufacturers. When I was looking for places to stay at the Dragon, I would get ads for Trivago, VRBO, and such. It is a little creepy as it has the “big brother” vibe of being watched. None of this is bad, and that is not my complaint. Here is where it went south for me though.


This morning I log onto Yahoo mail to check my email, and the first two ads I am hit with are for funeral homes. When the page refreshes and the ads change it is now a funeral home and life insurance. The next refresh and it is Estate Planning and Organ Donation. WTF? I feel like Yahoo knows something I don’t. As I precaution, I will not be leaving the house today.

50 Shades of Gray

I’m semi-borrowing the title from an infamous trilogy of books and movies made from those books.  I’ve read the trilogy, avoided the movies.  However, that is not what this blog article is about.

Imagine yourself in the studio audience for a talk show where there was to be a special audience give-away.  The host asks everyone to stand up.  Then the host begins issuing directions to the audience in steps in order to narrow the winning field.

“If you have ever cheated on your taxes, such as including a personal trip as a business expense or even something as small as ‘padding’ the amount of donations of tangible goods you gave, please sit down.”  Next is, “If a cashier ever gave you too much change and you didn’t point out the error and give it back, please sit down.”  After that comes the instruction, “If you’ve ever been in a waiting room reading an article in one of the magazines provided but didn’t have time to finish it, so you either tore out the article or took the whole magazine with you, please sit down.”

How many people do you think would still be standing?  Then the instructions continue with, “If you have ever ‘permanently borrowed’ something from your work place, even as small as a box of paper clips or a roll of tape, please sit down.”

I suspect that would cause quite a few people to return to their seats.  Then the host offers this one final instruction: “While you’ve been at work, on the ‘work clock’, if you’ve ever checked your cell phone for personal means, made a personal call or sent/answered a personal text or used either your phone or the company’s computer to look at (and possibly engage in) any of your personal social media sites, please sit down.”

If every person in the audience was being truthful, there would be no one left standing.

What’s my point?  My point is each and every one of these acts can be defined as “stealing”.  But they seem almost innocuous in harm compared to the criminal and religious sins of the people in the world today, so they become almost acceptable. 

Yet right is right and wrong is wrong.  Rules are clearly written in “black and white” but over the course of time, so many of them have become shaded in gray.  I’ve always tended to see the world in more “black or white”; if something is wrong, it’s simply wrong.  I don’t see the degree of wrongness and how something that is less wrong is better than something that it more wrong.

Let me give some examples:  Someone is murdered.  Is the person who murdered him/her more or less guilty if it was a single shot to the heart versus multiple shots to the body?  Is shooting someone more or less wrong than stabbing someone to death?

Someone intentionally cheats on their taxes.  Does it matter if it saves them $15 or $15,000?   

Someone avows – often quite publicly – that they are a Christian.  They attend church regularly, support their church financially and can quote many Bible verses.  However, what no one knows that that this same person gets regularly drunk on the weekends and verbally (or worse) abuses their spouse and children.  In a conversation recently, I was reminded that Christians are taught to ask for forgiveness and voila, all is forgiven.  However, every Saturday night this same sin occurs and every Sunday this person attends church and asks for forgiveness. 

I’m afraid I don’t get it.  How did Christianity come to the place that it’s okay to commit the same sin as long as forgiveness is asked for each time?  How did that come to be acceptable?

The problem with “gray” is that society has come to accept it in others partly because we are guilty of it ourselves.  Look at Bill Clinton being able to stand up and not only say, but believe, that he “did not have sex with that woman” because it didn’t involve vaginal penetration.  Some agreed – those who wanted to support their President and probably those who were also guilty of the same infraction.  Some disagreed – those who disliked the President and were willing to look at any means that would get him out of office.

In a black and white world, you either believe something is wrong or something is not wrong.  The alleged sin should have nothing to do with the person’s race, religion, gender or political ideals.  But all of those things do get tossed into the mix and what should be black and white becomes gray.

I remember a licensed psychologist who also touted to be a devout Christian had a client who had been found guilty of incest.  It was suggested by this psychologist for leniency in punishment because the acts were of digital penetration and not of penal penetration.  Go back – read that again.  I hope your mind is asking, “What?”  I hope you feel indignant that this forced act upon an innocent child should be punished differently because of the way it was performed.  Could you look at that child and say, “Well, yes, he hurt you, possibly scarred you for life, but not as much as he could have?”

A crime is a crime is a crime.  Infidelity is a bonafide reason, supported by the courts, for divorce.  It doesn’t matter what form of sexual misconduct occurred, only that it DID occur.

Cheating on your taxes is illegal.  It doesn’t matter HOW MUCH money you cheated for; you cheated and that’s a crime!

Murder is a felony.  Again, the courts see this as a crime, regardless of the way the body was murdered.

We are all sinners.  Yes, some sins are far more unfavorable than others; there are degrees of sin, I suppose, in that regard. But committing a crime/sin in any degree makes us sinners.

Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”  He didn’t specify a sin or to what degree we’d done it…. He simply said those words.  And there is no one among us who is, according to those words, able to cast the first stone.

We can’t have it both ways, folks.  Our laws are murky enough in their nuances that we can’t allow them to become even murkier with these subtleties.

I know my thoughts on this won’t change a thing.  This is my way of speaking out to the people I know who perform these, in their eyes, seemingly ‘negligent’ things while they still parade themselves to be of extremely high morals and Christianity.  I am also blessed to know people who truly show their Christianity by their every action.  To them, I say “thank you” for showing me what being a Christian truly means.

To those of you who speak your Christianity loudly but so blatantly show us differently by your actions, I say, live your life how you want.  Just don’t stand there in your righteousness of persona, as a sinner, and dare to cast the stone at others! Matthew 7:1 Judge not, that you be not judged. Romans 2:1,2 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are that judge: … Romans 14:3,4,10-16 Let not him that eats despise him that eats not; and let not him … 1 Corinthians 4:3-5 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you,…

Words and Symbols

Words and symbols — man, as far as we know, is the sole creature to use symbols to convey abstract meaning to others of his own kind. Love, safety, war, death – abstractions that are the basis of cognizant thought about the nature of life itself. The emotional core that allows man to be more than beast of burden is grounded in the desire to share and to save these moments that we know as sentiment. It then becomes important to the species to record and transcribe this unique gift so that we may assure ourselves that we are ‘human’. These abstractions are more than mere words – recorded as a shared oral history to be written down by scholars – they are also transposed in other matter – paintings, sculptures, music, other forms of representation. But it is our fate to rely most heavily upon the written symbol…. Interpretation of these symbols becomes a human expression – words become less defined as the course of society change their perception, and as the words become less defined, they become more human. On which level do we “read” the word as it was intended, on which level does the creator’s choice of a word direct our energy? It is impossible to ‘read’ a word without colorization of its meaning based on both the writer’s and the reader’s own experiences, thus perceptions.

Even these ideas are human, and these questions will be forever the crux of argument of critical thought – as it has always been in the past, so will it always be in the future….