Lemme give it to you straight.

If your momma never taught you to clean up after yourself and to have a tidy house for guests, that’s one thing. Maybe you were raised by a pack of High Life guzzling, ball scratching men with failing livers and an unhealthy affinity for bleach blondes with blue eye shadow and chests that remind you of rocks in socks. But you probably weren’t. And even if you were, I know for a fact you own a TV. I’ve seen it in your sty, and along with the tell tale dent in the couch directly across from it – it was still warm. Which means you’re probably not oblivious to the likes of HGTV, or one of the other half gaziilion channels with programming about how to sell your house. In fact, I also saw a computer in your “home office”, and a blinking router. That means you have access to them thar interwebs and could have done some homework ala Al Gore. You know. Research. On how to get top dollar for your house.

No? You’ve never thought of such a thing?

Well shucks. Then let me make it E-Z for you with my uber simple patent pending list of how not to waste a buyers time.

- Smoking in your house is probably not a great idea. It’s spring, your house is for sale. Go outside.
- Maybe clean the 15 years of cat hair collection memorabilia off your fabric window coverings
- Hide the Rogaine and fifteen other bottles of crap in your shower. Do not showcase the lack of space by propping them all up on the towel bar.
- Clean the toothpaste crust out of your sink.
- Scrub your shower. If you can’t, hire someone to do it for you.
- Get a foundation guy to come by and put a new brace under the dining room floor so I can’t feel the sinkhole/hear your china rattling when I walk across the room.
- Put up some screens on your roof line where the squirrels have been crawling in. This is Atlanta. They’re as plentiful as pollen and in all the same places.
- If you know the cellar has a leak, disclose it. Leaving the wet vac out with it’s nozzle in a puddle doesn’t count.
- Once upon a time you thought lavender was a good color for a room, or that “white washing” a door with primer was artsy. You were wrong. Spend the $100 to correct your mistake.
- Clean up all that crap from home improvement projects gone wrong from under the garage.
- I have no need for your old hangers, paint, broken clothes rods, BBQ or tacky azz wardrobe. If you’re going to vacate the house, take all your crap with you.

Hmmm…what am I forgetting…

A few of the many great lines from the Anne Lamott book I referenced in a previous post, do with them what you will:

“Being enough was going to have to be an inside job.”

“The world can’t give us peace. We can find it only in our hearts.”
“I hate that.” I said
“I know. but the good news is that by the same token, the world can’t take it away.”

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save. They just stand there shining”

And perhaps the one most perfectly suited to my particular brand of juxtaposed defect and sensitivity:

“You don’t always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it, too.”

Mmmmm hmmm.

For the 3rd year running, I offer you this warning:

Please, for the love of all things deep fried and layered in chocolate – do not let me hear you say “St. Paddy’s”.

The man was a SAINT, people. You didn’t know him personally and therefore you don’t get the privilege of calling him by some lazy and cheap nickname, any more than you’d call Mother Teresa “Tess”. “Yeah, Tess and I threw a couple back at Moe’s and Joe’s last night. That woman can put away some PBR’s…and you should hear her belch Freebird!”

The fact that Cindy and Karen say they call her “Momma T” is hysterical and completely beside the point.

Really. I have a shrimp fork handy and I’m not afraid to jam you in the nads with it.

kthanxluvyabai.

Pulled out of my drafts, not sure what I intended to do with it. You know. Other than live it.

Moral Injunctions of Gestalt Therapy

Live now, stay in the present.
Live here, be with the present.
Stop imagining, experience reality.
Stop unnecessary thinking.
Express, rather than manipulating, explaining, justifing, or judging.
Give in to unpleasantness do not restrict your awareness.
‘Accept no “should” or “ought”, other than your own.
Take full responsibility for your own actions, feelings and thoughts.
Surrender to being who you are right now.

The Mc sent me an article yesterday morning titled “How to Get the Life You Want“.

I snort-laughed as I am apt to do, and scanned the text. A few minutes later I scowled at my screen and went back to work.

It’s easy enough when it’s scrawled out on a screen for you in twenty or so easy steps. “Give yourself permission” it said and I made a mental note that my therapy appointment this week is on Thursday instead of Tuesday. “Make room for your dream” it says and I think about our downsizing our primary residence to free resources for the place in the forest.

I had clicked through the pages and read the bolded type, growing more and more irritated at the over simplified self-help know-it-all-ness of the content.

A myna bird could have written this damn article. The content wasn’t unique, in fact it wasn’t unlike the piles of advice you or I have given countless friends over the years. The simple and logical advice I’ve rarely been able to take for myself because the one liners fall somewhere in between “drink more water” and “stop saying ‘um’”. Give me an effin’ break.

When I had grudgingly arrived at the mislabeled step 3 (the second step 3, should have been step 6 but it was on the second page and someone in the editing chair is narcoleptic) and read “Pat Yourself on the Back – Regularly” I stopped for a moment and made a mental note. This is the point where I went back to work, but later I found the words still bouncing around in my wee noggin.

What am I getting so bent about? I missed this step. I need this step.

I am doing things that bring me closer to getting the life I want.

I did most of what I intended to during my sabbatical, including pitching a story idea to Budget Travel that they’ll never select but I DID IT. I’m starting my photography class tonight night after work, I’m at least walking again regularly with Beth a few nights a week in attempt to build back up to running, and I’m even starting to get back in touch with the volunteerism I drifted from a year or so ago. I have three good trips planned for this year, not including the second annual visit to The Hostel in the Forest. I’m doing it.

As a kid my mother (and no doubt yours as well) would look at the pile of peas left on my plate at the end of the dinner hour and remind me there were children starving all over the world. “Can we mail my peas to them?” I’d ask, completely missing her attempt at giving me perspective.

I guess this was my modern day pile-o-green stuff: words and ideas I didn’t want to ingest, even if they were good for me.

So here’s my pat on the back: YEAY ME! I’m doing it. The going is slow and it’s easy to be discouraged, frustrated, and even a little resentful when things (even the good things) get in my way; but the point is: I am. Progress.

For my next trick? I’m making dinner TWICE this week. I know – it’s impressive. But enough about me… what are you doing? I mean really doing…what are the dreams you’ve put on pause because “life” got in the way and what are you doing about reviving them?

ETK posted a letter to her 13 year old self as part of a meme type project yesterday, and it reminded me of an exercise I went through with my sister a few years ago before she retired from the life coaching business. It was part meditation, part imagination and entirely helpful and enlightening.

She started with present day me (how else would you begin?), and she talked quietly until I found a happy place and quieted my mind. At her direction, I floated slowly out into space and then back down, but the back down was to a 65 year old me. Where was I…what was I doing…what were my surroundings and emotional state like but more importantly – what sage council did I have for that younger more confused and emotionally wrecked me?

So with a little inspiration from ETK and on the cusp of my 35th, I’m revisiting the conversation.

Dear Silly Little 35 Year Old Me:

You are not old. Shut up. You’ve had gray hair since you were 16 and you love it. Look at this belly and these crowsfeet! This is old. Now be quiet and take notes because you know I hate repeating myself and you have a horrible memory…which brings us directly to the goods:

- Take the damn Gingoba…it might not help but it probably won’t hurt.

- Don’t be so hard on yourself. Failure is key to development and your later appreciation of successes.

- It’ll be hard work to erase your crappy programming – but you’ll write a rockin’ much better less buggy O/S for your brain when it’s all done. Expect a lot of tears and resentment during development and know that none of it makes you a bad person — it’s part of progress.

- The Rolling Stones were right.

- Do it. That thing you’re terrified of? Do it anyway. No one is stopping you but you…and it’ll turn out better than you think. I’m serious. Didn’t I tell you to be quiet and listen? Trust me.

- Make more time for your spiritual evolution.

- You’re going to have to fight for things…both to bring them into your life and to get them out. It’s okay. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for and your gut knows what it’s talking about. We wouldn’t have made it this far if that wasn’t true.

- Cry more! It hurts when you hold it in and you always feel so cleansed afterwards. It’s guuuuud.

- Get off your ass. If you think it’s hard to keep those thighs tight and that waist slim now, just wait.

- Love freely. You’ll get hurt even if you don’t. Oh, and PS…you are loved. A lot. Open your freakin’ eyes.

- Don’t let your passion and caring be squelched by meanines. Smile inside and keep doing what you do.

- Be authentic.

- Keep making time for the people you love. Those memories, emotions and relationships will be all you have to sustain you through hard times.

- You. Are. Wonderful.

Love,

Maigh circa 2037

Your “good dishes” or china are quietly sitting in a cabinet. Or maybe they’re on display next to the silver plated salt and pepper shakers Aunt Mimi gave you – that you never use. Maybe they come out on holidays, or your anniversary or not at all because you’re afraid of breaking them.

They’re yours or they were handed down to you and they’re beautiful and shiny and elegant and you wish you entertained more so you could use them. At least six times a year you think to yourself “it’s such a shame I never use those…” while they’re staring back at you and silently screaming “Touch me! Pick me up! Use me! Eat ice cream off my belly!”

Wait. That last one might have been me.

Either way, babies; I’ve solved all your china usage dilemmas with one simple redi-whip slogan:
Brunch with your girlfriends, it’s what china was made for.

What good is beauty if you never embrace it?