Quick story in which my mom teaches me about loving people.
When my big sister got married, they pulled away from the family a lot. In hindsight, she was the oldest daughter who did too much for all of us, and her husband helped her put down boundaries with us, and it was new and painful.
The first few years of their marriage they didn’t come to a lot of family functions. But they were sometimes there and my BIL was super polite, but also a big introvert. About 4 years into it, on Christmas Eve, when all of us were just grazing food in my mom’s kitchen, and talking about life as we often did on holidays, I looked over and saw BIL was sitting in a recliner in the other room, reading a book.
Annoyed, I went over to my mom, to tattle. (I was also a married adult at this time.) “Mom, do you see he’s just in the other room, reading? It’s Christmas Eve for goodness sake.”
My mom gasped and quietly peeked into the other room. “It worked!” She said.
“What worked?” I asked.
“He’s just so shy around us, and I’ve been brainstorming ways to help him relax when he’s at our house. So I found out who his favorite author was, and bought the newest book just published. I set it right by the recliner, hoping he’d feel comfortable enough to just pick it up and read it. I got him to relax over here! It worked!”
I was humbled. Astounded. Her goal wasn’t to get him to get with the program. Her goal wasn’t to assimilate him to what the rest of our family was doing. Her goal was to help him feel loved when he was with us.
I will never ever forget this lesson she taught me.
It will never not be completely insane how thoroughly our society has normalized violence against women and gaslit them into believing it’s their responsibility to prevent it instead of men’s responsibility to stop doing it.
Last night I had dinner with my heroes. 10 of the UC Medical Staff that helped save my life.
I surprised them with a scholarship named after each of them that will support youth in Cincy to chase their dreams.
Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them!🫶🏾
So very true
Have you ever thought about this?
In 100 years like in 2123 we will all be buried with our relatives and friends.
Strangers will live in our homes we fought so hard to build, and they will own everything we have today. All our possessions will be unknown and unborn, including the car we spent a fortune on, and will probably be scrap, preferably in the hands of an unknown collector.
Our descendants will hardly or hardly know who we were, nor will they remember us. How many of us know our grandfather's father?
After we die, we will be remembered for a few more years, then we are just a portrait on someone's bookshelf, and a few years later our history, photos and deeds disappear in history's oblivion. We won't even be memories.
If we paused one day to analyse these questions, perhaps we would understand how ignorant and weak the dream to achieve it all was.
If we could only think about this, surely our approaches, our thoughts would change, we would be different people.
Always having more, no time for what's really valuable in this life. I'd change all this to live and enjoy the walks I've never taken, these hugs I didn't give, these kisses for our children and our loved ones, these jokes we didn't have time for. Those would certainly be the most beautiful moments to remember, after all they would fill our lives with joy.
And some of us waste it day after day with greed, selfishness and intolerance.
Every minute of life is priceless and will never be repeated, so take time to enjoy, be grateful for, and celebrate your existence.
Remember, there is still only a very small percentage of weird, delusional, paranoid, nasty freaks in the world. It's just that they're all on Twitter😂 I just went for a long walk and everyone was lovely. Enjoy life and don't let miserable people get you down. Here's a cat.
"I was too young and then overnight I was too old.”
There is no mythical “prime” working age or “sweet spot” for professional women, a Harvard Business Review research telling us what we've always known
https://t.co/h3Q2uvYoRM
#TheWire ended 15 years ago today. (3/09/08)
The corners stay full, institutions still decay & the wrong people still get promoted. The world keeps turning and nothing changes. The end.
I’m a mother of six, and a Mormon. I have a good understanding of arguments surrounding abortion, religious and otherwise. I've been listening to men grandstand about women's reproductive rights, and I'm convinced men actually have zero interest in stopping abortion. Here's why…