hafacenturyncounting

Motivated by a lack of material.

Archive for the month “July, 2015”

17 Jul 2015
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” You Got To Give A Little…”

There is a portion of a song in this piece’s title and I think it is felt in my heart as well. Emotions can sometimes seem a bit unbalanced.  There always seems to be one who gives more, there is always one who seemingly takes more, one who needs more and one who provides more… we could go on and on but the bottom line is we all need balance.

Human beings in every way are not able to or function poorly when we have too much of this, or too little of that, but medium portions give us what we need to excel. Balance, we are all about balance.My birthday is in October, I am an October Libra and a child of the era when Astrology was a craze. I still hold my zodiac sign near and dear to my heart, with that said the balance thing is a very BIG DEAL to me.

Our group is numerically “grown up”. Therefore it is expected that some of our behavior exhibits that”grown-up” status.  I am not talking the weekend motorcycle ride in the mountains, the periodic dancing all night long, or even the occasional roller coaster ride with the grand-kids. I am talking about the one-on-one relationships spouses, friends, parents, children. What type of time and effort are you putting into these relationships in order to obtain the desired results?

Let us begin with the subject of desire. We can go for the G-rated version but with commercials advertisements for E.D., ultra sensitive condoms, and libido enhancing lubricants we have a tough battle to face. From the very beginning you and your mate were on different time clocks; now they may have been close, you may have managed to synchronize them a great deal of the time, but they were still different. Now the slow down comes(I have friends who vehemently deny this..) you /him, her/you it matters NOT, the sync is no longer syncing. You’re ready, I’m not. I’m ready you’re not. One day you wake up and realize we simply..are not and have not for some time now. Do spouses understand that even though two have instrumentally become one, the two still exist?

Now let’s be fair time is something we all could use a little bit more of, but what would we do if we had it?  In the mere 24 hours of the day we must do life; needs, responsibilities, goals, dreams, assists, and leads. You look up one morning at 3:15, due in part to your insomnia and read your friend has become a grandparent for the second time. You say to yourself,” When did he become one for the first time..how did I miss that?” Then you say, I just spoke with him in January 2014, you realize it is June 2015. All those passing thoughts of, I need to call or I’m gonna stop by flash through your brain. Now you feel terrible, what kind of friend are you? Then you come to your own defense and say, “Well contact is a two-way street.” You now have given your conscious momentary relief. However, how long will you actually feel better, exonerated or will you at all?

We are the 50 Somethings therefore in most cases our parents are the 70 to 80 Somethings. Life is challenging now or it soon will be. We have our health to stay on top of, but we also MUST concern ourselves with theirs. They grew up and came of age in an era where natural and organic foods were not the top of the heap. McDonald’s was a way of life for many, diet sodas were great and everyone smoked..cigarettes. Take the poisons they fed to themselves out of the factor and you still have to put aging in. If you have both parents it is a bit easier for they have one another for companionship. Yet you are still gonna deal with some degree of “Needy”. You love them, but at times the guilt-trip is one you’d rather NOT take. Then you have to justify yourself to outsiders judgmental looks. Remember the phrase, “whose your daddy” juggle the words around a bit and you come up with the self defining question “who is the daddy”. It is prophetic, isn’t it?

Lastly there are our “bundles of joy”. No more 3 A.M. feedings but don’t you periodically think, “why don’t they get _____, this is so easy”. This generation just has no idea, sound slightly familiar? I think we have heard that statement/those type of statements before directed at some other group of young people. My children have made me proud, but can I be honest, it is difficult to refrain from the meddling parent role(wonder if there is some genetic connection). I don’t want to run their lives, although we all know I could do a much better job of it IN MY OPINION. I know in the most respectful way they know, they want to tell me at times to”bud out” but they were raised better than that. I also know at those same times, bud out is exactly what I should be doing. We try to keep it at a minimum, but could we try a bit harder?

Finally a final summation…support your children don’t smother them they will be fine they come from good stock;love your parents even when they are difficult they certainly did the same thing for you; take time out of your tight overbooked schedule and give your friend 15 minutes it’s a start; let your spouse know they are still number one in your book even if the book’s cover is faded and spine is slightly damaged. I suggest the giving role, because you can.

 

 

Posted in How We Relate and tagged ,
07 Jul 2015
2 Comments

If You Had A Choice

I remember a song by the Impressions from my childhood. I went to YouTube to make sure I was not imagining things and I verified it all. Time and again I remind my readers, I am a girl from Kansas City raised by church-going people. We moved to California and it was culture shock of amazing proportions.

I was questioned about my feeling towards a certain actress. I knew that I was not asked why I don’t like this performer randomly.. I love a debate but I select the ones I will participate in. This was my friend, so I bit. Before the discussion was over I was told( in so many words) that my feeling about this actress made my friend believe/feel/think we would not be friends if she had been born lighter.  I do not feel that way. I did not think my opinion of an actress was indicative of me, but it brought me to a point that I wanted to discuss and write about.

I am passionate about race. I also want to believe that in my lifetime the racism bulls%#@ will disappear. Is that idealistic or naive? Perhaps. However in the wake of a massacre in a church, in the midst of several states introducing bills/ legislature to ban a flag that throughout the history of The United States of America has insighted violence, implied white supremacy, represented death and destruction, I need to believe something positive will result from all of this.

I venture to say my feelings about being black is NOT unique. Some members of the white race may find this hard to believe or understand, but black people are proud people. Black people LOVE being black!The actress I spoke of earlier is “conveniently black”. My friend pointed out others, my response is the same for them as well. The difference being I have NOT heard of an incident in which the others have “tah-tahed” being black off when directly questioned. Is she(the actress) a coward or is she utilizing a special gift( the gift of the chameleon)? “If you had a choice of color, which one would you chose my brother?”Black people do not want what YOU(White people) have; we only want what is ours… YOU argue,” go out and work hard, pull yourself up by your boot straps like other groups”. Then I offer you a couple events in history and places where black people did just that, and the end results are Rosewood, Florida or  Tulsa,(Greenwood Neighborhood)Oklahoma massacres. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” Undermining the efforts of the black race in America is a well thought out plan. We are not “belly-aching”, we have valid substantiated gripes.

In this time period, where so much information is readily available, the thought of someone passing for white is bazaar . Yet not so very long ago you had a woman who by most accounts is clinically white, passed herself off as black. How bazaar was that?  No job application you fill out now will fail to ask a question about your race, the difference now is you don’t have to answer. Once upon a time it was against the law to say you were one race when you KNEW you were another, now one must be cautious not to break the law by being too insistent in asking about someone’s race.

What must it be like to wake in the morning and NOT be concerned about race. I have friends and acquaintances who have lived abroad for several years and what stands out about the experiences they speak of is the LACK of or down-right absence of racial incidents! I cannot fathom that thought. I want to see, feel, believe one day I will experience those things, right here in America. Back to the choice; what must it have been like to be trapped in a society and a body that threatened your existence because of your look….and to have a magic wand that could make all of that disappear, your own personal cloaking device. I imagine it was very similar to what we have STILL have in America. A great deal has changed, but a great deal remains the same.

 

Posted in One For My Friends and tagged ,

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