hafacenturyncounting

Motivated by a lack of material.

Archive for the month “January, 2022”

31 Jan 2022

My”Bloody”Ear

I just HAD to have that third earring! It has literally been a thorn in my side from the beginning. First, I grew up during an era when it was stylish to pierce from lobe to cartilage. I did not get my ears pierced until I was 16. While many of my other classmates and contemporaries went through the process of string, straws and finally actual earrings my lobes remained intact. Why you might ask. I certainly wanted them pierced like the other little girls. Something about having shiny little pieces of gold, silver, or birthstones in your ears just added to perceived beauty. Not many little girls do NOT want to be seen as pretty. My barrier was my mom. Mom had seen a girl with keloids, rather large ones hanging from her ears and decided she would NEVER pierce her ears and subsequently no daughter of hers would either. As we grew into young teenagers these decorations became more ornate and colorful. I now realized they were status symbols, attention getters.

Earrings had peace signs on them, black fists, happy faces, flowers, hearts, even marijuana leaves by the time we got to high school in the late 1970’s. However, I had “missed the boat” already. The last thing I wanted to be was noticed or have attention drawn to me. Yet at 16 armed with my beautiful best friend and her equally beautiful mother, I got up the nerve to ask my mother if I could pierce my ears. To my surprise mom said YES. Off to the mall we scurried and while I was denied the “pageantry” of strings and straws, I was at last able to finally sport cute shiny objects in my ears. They went virtually unnoticed.

Before I turned 20, I had the 2nd holes in my ears. I was on my way to being an ornate young lady with piercings lining my entire outer edge of my ears and that was where the process stopped. I spoke with females in passing and was informed that the closer one got to the cartilage the more painful and cumbersome the piercings would become. I wasn’t about no pain. Now we had ushered in multiple piercings, the men were now more readily sporting earrings (although men in other countries had been piercing their ears since before sailors went around the Cape of Good Hope and marked the accomplishment with a single gold hoop in the left ear). I still had my same two holes in each lobe without incident.

Flash forward, my inaugural trip to Hawaii I felt incomplete without getting that 3rd piercing. Therefore, I did it. I told the young lady at the piercing spot in the local mall I did not want it higher on my lobe but pointed her to an area that was beside my uppermost piercing. I naively thought she does this all the time if it would be a problem, she certainly would not do it AND she would tell me why. No such thing occurred. I had selected the diamond stud a bit more expensive made of better materials and because over the years I had discovered an allergy that prevented me from wearing “fashion” jewelry without suffering the consequence of itching rashes. I followed the instructions and waited for my ears to heal. The progress did not seem to be moving forward, it also did not seem to be any real problem associated with the piercing either. I wanted to be able to wear hoop earrings to Hawaii but since the ears had not healed completely that did not happen. During the past 4 years I have babied, treated and endured the sensitive 3rd piercing I just had to have! The left ear was the bigger problem, but the right would act up also.

Most recently I was in my bed and that left lobe felt itchy and sore to the touch. I was too lazy to get out of the bed and figured it was time to put some healing, anti-bacterial agent on my troublesome ear. I took the white gold hoop out finding noting unusual. As I applied the ointment, I felt a bit of fluid. It was wet enough to cause me to get up. I then saw the blood. I, quite annoyed, treated the ear. The process sent me on this psychological journey, that gave life to this piece. In the end I have decided if this ear gives me the slightest problem again, I am merely going to let it close up. I have long hair that mostly covers my ears anyway, so my everyday earrings are not so important now.

What I wonder is why it took so long and why such an arduous trip to discover I really did not need another piercing in my ears. A discovery I kinda made about 44 years ago. And I made it without the help of “my bloody ear” or my ear “bloody”.

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29 Jan 2022
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Looking For Love and Waiting for It to Find You

Is this a lost battle before it begins. I have to wonder. As you are tossed in the dating pool, you struggle to tread the waters of uncertainty, new rules, perpetrators, and let downs. No one said this would be easy. There are also no guarantees there will be any successes, but oh how we dread being alone.

Who among us wants to be viewed as undesirable? Plagued by images of blissful couples, faced with cliche’s such as “there’s a hat for every head” and plenty others, each day we are whisked into a battle to protect our egos as well as our very being. What is the formula and is the formula good for everyone?

As a writer I came to realize that I gravitate towards situations that I feel as though I can control. What situations one might ask. I will only admit to, “most“. Therefore, as I examined the world through the eyes of an individual seeking companionship, I encountered the usual pitfalls. Beginning with I like you do you like me? Sadly, beyond the superficial the answer tends to be NO. What is it about attraction that is so complicated? One either appeals to you or they don’t. However, that is not where the confusion begins or ends.

Approaching this with logic seemed to be the way to go, coupled with the control freak in me, I was fairly confident this process would yield favorable results. Starting with honesty I laid out a seemingly accurate blueprint for what I was in search of. I did not believe it would be an instant success, but I felt with a little patience, in a few months I should have a couple of suitable suitors of which might evolve into something more. I now laugh at the naive and rather arrogant expectation. I also must add, I am not a quitter, so this is NOT over.

As I believe that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. I also believe that falling in love does not necessarily make your heart skip a beat, but it allows it to maintain a steady rhythm. When you fall into your lover’s embrace it is not always the excitement that makes it real, substantial, and strong. It is the comfort of finding HOME; a safe, warm space for your heart…

Posted in Order of Appearance
29 Jan 2022
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The Good Ones Really Are All Taken….

Today the second man I loved sent me the sweetest message ever…

Loving him, shaped the way any man subsequent to him would be loved by me.

And yes, he IS taken. His sweet words are innocent, no threat of anything dishonorable happening… merely confirming what I always knew. That, however, does not change the facts. “Facts” utilized in this case that ARE both subjective and interpretive. For this, in and of itself, presents a debate. “Facts” like the title suggests and sums up all at once. I will not be so cavalier as to say. ” I hope she knows what she has”… what do any of us ever really know. Moreover, what I see, and experience may NOT be what she does.

If you are fortunate enough to marry, say your high school sweetheart and have managed to remain with them, you may understand the depth love like the love I feel for this sweet man. A love that began in innocence and evolved into family. Love that makes your eyes see Apollo and Adonis rolled into one. Love that gives you a sense that he knows more than Einstein and he has the heart of a child and peaceful soul of Gandi. What seems to be the description of a schoolgirl crush can still exist for a woman far beyond her teen years. Don’t feel bad or conscious about this. Embrace it, take in the joy it can provide for your mind, heart, and very soul.

However, as we return to the very real belief, acceptance, and title of this piece we invade a space that can be painful, disappointing, and disheartening. Who among us wants to visit such spaces? Are these beings real or are they a creation of our hearts that are edited by our loving souls? Do we one day wake abruptly and realize this person was the product of a dream.

Then it happens; he catches you as you stumble, he helps you pick up the bag you dropped. You cannot believe how kind and gallant he is, but you are forced to watch him walk away with his unmistakable “lady fair“. More proof that you are destined to live with the suggestion of this title. ____ years in the making and a simple song takes you back to a time when you were the one that others envied. Did you appreciate your position when you occupied it? Are all the good ones really taken or is it simply YOUR good one is seemingly out of your reach.

Posted in How We Relate, Uncategorized
29 Jan 2022
1 Comment

Pedestal

As I sat in the audience, listening to him sing my heart raced. The first time I met her in person, I was all smiles and tongue-tied. These beings, these people can/shall remain nameless and faceless because I am sure my readers can fill in the blank spaces with individuals that fit more personally. The point here IS that they simply are.

Feeling so excited, feeling elated for the simplest of things and experiences is NOT the issue. It is what we do with these same experiences in regard to people in our lives. There is nothing wrong with recognizing greatness, it is wrong when we place this greatness in direct conjunction with an otherwise flawed human being. YES, I said flawed, for minus the thing we become in awe of/with, they, just like us are human; weak and vulnerable. They have the same propensity to error as we do. Yet in those moment in time, we ignore this fact, and we can only hear the producer of that angelic sound, we can only see that possessor of that magnificent face, we can only inhale the intellect that flows from the individual’s words. Then we identify that which they do as, them. It is with this assignment that we lose sight of the fact that they ARE just like us. The difference is by virtue of hard work, a relentless spirt or luck-of-the-draw their innate super-power has emerged.

Greatness is all around and within us, it is around the corner at the grocery store, it is in our local classrooms, it is at our dining room table, we need only to recognize it. Therefore, continue to admire and respect the ones that have caught your eye, the ones you have lent your ears to, but always remember…IDOLS HAVE CLAY FEET. Those we regard as great should sit beside us not above us.

Posted in How We Relate
22 Jan 2022
1 Comment

Senior’s Day Discounted

It had disappeared a few years ago to the dismay of many. Afterall, we have earned any little retail perk the grocers, clothing stores, etc. cared to bestow on us. We all know what the reversal was about; greed AND the fact our group, the baby boomers, are just too doggone big!

I could not believe it when one of the two markets I frequented decided the discount day was to be no more. I then decided I would take MY business to the other store for that reason alone. Low and behold a few short months later my second choice followed suit and my discount day was totally gone. I mean it wasn’t a huge savings, it really broke down to sales tax, but it was the principle of it all. I once again shifted my loyalty to another store, a store that did not give the discount either, but it felt like a “show of power”. This new store never had given the discount, yet I made the informed decision to spend my hard-earned retired dollars at a place that had no real care about where I was in my working career or chronologically in life itself. I told myself, “At least this market did not start something and then abruptly stop.”

Well, I can happily report our senior discount has returned. Here I am paying homage to store chains that are doing something that is a tiny step above dangling a carrot ahead of a racehorse. Yet, we will accept this perk. The parking lot which is normally pretty empty in the early morning of a weekday is packed. I find there is a shortage of the smaller shopping carts, but notice the large ones designed for parents with babies and toddlers are in abundance. I ventured inside; I did not really need anything much so I feel like I can make my selections without the aid of a cart, but I did find a lone abandoned one to utilize. My peers were out in force, moving up and down the aisles with purpose if not with speed. We smiled from behind our masks at one another as we approached the check-out area. I went to self -service to avoid the wait, after all I AM a busy retired lady. I asked the attendant if I needed anything to note I am to get the senior discount he politely scanned his barcode, and I was ready to go. I was not asked for I.D. nor was I questioned about my age to determine eligibility. I simply checked out and proceeded to the parking lot.

I casually glanced around, noticing once again the gray brigade out in force. In a passing thought I found myself annoyed at the speed in which one of my elderly brethren was moving, I wanted to return my cart to the designated area but continue to be socially distance. Finally, the way was cleared, I thought of my mom later in life and how she vehemently objected to going to senior centers, because as she would say, she did NOT want to be around a bunch of old people. What has our society done to us? Then it occurred to me that with that small break in price (given and taken at will) …the senior discount, we too were being slighted, reduced, and yes discounted.

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