I met Pat a year after Margaret. It was 1981. I was 30 years old and painfully aware of it.
The YMCA was in new in town. It's temporary headquarters were located upstairs in a building overlooking Stuart's infamous Confusion Corner in Historic Downtown Stuart. However, from my desk, I had a magnificent view of the railroad track. I was a temporary employee in a 6 months long job.
Downstairs, on the other side, was a lovely dress shop called M'Lady Boutique. I had been inside a few times before. This time, there was a new owner; an attractive small-boned and petite lady with a tiny waist. Her name was Pat. Like Margaret, she was my mother's age, only far more youthful looking and always sharply dressed. We became fast friends.
Often, I spent the second half of my lunch hour in conversation with her. Pat was the best thing to come out of that job.
When my 6 months ended, I continued to walk over to the Prehistoric District (what I called it!) every Wednesday for lunch. Always, I invited Pat, but she couldn't leave.
Once, my mother wanted to tag along. We got into an argument. I told her vehemently, "I go there to get AWAY FROM YOU!" With a laugh, I repeated this to Pat.
A lone customer charged toward me. "Are YOU a mother?!" she snapped into my face.
"No! And I never want to be!" I snapped back.
"Well good!" The customer sniffed, and stormed out!
"What nerve!" Pat exclaimed. Then she turned to me and said, "You know what, I'm closing the shop. I'm having lunch with you today!"
The next time I saw her, Pat announced she was selling the place. "It's too confining." She sighed. "Plus there are no close places for my customers to park!" She stuffed a piece of paper into the side pocket of my purse. "It's my home phone no., stay in touch," she told me.
Pat lived in Port St. Lucie and I in Stuart, although I didn't drive, she'd pick me up and we'd go out to lunch; usually in Tequesta, Palm Beach Gardens, or West Palm Beach. "Your house is right on the way, so it's no trouble," she'd say.
I remember having so much fun at the big mall in W.P.B., we lost track of time. It was dark outside. "Don't you have to be getting home to fix dinner for your husband," I asked.
"Tony knows how to open a can of soup!" she replied. -- Pat was my kind of woman! Also we attended live musicals and went to dinner afterward. We enjoyed so many great times together!
1997 my father decided to sell our house due to the whopping property taxes and the change in the Capital Gains Tax law. We planned to move to another town. I was happy until I thought of Pat. Shortly after, Pat announced that she & Tony had put their home on the market. They decided to move to North Florida to be closer to their adult children. Their house sold before ours.
I wanted to move near Pat, but my father didn't care for the weather in North Florida. -- From his reaction, you'd have thought it was the North Pole!
We moved here, to Vero Beach. Pat was the 1st person to call! Soon, Saturday afternoon became our phone day. We took turns calling each other at 1:00 PM weekly. Always we'd talk for an hour or more.
After my father's death, I called Pat as I waited for the mortuary to pick-up the body.
Pat's husband died shortly after my father. Soon after, her son was killed in a car accident. This blow hit her harder than the death of her husband! "I had always counted on Danny to be here after Tony passed," she cried.
Often, we cried together! In the year following Dad's death, I lost both my dog & cat. Pat later lost 2 beloved dogs. We consoled each other.
Thru therapy, I was trying to conquer my anxiety attacks and drive a car. After several unnerving incidents, including getting lost in an isolated area, Pat was now the one afraid to drive. Her daughter had taken away her car for her own safety.
We acknowledged we would never see each other again in life. We would remain phone-friends until one of us was dead.
Around the later part of the last decade, I began to notice Pat becoming extremely forgetful. She retained little from our conversations. Constantly, I was repeating things and trying to jog her memory. --The signs were all too familiar.
I was not surprised when Pat announced that she was going into a Home for the elderly. Her daughter found one with a beautiful nature view. Pat wanted me to move in, too. I was a young 58 and felt I wasn't even close to ready for anything like that!
After her move, I hear nothing for awhile. Then I received a call from Pat in the middle of the week. I asked for the phone number there. Pat seemed confused. She said she'd have to call me back. I never heard from her again.
About a year later, I received a call from Pat's aggrieved and weeping daughter informing me she had passed on. I lost Pat a year after Margaret, the same order in which I met them. Pat survived the death decade by one year. Now everyone I had known from my parent's generation was gone.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
THAUMATURGIC THINKING
When you're down, smile and think positive, joyful thoughts. Soon the rest of the world will fall in line. You'll be happy for real! Everything will be wonderful! -- Yeah right. The disturbing part is how many people buy into this airy-fairy thinking. They probably believe in unicorns and magic rainbows, too.
Since I've been on Facebook, (I'm fairly recent) I've noticed so many walls filled with such La-la-la pie-in-the-sky platitudes which are basically lies. Also I've found people don't like me harshing their mellow with an injection of reality.
After spending several years in group therapy, I can only shake my head in disbelief. I knew individuals who suffered from chronic depression so severe, no amount of therapy or medication could help. They would find these type of platitudes both arrogant and ignorant. I know I do! -- Many people have valid reasons for being unhappy and have far more serious problems than these shallow minds can comprehend.
Below are a few examples that make me want to give these jabber-monkeys a hard pinch with a pair of hot tongs.
"If you want to be happy, choose to be!" -- Oh please! No one chooses to be unhappy, unless they're a masochist! We don't always have control over our lives! Some people were born into abusive situations and have never known anything else! Abusers are highly skilled in manipulation and brainwashing! They destroy from within.
Another equally ignorant phrase is, "Don't let negative people rent space in your head." -- Hey, they aren't RENTERS! They're more like fortified SQUATTERS, who refuse to be moved with dynamite!
Nowadays, I consider myself a happy person. Looking back, I can see exactly why I was depressed. Granted, I didn't always make the best decisions. Yes, I would change things if I could go back, knowing everything I do now! -- Sorry, I don't own a magic crystal ball! But I felt I made the best decisions given my circumstances and state of mind.
There was a time in recent history when I had forgotten what it felt like to be happy. I read once that happiness is a relatively modern concept. Centuries ago, people would have found the idea silly! In third world countries, they still do. Survival is their main priority!
"You're as happy as you make up your mind to be! So stop evoking negative thoughts!" read one Facebook posting.
For the edification of this person, evoking negative thoughts is INVOLUNTARY. -- There are many triggers in our everyday life!
Example, in my teens I knew an ugly Betty; (This bitch was every bit as ugly on the inside!) she was overly critical and LOVED to correct me in front of other people. Whenever I said I was mad, she would condescendingly reply, "Dogs go mad, people get angry."
I heard this so often, to this day, whenever I'm about to use the word MAD in a sentence, I hear a recording of her saying, "DOGS GO MAD, PEOPLE GET ANGRY," in that condescending voice of hers.
Actually MAD and ANGRY are synonyms in our modern world. Bitchy Betty was just another arrogant ignoramus! This short, ugly troll is probably still wondering why I no longer wanted a friendship with her when our school years ended. I only regret not exorcising her sooner.
This is just one of numerous recordings that go off AUTOMATICALLY in my head. My cranium is often blasting full volume with negative ones from Mommy & Daddy! I can't remove them, because they're permanently implanted. However, through therapy I've learned to mute and replace them with recordings of my own. But it took me decades to accomplish this.
Pain must be confronted and worked through in order to heal. Pretending it's not there is about the most unhealthy thing you can do!
Useless advice from clueless people is awash and floating all over the place on Facebook.
Since I've been on Facebook, (I'm fairly recent) I've noticed so many walls filled with such La-la-la pie-in-the-sky platitudes which are basically lies. Also I've found people don't like me harshing their mellow with an injection of reality.
After spending several years in group therapy, I can only shake my head in disbelief. I knew individuals who suffered from chronic depression so severe, no amount of therapy or medication could help. They would find these type of platitudes both arrogant and ignorant. I know I do! -- Many people have valid reasons for being unhappy and have far more serious problems than these shallow minds can comprehend.
Below are a few examples that make me want to give these jabber-monkeys a hard pinch with a pair of hot tongs.
"If you want to be happy, choose to be!" -- Oh please! No one chooses to be unhappy, unless they're a masochist! We don't always have control over our lives! Some people were born into abusive situations and have never known anything else! Abusers are highly skilled in manipulation and brainwashing! They destroy from within.
Another equally ignorant phrase is, "Don't let negative people rent space in your head." -- Hey, they aren't RENTERS! They're more like fortified SQUATTERS, who refuse to be moved with dynamite!
Nowadays, I consider myself a happy person. Looking back, I can see exactly why I was depressed. Granted, I didn't always make the best decisions. Yes, I would change things if I could go back, knowing everything I do now! -- Sorry, I don't own a magic crystal ball! But I felt I made the best decisions given my circumstances and state of mind.
There was a time in recent history when I had forgotten what it felt like to be happy. I read once that happiness is a relatively modern concept. Centuries ago, people would have found the idea silly! In third world countries, they still do. Survival is their main priority!
"You're as happy as you make up your mind to be! So stop evoking negative thoughts!" read one Facebook posting.
For the edification of this person, evoking negative thoughts is INVOLUNTARY. -- There are many triggers in our everyday life!
Example, in my teens I knew an ugly Betty; (This bitch was every bit as ugly on the inside!) she was overly critical and LOVED to correct me in front of other people. Whenever I said I was mad, she would condescendingly reply, "Dogs go mad, people get angry."
I heard this so often, to this day, whenever I'm about to use the word MAD in a sentence, I hear a recording of her saying, "DOGS GO MAD, PEOPLE GET ANGRY," in that condescending voice of hers.
Actually MAD and ANGRY are synonyms in our modern world. Bitchy Betty was just another arrogant ignoramus! This short, ugly troll is probably still wondering why I no longer wanted a friendship with her when our school years ended. I only regret not exorcising her sooner.
This is just one of numerous recordings that go off AUTOMATICALLY in my head. My cranium is often blasting full volume with negative ones from Mommy & Daddy! I can't remove them, because they're permanently implanted. However, through therapy I've learned to mute and replace them with recordings of my own. But it took me decades to accomplish this.
Pain must be confronted and worked through in order to heal. Pretending it's not there is about the most unhealthy thing you can do!
Useless advice from clueless people is awash and floating all over the place on Facebook.
Friday, March 8, 2013
FREAK SHOW -- PEEP SHOW
Often I hear of young girls who struggle with their body image. I have to laugh as I think of what I experienced in comparison!
I was told for as long as I can remember, "There's something wrong with you!"
This made me self-conscious as hell! I could feel my skin creep if anyone stared at me too hard or too long. Whatever was wrong with me, I was positive they could see it, even if I couldn't! This unnerved me no end. I felt ashamed to be noticed. I liked people best when they ignored me.
I found great comfort in being alone. To this day, coming home to an empty house is a wonderful feeling! No one is constantly in my face.
Being self-conscious I tended to slouch and be stoop-shouldered. "Stand-up straight or you'll grow a hump!" Mom was always hollering at me.
My mother had zero discipline when it came to maintaining her own body. Yet she held a narrow, distorted view of how I should look, act, talk, and think. After we moved to her dream house in 1960, I didn't fit in with the decor of her perfect abode. I was horrified and ashamed of all the things that were wrong with me!
My body was stick-like because I was a finicky eater. For example, eyes in mashed potatoes repulsed me as if they were cockroach peepers! Also I was so pale you'd think vampires had been sucking on me. "You look like you're going to die!" I heard this frequently.
After watching an episode of WAGON TRAIN with Bette Davis in which her character had died of a tumor, I asked my mother what that was.
"If you don't start eating right, you're going to get one!" came her reply.
My mother admired women with lush, heavy hair. Mine was fine-textured and fly-away, it tended to frizz in the slightest humidity, and tangled & matted easily. Also it shed like a dog! I was constantly told I was going to be bald!
I developed a stammer, which further embarrassed my mother. She screamed at me as if I could somehow control it.
Did I mention I was also pigeon-toed!
The thought of growing up depressed and terrified me! I pictured all the people stopping to point and stare at the hunch-backed, pigeon-toed, bald woman with a tumor, stammering to herself as she went along.
Probably I would be too hideous to even venture out in public! I'd be forced to hide myself away in a shuttered attic or a bell-tower like Quasimodo. Anyone who glimpsed me would recoil in abhorrence. (I actually visualized all this!) Fortunately, I wouldn't have to endure it for long, because the tumor would kill me. -- There really is a silver lining to everything!
Being a less-than child, I wanted desperately to be pretty. Before I hit the age of 20; God, Max Factor, & Miss Clairol answered my prayers!
The summer before I turned 19, I experimented with make-up. Also I bleached my hair back to the light blonde shade of my childhood. Wonder of all miracles, I was actually attractive! Through a twist of fate, my mother was now a religious fanatic.
"You look like a hooker!" she declared. "God will make every hair on your head fall out to punish you for bleaching it!" she warned.
"If he does I'm wearing a long, brassy blonde wig!" I told her.
Mom wasn't getting inside my head any more ... But her ugly spores had already been planted. Removing them was a long and painstaking process.
I was told for as long as I can remember, "There's something wrong with you!"
This made me self-conscious as hell! I could feel my skin creep if anyone stared at me too hard or too long. Whatever was wrong with me, I was positive they could see it, even if I couldn't! This unnerved me no end. I felt ashamed to be noticed. I liked people best when they ignored me.
I found great comfort in being alone. To this day, coming home to an empty house is a wonderful feeling! No one is constantly in my face.
Being self-conscious I tended to slouch and be stoop-shouldered. "Stand-up straight or you'll grow a hump!" Mom was always hollering at me.
My mother had zero discipline when it came to maintaining her own body. Yet she held a narrow, distorted view of how I should look, act, talk, and think. After we moved to her dream house in 1960, I didn't fit in with the decor of her perfect abode. I was horrified and ashamed of all the things that were wrong with me!
My body was stick-like because I was a finicky eater. For example, eyes in mashed potatoes repulsed me as if they were cockroach peepers! Also I was so pale you'd think vampires had been sucking on me. "You look like you're going to die!" I heard this frequently.
After watching an episode of WAGON TRAIN with Bette Davis in which her character had died of a tumor, I asked my mother what that was.
"If you don't start eating right, you're going to get one!" came her reply.
My mother admired women with lush, heavy hair. Mine was fine-textured and fly-away, it tended to frizz in the slightest humidity, and tangled & matted easily. Also it shed like a dog! I was constantly told I was going to be bald!
I developed a stammer, which further embarrassed my mother. She screamed at me as if I could somehow control it.
Did I mention I was also pigeon-toed!
The thought of growing up depressed and terrified me! I pictured all the people stopping to point and stare at the hunch-backed, pigeon-toed, bald woman with a tumor, stammering to herself as she went along.
Probably I would be too hideous to even venture out in public! I'd be forced to hide myself away in a shuttered attic or a bell-tower like Quasimodo. Anyone who glimpsed me would recoil in abhorrence. (I actually visualized all this!) Fortunately, I wouldn't have to endure it for long, because the tumor would kill me. -- There really is a silver lining to everything!
Being a less-than child, I wanted desperately to be pretty. Before I hit the age of 20; God, Max Factor, & Miss Clairol answered my prayers!
The summer before I turned 19, I experimented with make-up. Also I bleached my hair back to the light blonde shade of my childhood. Wonder of all miracles, I was actually attractive! Through a twist of fate, my mother was now a religious fanatic.
"You look like a hooker!" she declared. "God will make every hair on your head fall out to punish you for bleaching it!" she warned.
"If he does I'm wearing a long, brassy blonde wig!" I told her.
Mom wasn't getting inside my head any more ... But her ugly spores had already been planted. Removing them was a long and painstaking process.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
SLUTTY CUPCAKES
Recently, at a business networking luncheon, I won a coupon for 4 free cupcakes. Possessing a voracious sweet-tooth I couldn't have been happier if I'd won gold nuggets!
The cute, little shop was called CLASSY CUPCAKES. I chose 1 red velvet, 1 chocolate, 1 combo and 1 vanilla. I relished each one! However, for what they cost (sans coupon) I felt they should have been bigger and fancier! Of course I'm speaking from the prospective of a penny-pinching poor person. For crying out loud, gasoline is almost $4. per gallon now! I doubt I'll be returning without another coupon, despite the fact their product was so delicious.
But it's next to impossible to screw-up cupcakes, unless you burn or under cook them. I could buy a box of Pillsbury cake mix and make them myself. When my father was alive, I used to bake sheet cakes, fancy holiday cookies, and brownies all the time! Baking is easy! The oven does all the work.
1: Just mix ingredients, stir or whip.
2: Pour in a pan & pop in oven.
3: Set your timer.
4: Make yourself a cup of coffee & read the newspaper until your timer goes off.
5: Take pan out of oven & cool.
6: Finish reading the newspaper.
7: Frost & decorate your cake or cookies.
It's fun!
Perhaps I should start my own cupcake business! I could sell them out of my house or car. Mine would be jumbo sized with lots of colorful frosting and garish ornamentation. I'd call them SLUTTY CUPCAKES!
My business slogan would be: THEY'RE COLORFUL, TASTY & CHEAP; EVENTUALLY THEY'LL PROBABLY KILL YOU. BUT YOU'LL SAVOR THE MEMORIES & DIE WITH THEM ON YOUR LIPS!
That reminds me of the TV show about the 2 broke waitresses and their fledgling cupcake business. From what I see on my screen, those look like plain-Jane cupcakes baked by sluts.
At least with my cupcakes you wouldn't have to worry about catching any diseases, except of course heart disease.
I'm not actually going into the cupcake business. Publix and Walmart already sell slutty cupcakes. Of course they don't call them that, but we all know what they really are!
The cute, little shop was called CLASSY CUPCAKES. I chose 1 red velvet, 1 chocolate, 1 combo and 1 vanilla. I relished each one! However, for what they cost (sans coupon) I felt they should have been bigger and fancier! Of course I'm speaking from the prospective of a penny-pinching poor person. For crying out loud, gasoline is almost $4. per gallon now! I doubt I'll be returning without another coupon, despite the fact their product was so delicious.
But it's next to impossible to screw-up cupcakes, unless you burn or under cook them. I could buy a box of Pillsbury cake mix and make them myself. When my father was alive, I used to bake sheet cakes, fancy holiday cookies, and brownies all the time! Baking is easy! The oven does all the work.
1: Just mix ingredients, stir or whip.
2: Pour in a pan & pop in oven.
3: Set your timer.
4: Make yourself a cup of coffee & read the newspaper until your timer goes off.
5: Take pan out of oven & cool.
6: Finish reading the newspaper.
7: Frost & decorate your cake or cookies.
It's fun!
Perhaps I should start my own cupcake business! I could sell them out of my house or car. Mine would be jumbo sized with lots of colorful frosting and garish ornamentation. I'd call them SLUTTY CUPCAKES!
My business slogan would be: THEY'RE COLORFUL, TASTY & CHEAP; EVENTUALLY THEY'LL PROBABLY KILL YOU. BUT YOU'LL SAVOR THE MEMORIES & DIE WITH THEM ON YOUR LIPS!
That reminds me of the TV show about the 2 broke waitresses and their fledgling cupcake business. From what I see on my screen, those look like plain-Jane cupcakes baked by sluts.
At least with my cupcakes you wouldn't have to worry about catching any diseases, except of course heart disease.
I'm not actually going into the cupcake business. Publix and Walmart already sell slutty cupcakes. Of course they don't call them that, but we all know what they really are!
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