30 Days of Truth: Something People Seem to Compliment You Most On

I found this meme here and here.

Eleven: Something People Seem to Compliment You Most On

I dunno.

What is a compliment anyway?

What should you do when you receive a compliment?

OK, so now that we've got these basics done. I have a confession...I have no idea what my favorite compliment is a] I don't take compliments well b] I hardly believe them when they are told to me and c] I don't like/feel I need/want compliments; they make me feel weird and they make me blush and I'd rather just know than be told, you know!?

I don't receive them very well...don't worry...um, I don't give them very well either. Er...gah...

Huh, I didn't realize I felt that way until I began typing.

So, the other day I was wearing these gray sport shorts, you know those mesh track short thingies that I would never wear in public as I have thunderiffic thighs. It was like 80-degrees the other day and Lila and I were playing around and I was in the shorts and playing and cleaning the house and just being.

Yesterday, I said to Chris that I really needed to finish cleaning and he said, "Where are your shorts?" And, I said, "In the laundry room, why?" and...he just looked around and I knew what he was getting at, you know!? 

That's kind of a compliment right. And, it's the best kind as it wasn't direct.

I prefer the subtle to the overt. It's definitely more real and more believable and...you can bet I went and got those shorts out of the dirty clothes.

I'm not sure this little story addresses the prompt, but it does make me like my husband a little more, so that's a plus. It's also made me realize that I should be better at giving and receiving compliments.

30 Days of Truth: Someone You Need to Let Go or Wish You Didn't Know

I found this meme here and here.

Ten: Someone you need to let go or wish you didn't know

Ok, ok, ok...there is this parent of a former student. This parent was a royal pain in my behind for like 3 quarters of the school (ie. most of the school year)--I don't want to get into it, but, wow parents who teach, and obviously of lots of time to spare, can...can...wow! I tried deflecting, I tried being charming, I tried proof, I tried helping, I tried meetings (lots of meetings)...I screamed at home a lot. I no longer have that student in class (haven't for years). I wish I didn't know the parent, though. Sometimes I imagine that I run this particular person over with my car--Ally McBeal style with thumps and crunches and flailing...of course, that's when I realize that maybe I've been watching too many violent shows and movies. Um, I probably really need to let this person go though and stop giving this person the evil eye when I see this person in public (when you live in a small town seeing someone you despise in public happens more than I care to think about at the moment). Of course, living in fear of seeing this person in public was replaced by the evil eye and this deep-seated hate, which felt like a win, but I realize, as I type this, that it really wasn't...it just means I still think about the hurt and pain, but have found a different outlet.

I don't have to talk to this person to let them go, right, right??? I'm not sure I'm there yet...but, I suppose, I can stop that car fantasy and I suppose I can stop thinking of this person's name as a cuss-word.

I just wish I didn't know this person and then I wouldn't have to worry about letting them go. Ugh.

30 Days of Truth: Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

I found this meme here and here.

Nine: Someone you didn't want to let go, but just drifted

With the advent of social networking it seems that we never really get the option of letting go of anyone. It would seem that even people we haven't seen since we were 12 are always connected to us. In a way I like that, it gives me comfort to know that what I share is shared with these people and that we are never lost or forgotten. However, it also terrifies me...we are never lost or forgotten...even when we want to be, and we must go out of our way to be. We must purposefully sever the ties. So, when I read the above title with its "didn't want to let go, but just drifted" I thought, 'There isn't anybody in my life who just drifted.'

And, then I remembered...

There was this boy (it's always a boy, right!?) that I never dated, but spent a lot of time with. Actually, until I met Chris this was pretty much my MO--dating was for sissies who wanted their hearts broken, little did I realize...but, I'm jumping ahead.

This boy and I did everything together and people thought we were dating and we hung out at one another's houses and we hung out with one another's families and this boy and I were more than best friends and less than a married couple and swimming in dangerous waters that ended in a horrible yelling match disaster...except for...

...things didn't really end. You know we talked here and there for awhile, we said mean things to or about each other for awhile and then, well...

I guess, the thing is the person does just drift when you don't notice that they've cut you out of their social networking sphere until literally a year or two later when somebody says that this person got married and you go to look at the wedding pics and notice you aren't friends anymore and that the pics are blocked. I realized that this boy is definitely someone who drifted and I'm still trying to figure out if I didn't want to let him go.

And, all I can think is that are two sides to "When Harry Met Sally" and that sometimes Harry's ideas aren't so far off after all.

30 Days of Truth: Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit

I found this meme here and here.

Eight: Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit

This is so the opposite of last week's that I'm having a hard time getting my head around it.

I was teased a lot when I was a little kid. First, I was the first black kid to go to my school. I think that if my mother knew how hard this actually was my first 5 years of school, we would have moved somewhere else. On top of that I wore leg-braces (braces I refused to wear, after a certain point, by the way, so I still am a little bow-legged and pigeon-toed...trust a life time of this is better than the years more of teasing I would have had to face).

I was teased so much and discriminated against, even in high school and college, so much that it took me a long time to accept my otherness. I mean black kids can be just as cruel to other black kids when they see them as not being truly 'black' (whatever that means).

There are people that weren't allowed to date me, there are people who tried to turn me into someone I am not, there are people who tried to steal my joy and my peace and my happiness. The thing is that over the years I forgotten the names, or never bothered to know the names of some of the people who made my life hard and, today, I'm not sure I'd even recognize them in a crowd. I am hopeful that some of the bitterness and anger they were feeling has been assuaged and that's about all the thoughts they get from me.

I am lucky that I came from a loving, Christ-filled home, so from day one I could respectfully turn the other cheek and I could genuinely forgive and forget. My family taught me to love myself way before I knew in my heart how to do so.

No one can make you feel something about yourself that you refuse to accept and the good Lord knows that, as one of his chosen people I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14), so there really isn't an answer to this one, now is there!

30 Days of Truth: Someone Who Has Made Your Life Worth Living For

I found this meme here and here.

Seven: Someone Who Has Made Your Life Worth Living For

30 Days of Truth: Something You Hope You Will Never Have to Do

I found this meme here and here.

Six: Something You Hope You Never Have to Do

I hope I never have to out live my welcome here on this great Earth.

As I get older and things begin to not function properly, I don't want to be one of those people holding on for dear life who has signed something that has said that you can never pull the plug. I don't want to being lying in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones who, I know, have better things to do than to watch me die. I don't want to watch me die. I was reading an article (I think it was in Time magazine) about the fact that people are living longer than they used to because they just won't let go of living. They want to spend their life-savings on tubes and machines that prolong their lives; they don't really care about the quality of living just that they are there...breathing.

I don't want to be that kind of person. I want to age graceful (I think I'm doing an OK job of that) and I want to die gracefully and not afraid of what is beyond.

30 Days of Truth: Something You Hope to Do in Life

I found this meme here and here.

Five: Something You Hope to Do in Life

So, seriously, I want to live in London, England. I want to live in London, England until I am sick of being there (which will be NEVER).

Here's how that dream used to look:

Stephanie goes to London. She works in a pub (the easiest place to get a job when you are not from, say, um, England). She lives in a studio flat in the top floor of a building in Northern London. She goes to museums, she eats jacket potatoes, she spends her days off in Hyde Park. She has British friends. She is happy.

After going to school there:

Stephanie goes to London. She is a tour guide (after two years of training). In her spare time she reads books and visit museums and writes. She drinks lots of wine. She faces herself Bridget Jones. She lives in a studio flat with her cat. She drinks lots of tea.

OR

Stephanie teaches English in a teach abroad program or as a second language. She lives in a one bedroom flat. She goes to concerts and shows and parties. She visits The States for two weeks every summer.

Latest incarnation:

Stephanie's husband and kiddo go with her to London. They spend summers there...whole summers, well at least Stephanie and the kiddo do, husband has to go back to The States to work. That is until he gets a job in London doing what he does, Stephanie teaches and the kiddo wears a uniform to school. We go to the park every Saturday, we play around the Peter Pan statue. We go to museums and eat in Harrod's and go to the Tower and talk to the birds. We go to Portobello Road and Camden and Covent Garden. We watch lots of shows. Family and friends come to visit.

Too bad, the husband's dream is to live in Australia--the last frontier.

30 Days of Truth: Something You Have to Forgive Someone For

I found this meme here and here.

Four: Something You Have to Forgive Someone For
Um, so I don't really feel that I need to forgive someone of something. I mean I've been thinking about it for about a week now. Either I forgive someone for something or I don't. There really isn't something in my brain that makes me think that I ought to do something when I don't want to do it.

So...
people can lie to me daily...forgiven.
people can make me angry...forgiven.
people can hurt me emotionally...forgiven.
people can hurt me physically...forgiven.

And, so on...

Hence, the reason why I don't associate with people with chips on their shoulders. I'm pretty sure they forgive and forget nothing. How dreary!

30 Days of Truth: Something You Have to Forgive Yourself For

I found this meme here and here.

Three: Something You Have to Forgive Yourself For
OK, so if you'll recall from Day #2...um, I'm pretty self-aware, so I know pretty much immediately what I have to forgive myself for and then I do it. Sometimes that means apologizing to someone before truly forgiving myself, but once I know I've done something wrong or something someone perceives as wrong I go about fixing it and/or not letting it weigh me down.

The hardest time I've ever had doing this was when my aunt passed away. Everybody wanted me to go down and see her before the holidays and I did every weekend and the last week of her life when she was most frail and sick I did three days. I wish I would have more. I wish I wouldn't have said that I'd see her over the weekend. But, I can find peace about that, especially since I know she is no longer suffering and in pain and I know that I will see her again and I know that she is always in my heart and has made me a better person and why would I dwell on anything else, but these facts.

And, although this was written several years after her death, I find that Susan St. James's approach to her son's death and this subsequent post A Lesson in Loss, has really helped me find peace this past month.

30 Days of Truth: Something You Love About Yourself

I found this meme here and here.

Two: Something You Love About Yourself
There are many things I love about myself...my vast pop-culture knowledge, my mixed heritage, my family, hmm, I don't know if these are actually things about myself, like the deep within me self, but they are things I like about me.

I love that I am self-aware.

I am amazed that there are people who aren't self-aware.

I don't do things I know I can't do. I know when I'm being lazy. I know when I'm working too hard or not enough. When someone asks me a question, I can answer truthfully because I've already thought about the answer or because I think about the answer and, if I can't do either, I say, "Here's my gut reaction, but let me think about that. Unless you like my gut reaction."

I wonder if I learned this from my mother???

30 Days of Truth: Something You Hate About Yourself

Um, I haven't really done a challenge in awhile and I thought I start with this one...an in-depth look at me and my views for the next 30 Sundays...whew...

I found this meme here and here.

One: Something You Hate About Yourself
Hate is a strong word, so I can honestly say that I hate nothing about myself.

I mean seriously...let's look at the word "hate".

Hate 
(verb)
1. to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest
2. to be unwilling; dislike
3. to feel intense dislike, or extreme aversion or hostility
(noun)
4. intense dislike; extreme aversion or hostility
the object of extreme aversion or hostility

That's a pretty strong word. There are things about myself that I'd like to change, there are things about myself that I don't like, sometimes, and don't really want to change, there are things that people probably don't like about me that I should change/don't know about/don't want to change, but I don't hate any of them, they make me, um...me.

List of things I could mellow:
1. My inability to be patient, especially when I know that I'm right. I don't want you to figure out I'm right, I want you to trust me and do what I say...
2. Um, sometimes...um, most of the time...I'm pretty bossy I think that has a lot to do with #1
3. I'm not as brave as I should be...I can think of at least 3 powerful conversations where I hope my body language and actions said what I felt because, well, words never got to my lips

Hmm...that's all for now, thinking about those conversations has made me a wee-bit melancholy.