Five-minute free writes, Day 26 - "Accept"

Invitations.  I love my friends, both long-time and recent, and I completely understand their compulsion to plan celebrations for their big life events and their need to  have a crowd with whom to celebrate.  But trust me - you really don't have to invite me.

As I age, I discover that I am more and more disinclined to socialize.  It's not the people, it's the effort.  So I scrutinize every invitation I receive to celebrate, to support, to join in the fun. Should I accept?  I know for a fact that when the time comes to actually attend an event I will absolutely NOT want to go. Just getting out of my lazy retirement clothes and into something presentable (and old and not fashionable and decidedly not comfortable) in more work than it's worth.

So I guess it's a good thing that acceptance of invitations is something one must do fairly far in advance.  What might sound like a good idea at the time of the RSVP becomes a pretty bad idea - but that acceptance is hanging out there.  I am not willing to go back on that kind of promise - at least not yet.  I'm pretty sure the day will come where I just don't accept.  Sorry - nothing personal.  I still love my friends.  I'm just over the party thing.

Five-minute free writes, Day 25 - "Wait"

Here's a skill that's taken a long time to perfect (and I'm still working on it) - listen and wait.

In a conversation with my son yesterday in which he was disturbed about an issue at work and obviously feeling a little guilty for not having gone above and beyond with a situation that he actually have almost no control over, I found myself taking myself in hand and commanding myself to be quiet.  While the response to his worries seemed pretty obvious to me, it was also obvious that what he needed most was just to talk it out.

My son is an adult, approaching middle age, and pretty smart.  In fact, he's probably more grounded than his co-workers and even some of his bosses - but he does struggle with being able to take a breath and think things through.  It's pretty great that he's learned to give me a call and just rant a bit while he figures out an issue.  He's found that talking it out works pretty well.

I'm impressed with this behavior, actually. He's far more personally insightful than I was at his age, so confident that I had all the answers. And he's way better than I am at self-care.  So while I have learned to wait and let him get it all out, and even then to just ask a question or two, he has learned how to survive and thrive in a world that is so often frustrating to him in it's lack of logic and just downright stupidity.

Five-minute free writes, Day 24 - "Different"

Coming from a large family with four pretty smart, engaged siblings, it always amazes me how different our memories of growing can be.  I understand that birth order plays a large role in this phenomenon, but that's not all that's at work here.

Given the pretty unusual way we grew up, basically helter-skelter, kids take care of themselves and each other, hands-off parenting, etc., etc., I suppose it's not surprising that some of us have even fabricated (or at least edited a bit) memories that I, as the oldest, know to have never happened.  These tend to lean towards the romantic side, infusing childhood with a nostalgic glow that isn't really accurate - at least from where I sit.

HOWEVER - is this a bad thing?  It irritated me immensely when I was younger and more stubborn and, yes, more pedantic. (I'm the oldest. 'Nuff said.)  It certainly doesn't hurt anything, and there's no particular value in being right about something that really doesn't matter.  So I just let it go.

If I were to be completely honest, I might even have to admit that I do a bit of this myself.  It's hard to tell what is actual memory, and what is finally viewing memories from an adult context and with the gentling, soothing balm of time.

Five-minute free writes, Day 23 - "Need"

I never hear the word "need" spoken just by itself, without context, without thinking of my younger son and the turmoil that frequently consumed our family when he was young.

Both of our children loved complicated toys with many parts, most of them very, very small. For instance, the action figure He-Man was a favorite.  He-Man was a super-hero, always the "good guy," and possessed of many, many tiny accessories.

Since neither of our boys ever seemed to break anything or lose anything, we were awash in little bitty plastic stuff.  And it never failed - the one weapon that our youngest felt was essential to whatever imaginary game he was playing was the one weapon that no one could find.  Since they never lost anything, the assumption was that this tiny plastic knife was somewhere in the depths of the toy box, under the bed, thrown in with the bath toys - somewhere.

I will never forget the wail - "Mom, I NEEEEED it."  So much tragedy. So much angst. So much drama.  So both I and my husband were desperately plowing through plastic trucks and cars, animals, other action figures, other weapons, and on and on and on - until finally the weapon in question turned up.

Satisfied, Number 2 son took the little knife, placed it in the slot in He-Man's hand, and calmly left the room.  With He-Man sitting on the floor, untouched.

Five-minute free writes, Day 22 - "Sense"

Okay, five senses, right?  Hearing, taste, touch, sight, smell.  Just checking in on those, here in my second decade of my third thirty, and this is what I find:

Hearing is terrible.  I have tinnitus in my right ear, which is sometimes louder than at other times, but omnipresent.  My husband and I are in the "What?" mode all the time.

Taste is still working.  Interestingly, I no longer have a chocolate obsession, just an over-the-top love of it. But sometimes I choose the carrot cake.

Touch is still working.  In fact, that may be the one that's working best.  Even thought I no longer have fingerprints, my fingertips still work just fine.  And that fingerprint thing in another one of those things no one tells you about when talking about aging, right up there with the hairs in your nose that turn white (and therefore visible).

Sight is a hot mess.  Recent cataract surgery has restored much of my distance vision, for which I am eternally grateful.  I can once again drive at night.  But the eyes still burn and itch and get tired.

Smell still works, probably better than I would really like.  I do not like stuff that stinks.  Since this is tied to taste, it presents a problem for things like colonoscopy prep stuff and really gross food.

I guess overall I'm doing pretty well for an oldish lady.  But that hearing thing - I need to get that attended to.  And have I mentioned how stupid I think it is that hearing issues aren't covered under Medicare?

Five-minute free writes, Day 21 - "Person"

So this is a writer-nerd thing:  what person works best for you (or me) when you sit down to write a story?

I've taken some classes on writing, and some of them have involved memoir.  I love reading memoir (who doesn't love "Angela's Ashes" and "The Glass Castle"?), but I really, really, really have a hard time writing it.

Just putting down the dreaded first person pronoun kind of stops me in my creative tracks.  Who could possibly be interested in any piece of my life?  Even with some fairly dramatic twists and turns, it's pretty boring.

And truthfully, I'm much more into the Stephen King thing:  thing of two really odd things, and put them together. Add some goofy characters. Presto! An interesting story.

And maybe I just don't want to dredge up little poison bits of the past. They and I have made our peace - no need to open those old memory boxes and let those critters out.  Just leave them far away, behind me in the rearview mirror.

So - third person, you are my friend. I can write at a safe distance, lording it over the world I create, not stuck with a pre-determined outcome.

Actually, I don't think I could even use that "I" pronoun in a work of fiction!

Five-minute free writes, Day 20 -"Tell"

There's a term that gamblers use, describing expressions or movements that give away clues to opponents' hands in cards - it's called a "tell."

I'm fascinated by the varying degrees to which all of us can read the expressions and body language of others.  I'm not particularly good at it, although with close friends and family members whose faces I've looked at many, many times, I can sometimes figure out when I have said something hurtful or with which they deeply disagree.  When this happens, I begin to worry; how can I make amends without letting the person know that they have reacted in a way this is detectable, when they really wished to hide their feelings?  It feels almost intrusive to actually approach this directly.  So I just try to be extra warm in my response, extra apologetic, extra agreeable, hoping in this way to repair any damage I may have done.

Perhaps we should spend more time watching and listening and less time lost in our own thoughts and worries. I do keep looking for the actual key to world peace, wishing that it were a lot less complex than it appears to be.  Could this be a good starting place?