With Good Friends, You Can Wear Your Pants Backwards!

So one day last week, I went to work feeling very comfortable and kind of cute in my outfit selection for the day. I was wearing a pair of black leggings with black flats and an oversized belted tunic – comfortable, casual, and oh-so-easy. Or at least it should have been. I realized halfway through the day that it wasn’t as easy as I thought – since I was actually wearing my pants backwards!

When I made this discovery, I literally laughed out loud at myself, quickly corrected the situation, and then sent a short message to a few of my nearest and dearest to share my humiliation. My dilemma got some laughs but I was also surprised to hear a flood of return stories that mirrored my own experience. One friend said she recently went to work wearing her shirt inside out, another said she wore her shirt backwards, and another told a story about going to work wearing two completely different shoes!

I was relieved to hear that there was no need to be embarrassed about my little “mis-hap” since I wasn’t alone and my friends had shared similar experiences. I was reminded once again that I’m not alone in the silly moments of my life, and I’m not alone in the moments that truly matter either. I’m fortunate to have people that I can reach out to share my stories with...and my occasional shame.  And in return, I have their support... and their laughter. I hope that you have friends like these too. Because when your clothes are on backwards, or inside out, or you are wearing two different shoes, your friends will help you to see the humor and to see the “human” in yourself. And somehow, that makes everything just a little more comfortable.

Theresa, The Centipede Warrior!

There’s something about curling up with a good book on a rainy Sunday morning -- when you know you have nowhere you have to be and nothing you have to do. It’s wonderfully relaxing and soothing to the soul and, yesterday, I found myself enjoying such a morning. As I was home alone, the house was completely quiet except for the sound of the wind outside. I’d been curled up on the living room couch for an hour or more, enjoying the quiet, the solitude, and the book I was reading. I was deeply relaxed and feeling very Sunday-Zen. It occurred to me to wonder about the time, and as I glanced up at the clock on the wall, something grabbed my attention and broke the calm of the day for me. Out of the corner of my eye, there right above my head on the ceiling, was a HUGE centipede!

Now for those of you who might not be aware, I have certain limits in regards to insects, rodents and reptiles. Though I’m not terribly bothered by your average house spider, I am completely freaked out by anything more unusual. Crickets frighten me (they jump really fast and high), mice completely give me the creeps and I honestly can’t even talk about snakes. But centipedes fall somewhere in the middle for me –they are slimy, and crawly, and unpredictable because you can’t tell which is their head and which is their tail. So, as I saw this large centipede perched just over my head, you might think my initial reaction may have been to run and hide. I was tempted. But I am proud to tell you that I overcame my fear in that moment of doubt...and saved the day.

I flew off the couch in immediate ninja mode.  I don’t think the centipede (who for purposes of identification, we will just call “Brutus” from here forward) was even aware that he had been spotted. Immediately, I conducted a status check to ensure my own safety as I frantically ran my fingers through my hair, hoping beyond all measure that Brutus was indeed a loner, and that he didn’t have a partner who had possibly fallen in my hair. Once I established that my hair was centipede free, I had to quickly strategize an attack. With stealthlike movements, I backed out of the living room in order to find myself an appropriate weapon. The mace I keep near my bed seemed like overkill so I went with a clean “paper towel” approach. Some might consider this to be a risky choice and accuse me of being over-confident, but I had made my decision and there would be no second-guessing.

I grabbed a stack of paper towels and then warily glanced back towards the living room. Was my opponent aware of his imminent demise? For I was certain, that only one of us would come out of this confrontation alive….and it wasn’t going to be Brutus. 

Stalking like a lioness protecting her cubs, I slowly approached Brutus realizing that my immediate challenge would be that I was seriously height-disadvantaged. I couldn’t risk the possibility of alerting Brutus to danger by rearranging furniture so I needed to make do by crawling on the couch arm and stretching to reach the ceiling. The Gods were in my favor as I discovered that I had the physical capacity to reach just far enough to complete the deed before me. As I adjusted my paper towel for the most effective kill, Brutus never left my field of view out of the corner of my eye. I was careful about how I brandished my weapon.  If I used too many layers, I would risk the loss of much needed manual dexterity. If I used too few layers, there was risk that I might actually feel Brutus (and that was an option I couldn’t consider). If I didn’t have the length of the fold just right, Brutus could prove himself to be a worthy opponent by clinging to a part of the towel that I hadn’t intended. So many things to consider.  When I felt like I had the paper towel positioned to be an effective extension of my own hand, I took a deep breath and moved in for the kill.

I’m not going to lie to you. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t courageous. I hesitated and wondered if I would have the ability to do what needed to be done. I questioned my own centipede knowledge. For example, how quickly can these things move? What if I go in for the kill, and Brutus makes a break for it? Or what if he goes completely offensive and leaps from the ceiling in a direct attack on my upturned face. I had to push these thoughts aside as they were distracting me from my purpose. There was a job to be done, there was nobody else to do it, it was him….or me.

Another deep breath and I made my move. I lunged for Brutus completely covering his entire 3” multi-legged slithery body with my Bounty 4X paper towel. If you had been in the room, you might have heard me actually scream just a bit as I did this but since you weren’t in the room, perhaps I made no sound? For just a second, I froze as I reassessed the situation. Did I have him covered under the paper towel? Was there any chance that he had escaped? Did he make the leap and land somewhere on my arm or in my hair where I had not yet discovered that I had been outwitted? As all these doubts raged through my mind, I completed the swipe and made a visual confirmation that Brutus was no more.

I leaped from the couch to dispose of the evidence. I gave myself a mental high five and heard the crowds cheer for my success! I was triumphant! Roused from a most peaceful moment, I had reacted quickly and with a vengeance. I was ‘Theresa, the Centipede Warrior”.

That’s how things are.  One moment, you can be sitting enjoying peace and the next moment, you might have to deal with something you hadn’t anticipated. What I’ve learned about how quickly moments can change is this. You have what you need to meet the moment. You do what has to be done. You may feel like you are lacking or not up to the challenge. But whatever you do, however you do it, it is the right thing and you are the champion of that moment. There are times we need strength to deal with our silly little fears and times we need more strength to deal with our very real fears. But believe that you do have the strength that you need, and if you ever need help dealing with a scary centipede, let me know – I'll bring the paper towels.

Hold On To This Moment

My grandson, Joey, is fussing a bit so I'm holding him as I walk through the house, gently rocking him to soothe him, and helping him to hold his nuk in his mouth. My focus is fully on him when I suddenly wonder what Sammy is doing as she is suspiciously quiet. I stop and turn to find her directly behind me, no more than one step away. She too is holding her "baby" and trying to put a nuk in its mouth as she gently rocks the baby back and forth. She is looking down at her baby in an exact mirror image of how I am holding Joey and was just gazing down at him. I realize that she has been following me, watching what I do, and imitating my every action. As I stop to turn at look at her, she stops as well and looks up at me with the most sincere questioning look like "what's up, why are we stopping?"  My heart pulls in every direction because she has these huge brown eyes that just swallow me up every time I look at her. I am overwhelmed once again this day with how much I love her. I'm so honored that she too seems to love me enough too to watch me and to copy me for just a moment. It's a moment that I couldn't capture in the way that I typically like to - with my camera - so I have to just hold the image in my mind and in my heart forever. 


That's the way some moments are. Actually, that's usually the way the best moments are. They sneak up on you when you aren't looking and you probably aren't ready. And then they hit with you such power. In fact, the simplest moments can hold the most immense power. And, it is worthwhile to stop to recognize them when they happen, take a deep breath and look around so you don't miss a detail. These are the moments that build our memories and make our lives so amazing. We can't always capture them with technology so we have to keep our hearts open to holding them. As I looked into my grand-daughter's eyes, I told myself, "This is it. This is what life is all about it. Hold on to this moment."


Of course, Sammy moves pretty quickly so she didn't really stay in the moment quite as long as I did. As soon as our moment was over, she got bored with her doll, dropped it on the floor, and ran off to find her Auntie to see if she might be doing something more entertaining. 


Oh well...it was a moment for me and...I will never forget.

OMG! I "heart" U! LOL!

I was in a meeting this morning when I noticed this message written on a flipchart in the corner of the room. (For those of you who may appreciate a translation...“Oh my God! I Love You! Laugh Out Loud!). I found myself coming back to this message several times throughout the meeting and wondering who had written it and why they had written it in this very sterile, corporate conference room, and why did they write it in text language. Is there an office romance brewing somewhere that I’m not aware of? Did someone do a really amazing job on a project and their boss was just “feeling the love”? Did someone put it there anonymously intended for anyone who happened to need a day brightener? As I wondered about the author and about the purpose of the message, and more specifically, the format of the message itself, I considered how much text messaging language has impacted our lives.

Now, since I consider myself to be so knowledgable about ancient communications methods (ok...not so much), I can share with you my theory that today's texting language shares some similarities with hieroglyphics of Egyptian times. Hieroglyphics were also a “formal writing system combining logographic and alphabetic elements”.  (Thank you, Wikipedia – I don’t actually just know that kind of information off the top of my head.)  This style of writing, which is remarkably similar to texting language,  essentially included three different kinds of characters – those that represented alphabetic letters, those that represented full words, and those that were sort of descriptors for the other characters.  As writing expanded, the system became even more simplified to accommodate a larger audience of people (sound familiar?). Further, according to Wikipedia, “Visually hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative: they represent real or illusional elements, sometimes stylized and simplified, but all generally perfectly recognizable in form." (Again, sounds like texting to me.)


Ok, enough of the textbook language – using big words trying to make a simple concept sound more complicated than it really is. Here is the most important similarity between the two languages, they both succeed at taking a larger concept and breaking it down to its simplest form in order to tell someone something.

So as I sat in this meeting contemplating office romances, random acts of kindness, and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, I thought about how we frequently communicate in text language – beyond just the quick messages we key into our phones. “OMG’, “LOL”, and “WTF” have become part of our language – we speak those “words” to others so that they will immediately know, in a very quick fashion, what we are thinking or feeling. You may have read articles and studies about how writing, grammar, spelling and  punctuation are all suffering in the digital age as children no longer realize some words have full spellings. In fact, high school students are turning in term papers utilizing text language. While I would certainly never advocate that (I believe it is important that our children be able to communicate to the highest level possible as opposed to the lowest denominator), I have to admit that I also see some value in that kind of communication. Because it is quick, because it is easy, and because it is occasionally “cute”, it tends to feel less formal and maybe even a little less scary for those who are less confident about their writing. Therefore, maybe they are encouraged to communicate with those around them more frequently, in ways that before text language, they didn’t necessarily feel comfortable. And personally, I see that as a huge benefit to using text language. Anything that gets people talking – whatever form it takes – is good communication.

Texting will not be going away, at least not anytime that I can foresee in the near future. In fact, it will likely just continue to evolve meaning that someday many generations from now, some archaeologist may discover our cryptic text messages from 2012 and will wonder about who wrote them, who they were intended for, and what the message really meant. In the meantime, we continue to text and to incorporate text language into our daily lives and I’m OK with that.

After all, if someone wants to tell me that they love me, I don’t really care if they spell it out in layers of prose or if they simply text it with an “I 'heart' U”.  I get the message…and that’s what counts.