E: Every Day–Make is a Success!
Get out of bed every day and face your life, as much as you dread the day or hate doing that. And work to accomplish just ONE THING each day.
If you do that, you’re a success. Some days, getting out of bed will be your great accomplishment. And that’s ok! Good for you!
Some days are just that rough.
“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.” (Cary Grant)
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” (Mary Oliver)
A few weeks ago I was asked to speak to a women’s group about gratitude—living a thankful life. It was a good experience, and another opportunity to reflect on my life, my experiences and to think about what I’ve learned from it all, and to try to share something from all of it that might help or encourage someone else.
I ended up titling my remarks “Six Steps to Surviving Anything And Living A Thankful Life.” And while I tailored my comments to that particular group, I thought I’d share a version of it over the next several days—one step a day.
My six step program.
To surviving anything.
And living a thankful life despite it all.
Here goes.
Step one: Count each day a success if you accomplish ONE thing. (And be liberal with yourself in what you consider an accomplishment!) Some days it may be only that you got out of bed OR took a shower. It doesn’t have to be both! Just one thing…and you’re a success. Because some days are just that hard.
I’ve had a few days like that.
A day or two when the fact that I got out of bed was my big accomplishment for the day. And that’s ok. I can’t remember a day when I succumbed to the awfulness of my life during a few of its most challenging moments by not getting out of bed to face another day.
So no matter what you’re facing, get out of bed that day and call yourself a success.
Although, “Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.” (Gilbert K. Chesterton)
| “Bed is the poor man’s opera.” (Italian proverb) |
We went to my room.
He sat on my bed.
I didn’t know what to do, so I walked to the other side of the room and sat on the far edge of the bed, well away from him and prepared myself for the worst. Unexpectedly, he scooted to the middle of the bed and reached for my hand. (I love that about him, by the way. Even though he had broken up with me, and in the middle of an intense discussion, he chose not to be cold or distant!)
“Andrea, I don’t know what to tell you. I really don’t know what to say,” he said.
I solved that for him. I said, “I do. I’ll tell you what you did and what you said: you dumped me. You dumped me before you even married me. I can’t believe it!”
He looked at me in surprise and said, “Dumped you? I did not!”
“Yes, you did, ” I replied. “You dumped me. You said you couldn’t do it anymore, that the timing was bad, you were going to leave…”
He corrected, “Yes, I said that but I was talking about THAT discussion. I meant that I couldn’t do that fight, right then, in that moment; that the timing for that discussion was bad–my family was arriving for dinner any moment.”
I stopped. Stunned. ”Wait. You didn’t dump me?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t dump you! I would never ‘dump’ you! I love you, our marriage is a very good thing, I KNOW it,” he replied.
There was only one thing to say to that.
“Then you mean to tell me I’ve been up here in my bathroom, throwing up, all night…for NOTHING?” I asked.
It was his turn to be stunned. ”Is THAT where you were and what you were doing all night?”
Long story short, we worked it out. After a minute or two of “apologizing” he stopped and said, “Wait a second. If you were throwing up all night, what am I doing making up with you?”
I assured him it was fine to continue making up with me, that I’d brushed my teeth after my reaction to our break up and that he’d never have known what I’d been up to if I hadn’t told him. He didn’t argue with me about that, only about one thing:
He says he never dumped me.
I say he did.
But thankfully, whatever the case, we got it together again–and just in time! Because the next afternoon, Monday afternoon, I got a phone call that would have ended things for sure.
“Expect a phone call before lunch from the teacher informing you that your child has been launching hot dogs by compressing them inside a small Thermos and then removing the lid quickly.” (Erma Bombeck)
Or something like that.
Brandon Walsh: “You’re having a slumber party? I thought you gave those up in junior high.”
Brenda Walsh: “It is not a slumber party. It’s an evening of female bonding, right Mom?”
What do you do when you meet your birth mother at the ripe old age of 42? You get to know one another. And if your mother is a woman who is nice, friendly, loving, and social…you have the occasional slumber party. At least, that’s what we do.
We met in early 2010. By summertime, it was time to take things to a new level. She called me one day and invited me to stay with her for a weekend. So I made the trip to her home, carried my suitcase into her bedroom and made myself at home. We went to dinner. We sat in her hot tub, talking about anything and everything, until the wee hours. And then we fell asleep in her king-size bed. We fell asleep talking and woke up talking some more! She took me out in her boat for a perfect morning on the lake before I went home to my family.
A few months have passed since our first slumber party. It was time for another sleepover. This time, she came to my house. She arrived, with pizzas for my children, along with homemade, frosted, sugar cookies she had decorated. I’d never even told her how much I love them, so it’s interesting that her cookie specialty also just happens to be my favorite! (I almost missed a plane, once, for frosted sugar cookies–but that is a story for another day, although it sure makes me wonder if some of our “loves” are in our genes!)
We went shopping. We discovered we love the same stores: Nordstrom and J. Crew. While looking around, we both fell in love with the same cardigan, in the same color, so she bought them for us. Afterward, we went to dinner at P.F. Changs, and both of us ordered the exact same thing for our meal. But you’ll never guess where the evening’s entertainment culminated.
Think about it. What would two single ladies do? Where would they go…if they loved to dance?
I can see the eye rolling now. Yep, you guessed it! After all I’ve written about them, you’re probably wondering how it could possibly be. But it’s true.
I took her to a single’s dance!
Raise your hand if you’ve ever taken your mom to a single’s dance.
“Those who dance are thought mad by those who hear not the music.” (Unknown)
Another unexpected adventure in what has become a very unexpected life.
Stay tuned.
“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.” (Muhammad Ali)
I’m thinking Bachelor #5 could have given Muhammad Ali a run for his money. I didn’t have an answer to the marriage question, much less the idea of September, all I could say was, “THAT is REALLY fast!”
And as Bachelor #5 acknowledged it was fast, he didn’t let me off the hook by saying, “no pressure,” and I sure felt the difference! I finally felt some pressure to begin thinking about things in earnest. However, I wasn’t sure I could decide such an important thing at that stage of my life, much less on a “deadline.”
“Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.” (Jane Austen)
Bachelor #5 added, “And when you decide, if you decide the way I hope you do, you only have to say two words, ‘It’s time,’ and I’ll take care of the rest. That’s all I want to hear, ‘It’s time’.”
I didn’t know what I was going to decide. But I owed it to myself, my children and Bachelor #5 to make a decision. It was time to get serious with my thoughts.
Very serious.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it.” (Jack Handey, SNL)
This bachelor, I’ve learned, is somewhat infamous in the Utah County singles scene. I didn’t know it at the time until after I dated him. (What can I say? I’m relatively “new” here!)
Bachelor #15 was a total cowboy who wore cowboy boots. And at the end, I found out he was a lot more like the lone cowboys I’d seen in movies than I’d ever realized: riding alone through rugged country on a trusty horse, drinking out of a tin cup, rolling a blanket out on the dirt next to a campfire under the stars without so much as a pillow on which to lay his head as he slept…but somehow, it’s MUCH more attractive in the movies!
He was an outdoorsman. He knew how to sew. He knew how to preserve food through canning. And as it turns out, not only did he get in fights (physical, fist fights) he drank out of Mason jars instead of glasses! (In my defense, I didn’t know these things until our last date–more on that is coming.)
I don’t know that we had much, if anything in common, other than he was 6’2″ and 6’2″ has always been my favorite height!
For me, in my unexpected life, he was brief entertainment. We went on several dates. However, my children (and their friends) did not like him. Clearly, it wasn’t going anywhere. The end came the night he invited me to his apartment to watch a movie.
I walked in and immediately noticed an air mattress on the living room floor. I ignored it, sat on the couch, and watched the movie. Afterward, I asked about the air mattress.
“Did your children just come for a visit?” I asked.
“No, why?” he replied.
“You have an air mattress on the floor of your living room,” I explained. “I guess that’s where your kids sleep when they come–and you just haven’t put it away from the last visit?”
“No,” he answered. “THAT is where I sleep!”
Goodbye, Bachelor #15. I know I’m not being open minded at all, but knowing you’re 43-44 years old and sleep on an air mattress on your living room floor is just too much for me! You’ve been divorced three years and still haven’t been able to provide a bed for yourself? THAT worries me. I guess you haven’t heard that, “A wooden bed is better than a golden coffin.” (Russian Proverb)
Or an air mattress.
And since you’re a cowboy, I’d feel irresponsible if I didn’t pass along some other tidbits of wisdom I’ve gleaned from my research:
“Never drop your gun to hug a grizzly.”
“Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.”
“Don’t squat with yer spurs on.”
“Always drink upstream from the herd.”
And here’s a last bit of cowboy wisdom for you: “Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.”
I should have followed my own advice.
