Thanks to A Christmas Story, I can never see the word “fragile” without pronouncing it fraGEElay in my head. And on this Christmas Eve, things can indeed be fragile…huge ToDo lists…family gatherings…full schedules…exhausted parents trying to provide the “perfect” Christmas for their kids…It can get messy and broken pretty quickly. So as you would with fragile things, be gentle. Continue reading “Fra GEE lay”
Making Non-Sense
Though The Juggle Struggle aims to be a generally lighthearted and hopefully humorous blog, I just can’t bring it today.
Often what we juggle as people isn’t the least bit lighthearted. Charlotte, Daniel, Rachel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Dawn, Madeleine, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Anne Marie, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Lauren, Mary, Victoria, Benjamin, and Allison aren’t here anymore. Their lives—so many of them only just beginning—snuffed out by one person’s unfathomable actions. And their families and loved ones are dealing with devastating losses that have forever changed them. I, like the rest of the world, am struggling to deal with the recent horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
I struggle with my feelings of both deep sorrow and fierce anger.
I struggle with what to tell my child about such an abominable event, knowing I can’t protect him completely from the harsh and bitter realities that life sometimes presents.
I struggle with what this all means in our world, and what we need to do to make it harder for another lost soul to wreak such havoc.
I struggle with feelings of helplessness.
And I struggle with the guilt of knowing my life will absorb this blow a lot differently than the parents of the 20 children who watched all the other families get reunited with their kids while they waited…and waited…and then were told that their little one was dead. My heart breaks over and over again as I try to put myself in their shoes.
The families of the heroic adult victims, too, are also dealing with such painful loss.
So where do we go from here?
I’m not really sure, but I know that in today’s rabid hyper media attention of such tragedies, I am thankful that one of the aspects they are reporting on is that the Newtown area is steeped in faith. And though faith won’t “explain away” such horror, I believe it is what sustains us and is the foundation to rebuilding broken lives. And hearing our president, as he offered his sympathies, quote Psalm 147—reminding us that God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds”—was something I needed to hear in that moment.
Though I don’t fancy myself to have “the” answers, I do know that we need to be better to one another. We need to love and listen. We need to give and support. We need to forgive and remember. We need to work together to provide a safer world for all of us.
And we need to remember that life is a gift and not a guarantee.
Ask Dad. He Knows.
I fell in love with the movie It’s a Wonderful Life when I was just a little girl. Back then, they showed it numerous times during the holiday season, and it’s a safe estimate to say I’ve seen it close to 100 times…so I’m a tad familiar with it. I think most people are familiar with it, too, as well as the main themes of the movie. The ideas of “Each man’s life touches so many other lives” and “No man is a failure who has friends” are the one-two punches of the movie and still so relevant today.
But there’s lots more to be learned in this lovely movie, too—like don’t ride your shovel onto thin ice…a turntable can make one helluva rotisserie…whispering into someone’s deaf ear is a great way to admit your love without having them know it…it’s best to periodically check the floor when dancing…and the valuable tip from Uncle Billy that has served me so well in life: when drunk and in doubt, choose the middle hat.
Indeed, the film is loaded with life lessons, but there’s one in particular that I want to take a moment with, and the title of this post probably already clued you in. Ask Dad. He knows. When George is presented with the problem of delivering what he knows to be deadly “medicine,” he barges into a meeting and attempts to ask his dad what to do. Of course, later in the film you can connect the dots to know that the dad he really needs to ask about his big problems is The Dad of All, but his earthly one is pretty damned important, too. In fact, when George’s dad dies, it ends up shaping the rest of his life.
When I began my love affair with IAWL as a child, I had no idea the parallels that George Bailey and I would have, with a key one being that my dad died just about the same time of life as Peter Bailey left George. His chances to ask his dad disappeared, as did mine.
And, oh, the things I would have loved to ask my dad…Of course, plenty of serious life issues, but lots of others, too. Like how was “Oh, I trust you, it’s just your date that I don’t trust…” supposed to ever even appear fair? And why didn’t you wear shorts except for swimming? And couldn’t you have used another comparison instead of “poodle” when I got that one perm in junior high?
For the years lived without him, lots of questions from my 20s would have begun, “Dad, why do guys…?” and there’d be the specific one that asked, “What do you think of this guy?” In my 30s, I know one question would have been, “How do you like your new grandson?” And now in my 40s, I still find myself wondering, “what would Dad have thought?” about any variety of things.
But all of these questions are no longer possible to ask. So, my friends, I want to encourage you: if you still can, ask Dad—and ask Mom, too. From the silly to the serious, if you don’t ask…you’ll never know. Don’t let them take too many answers with them. After all, it IS a wonderful life, and the more we learn about and love one another, the better.
Recipe for Success
Less than a month away from the start of 2013, many of us may be thinking about goal setting for the New Year. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have it all figured out. Yep. I have the recipe for success. It’s all about proper goal setting. I don’t mean to appear smug about this, but really…I have the answer. After years of living as me, I now know what I must do to be a success at something. And I’m pretty sure I have the answer for you, too.
Choosing what you are innately good at is key to my method, and my new goals will reflect this. Let me share with you some goals that I just know I will successfully achieve: I will gain weight. I will sleep less than I should. I will let myself be easily distracted, and—as an offshoot of this, I will watch more mindless youtube videos, particularly ones of ridiculously cute puppies. I will continue to undermine my short term memory by Googling anything and everything that crosses my mind.
See?!?! These are things I can achieve! In fact, these are things I am already doing—I just haven’t intended to! So what if I make them be things I am trying to do on purpose? Yes, these are simply horribly bad goals–but imagine the boost to self confidence that I will feel when I start knocking these goals off my list one-by-one! You go, girl! You are on fire! Who knows what I might be able to achieve with a string of successes under my ever-tightening belt?!
Of course, I am familiar with failure, and there is the slight chance that I might fail here, as well…and then what to do? Here’s the added bonus to my recipe for success: failure is even better! “Oh, darn…I’ve lost another pound this week. I have failed yet again.” Yes! Failure in this plan IS an option! It could result in a slim, well-rested, and more focused me! Failure would be the new success!
Feel free to use my exciting new method in achieving your goals, too! We could start a whole wave of people who are succeeding like never before! We could change the world!
Or not.
Words Count
Can you remember a stinging criticism you received? Yeah, me, too. Words can be so sharp that their cutting edge might as well be a Ginsu knife. But along with the deep slashes a negative comment can make, a positive one can do wonders, as well. So why are we so stingy with them?
The negatives stick and the positives are hard to come by. Continue reading “Words Count”
No More Softie, Mr. Spider
I’m not the kind of girl that goes squealing for her man to kill a spider. Well, at least most days. Two days ago as I was busy getting ready for a long day when I noticed a spider tucked in the corner in the far reaches of my bathroom. Normally I would just climb up and take care of business, but I was in a hurry. I told the spider that I was giving him a reprieve—that this was his shot at freedom, and that I hoped not to see him again. Since these days it takes perhaps 1.4 seconds for me to forget something, I barely exited the bathroom before forgetting about my multi-legged visitor.
Flash forward to the next morning. While in the shower singing away–no funny microphones anymore–out of the corner of my eye I see three hairy, scary, spindly legs peeking out from the corner of my shower behind the spring rod that holds my shelves. I looked behind the rod to see into the very corner, and…holy cry. It was this huge spider with a body shape I couldn’t really make out due to the crazy legs akimbo. I gasped in sheer horror and instantaneously regretted my earlier Ms. Nice Girl approach to this damned arachnid. I mean, it was seriously ginormous. And angry looking. Not the least big appreciative of my earlier generosity. In my vulnerable state of nudity I weighed the option of just taking my handheld shower head and trying to nail the bastard. But the overly responsible side of me said, no…that I would get the wall much too wet doing so (yes, I KNOW I was in a SHOWER. Cut me some slack. I was dealing with a steroidal tarantula). Instead, I decided to keep an eye on the fiend and make sure to get him once I was in a better, dryer position to smash the crap out of him.
What followed probably should have been filmed—with generous black bars covering any sensitivities, of course. But it had to have been ridiculous to see. I would bend down to shave my legs and then do this wild convulsive move over my shoulder to keep an eye on Grizzly Adams. After one and a half legs’ worth of this kind of spasming, I did my ultra-cool move only to see…that…he…was…gone. Gone. The colorful expletives that came out of my mouth impressed even me. How could a mere second allow this demon to disappear? I looked all over…every shelf, all around the rod. He was nowhere to be found. At that point, screw wet walls—I sprayed my showerhead in that corner like an AK-47…and….nothing. No. Thing. More expletives. The fact that a large spider can reduce a grown woman into such psycho jello is amazing. And then…after several seconds—pretty nearly an eternity’s worth—the damn spider dropped onto the tub floor. Oh, I’d like to share that I collected myself and casually sprayed the mother down the drain, but I’d be being much too kind to myself. No, instead I will admit that Barney Fife was channeled through me on my final move of this incident. But he did go down the drain. And then, just to make sure, I kept spraying and spraying down the drain…wouldn’t want him clawing his way back up, right?
Of course, visions of the Demon Spider doing just that continue to haunt me. Could he still come back up? Did he have some sort of aquatic ability? Could he be so pissed that he is making it his life’s mission to come back and finish what he started? I don’t know. But let me guarantee one thing: there will be no more spider reprieves issued from this girl. Oh, no. Once was enough.
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