Only Human

But A wise man once said once said that you should never believe a thing simply because you want to believe it....tyrion lannister, got, 2017

   For so long now I have believed that life is something that doesn't just happen to you.  That we make choices: our response to  circumstances determining as much of our happiness as the situation itself.

Yes, life is challenging. Often frustrating.  At times, life is actually baffling. It is easy to get lost asking why.  Why do things happen the way they often do? It would be so easy to tie myself up stewing over the facts: that death has touched me and those around me; that people are often petty and cruel; that adulthood is fairly thankless at times. There are many reasons why I, and likely everyone, could become bitter.

So, I look in the mirror and I ask myself: what do you want to believe? Some days it is harder to find an answer.  I believe I want to insert kindness into my day.  That there's more than enough of the negative.  That there has to be balance out there and I can give that. I believe despite the fears I stare down daily that it is going to be okay.

Its not easy.  It would be easy to say- I've been dealt a crappy hand of cards and I am just going throw them down and refuse to play.  There's no win in that. I could cling to that truth and be sad....and say, but its true!!!  I won't. I refuse.  Its the kind of truth that only leads to despair. I just don't have time for that.

I look inside and try to drum up a better truth to attach to my soul.  Not a greeting card platitude but a macro belief to guide me. So I look to the examples set by those wonderful people who grace my life. My friend Susan who always found a way to rejoice in her life. Her happiness was infectious.  Was her life perfect? No. She faced bullying, I witnessed that.  She overcame a bad marriage. She even found it in her to celebrate her emancipation from that.  She stared death in the face and still took time to spread joy in those around her.

My friend Ramona: also an inspiration.  She reminds me daily that life is a choice or series of choices. She has reshaped her career to reflect what she wants life to be. She has gone from being ground down and whittled away in the workplace to putting light into the world. Her work, as a life coach, now empowers so many others to choose to be the things the want to see in the world. She reminds me that the universe, if you ask for help, will work to put you in the place you need.

My children as well, who keep stepping forward to grasp any issue that is thrown their way, give me hope.  Whether it is illness, grief, the miserable bullies that we find, or just the daily challenges...work, homework, relationships, their direction in life.  Each one of them meets each obstacle with integrity.  They overcome and beat the odds at an alarming rate. It's comforting and fills me with wonder.

It would be very small of me to ignore the beauty of the people who have been given to me to love. If I was to say, it is just so hard, I can't continue, wouldn't I be a silly git? If I was to become jaded and throw up my hands and say, there's nothing I can do-that would be a lie.

So I choose. I choose to try. I choose to find a way to put aside my annoyances, my fears, my hurts. I choose to be welcoming, positive and gracious. Even when it hurts. Even when I would rather retreat. Even when I feel the deck is stacked and the odds unlikely.

 What do I choose to believe?  Nothing major. No giant world view. Just one small hope:  That I can step forward and try.

Jeepers Crisp!!! @#$@@#!!$#@ For the love of all things holy......

I have nothing to say.

Shocking, I know right?

So that must mean that there isn't a thing bothering me, I see no imbalance in my life, or injustice in the world.  Nothing to say must be a good thing?

Well, no.

If you have ever been moving through your life thinking " Okay, this is all pretty difficult but I got this.  I'm fine" then turned your head and got blindsided with other people's outrageous bull-oney then you will know just how I'm feeling.

Wanna talk?  No.
Wanna share? No.
Wanna write? No.
Wanna sing?  No.
Wanna play?  No.

Does this mean I have issues? I can say my point of view is recently affected and I am overwhelmed and somewhat distracted.  I do not own the problem though. A young relative once in a similar circumstance asked me if I thought she was crazy and I gave her the standard George Carlin reply, "If you think you are crazy, Please ensure first that you are not just surrounded by @$$holes." So much truth.

Generally,  I do not live in a place of No. This current state of mind is disconcerting for me. It unsettles my soul.  I want to hop-skip-jump back to my usual home in a place of Yes.  Will I find a way? Eventually, I'm sure. It is just the right-now that is life force diminishing.

You see, the issue for me, and for quite a few positive thinking people, is that I expect those around me to have generally good intentions. I try to surround myself with nice people. People who are trying to get through life without taking more than their fair share of space, certainly doing no intentional harm, and perhaps actively improving life in their circles.


However, lo and behold, despite every effort to avoid them the snakes start creeping in.  The self serving, the petty and the downright mean. What a singular joy it is to find that your daily life is going to have to be affected by the kinds of personalities that make your hackles instantly raise.  In a Utopian situation they would just slither around in the mud and the rest of us would pick up a few shed skins once in a while and whip them over the garden wall.

It does not work that way.

Surprise! They bite. They are poison. Those fangs hurt.

No one would choose to live with backbiting, scheming and generally horrible people surrounding them. It is definitely not my choice.  Life though, sometimes has its own way of inserting rot into your life. Not to mention that shady and untrustworthy self promoting individuals will worm their way in by any deception they find convenient.

Slither, slither. Bone-tiring to hear daily. Living on the extra alert. Being hyper vigilant to random attacks. Starting to have a new understanding of Harry Potter.  I understand how annoyed and sent off kilter he was while being followed by a relentless, evil minded snake.  Of course, he had the advantage of a valiant group of like minded friends to chase out the danger. I could use a Ron, Hermione, a Dumbledore or even a Hagrid. Alas, no such animals in the tedious Muggle world. Plenty of snakes, though.  Frustrating, when you know life does not need to be this way.

At present, there seems to be no magic wand and the motivation has turned from trying to fix  and mend to self protection and apathy.  I am grinding along and wondering where my determination went. There is a strength in me somewhere. I remember.  Time to dig it up and find a way out of the snakepit. 

Too fat? Too thin? So what???

For those of you who battle excess weight, I feel for you. You are gorgeous and I hope you know it. Please though don't judge us who do not. We also have a weight battle.  We battle to gain it.

Guess what?  We have almost no help.  We are judged, often.  It is not easy.

Sometimes people assume that those of us who look too thin are drug addicted, violently ill or have eating disorders. It is annoying beyond all get out.

There is a condition called being a "difficult gainer".  It does not involve puking, meth or cancer.  It is just an idiot high metabolism, allergies or both.  I would much rather be fat, to tell the truth. There is tonne of help if you are overweight: magazine articles, Jenny Craig, gyms, Weight Watchers,  low fat grocery items, a plethora of internet articles,  a crap tonne of businesses and weight loss supplements.

Google search how to gain weight and you will see what I mean.  You may find one or two articles that try to help and a few articles for body builders but there are no businesses out there dedicated to help the chronically calorie deprived gain weight.

I do not know why. There are actually a lot of us.

I will bet  that a lot of people do not know that the risk of dying early is actually higher for the underweight than it is for the overweight.  ( 50 percent higher for overweight, 90 percent higher for underweight). 

I know overweight people complain they are judged and bullied.  Underweight individuals are often bullied also.

We are called meth heads and anorexics. I personally have been asked by a stranger if I have a disease.  It is assumed we cannot lift things or accomplish basic tasks.  Imagine taking your groceries to your car and having someone randomly comment " Oh, you shouldn't be lifting that.  You are too small." Every time. Like clockwork, like being pecked to death by ducks, as Maya Angelou would say. 

 Sometimes, in work, people assume you are too small, too young to have any responsibility.  How could an 85 pound person have authority?

Being underweight actually sucks.  It is not some dream.  It is not supermodel greatness.

Gaining weight for us is an ongoing difficult task.  You cannot just eat crap.  Your heart will still suffer.  Fresh foods are way too filling but you need to eat them. You need exercise to gain muscle and at the same time need to limit activity to gain weight.  Oh vey.  You have to intake loads of protein without gaining fat. You have to eat so many calories that you feel you might puke.  You must add more food than anyone would ever consider normal just to gain a few ounces.

It is entirely not fun. I would love to burn out my thyroid or get some medications that would add a few pounds.  It just never seems to happen for me.

I literally seem to only gain weight when I am pregnant:  and as much as I would love to gain thirty pounds I am not willing to do 20 years of hard labour for that outcome.

So the next time you are tempted to ask your thin friend to eat a doughnut or hamburger please remember. We all have our challenges. You might just have a buddy who envys that extra five pounds. Someone who would love an extra ten and remarkably would take a transfer of it from you without a thought if it were possible. Who would be the last person to judge you for the double chin. Who accepts you just the way you are. Who actually understands why you struggle with your weight but just from a different perspective.

For despite our culture, weight in the grand scheme of things means  absolutely unequivocally nothing.  It does not make you nicer, does not give you better priorities, make you a better person, make you more desirable or  change the world.  

It means literally nothing,  So despite the focus on it, the misunderstanding of it, you will be the greatness you are despite it. You are actually you, the best you, no matter what the scale has to say.

Spit on it. 

Enough said.

Hello Justin Trudeau

Okay, Mr. Trudeau,

First let me say I'm a fan.  I like your policy of inclusiveness and I remember it as a legacy from your Father.  I like what you have done with international diplomacy. I applaud your inclusion of vast numbers of women and all ages in your cabinet. I think your wife and children are darling: as do you.

However, you and I would have words over your legalization of marijuana.  Yes, my friend, I may be of the demographic that seems to think that is a great idea but I disagree wholeheartedly. I don't want it, to smell it, to have secondhand exposure or to have my children exposed to it.

I lived through the 70's.  I watched the result of dealers lacing pot with LSD and PCP.  I worked in a youth center:  I have seen kids between 14 and 25 burn out on  marijuana. I have seen them lack coping skills and develop mental health issues out of nowhere. I have been helpless already as they spiral down into other addictions.

I imagine you would say: "Well, Jayne. No worries: I will have stringent controls in place and only legal dealers will be able to sell pot. "  Really?  That sounds pretty naive to me.   For decades there has been an illegal system in place.  Those selling illegal drugs are not going to suddenly say, " Hey, Mr. Trudeau just made this legal so I guess I better find a regular job!"

No, they are going to see the legal system of distribution as competition.  They are going to need an edge to compete.  Competition tends to drive prices down and content up.  Dealers will be looking to make their product a little fancier and more addictive.  Hmmm, almost sounds like they will begin lacing pot with lsd, pcp, ecstasy, or gawd help us all, fentanyl.

You might answer that the police will shut that right down.  I doubt that.  Even in my small town, the police have there hands full busting a meth lab every couple of days only to watch two more spring up to take its place.   They also have a few other things to do: stolen property (mostly by drug addicts), murders, assaults, white collar crime, stalkings and rapes.   So, I highly doubt they will have the resources or the inclination to spend on what will be the illegal dealers of what you will have made a legal drug.

Rethink it Mr. Trudeau.   Our addiction treatment centers and hospitals are already burdened by the current level of addiction.  At very least make the age required for legal partaking in this "past time" 25, 40 or even 65.

Next year, when my apartment is full of pot smoke from my neighbours- like it is on the 20th and 1st of the month now and my asthmatic child texts me to to call the police-   I won't be able to.   Can I please give her your personal cell number to text instead? It's your deal, Mr. Trudeau:  I hope you can handle the consequences.