A Healthy Zest for Life

You always hear people talk about the look of you on children’s faces at Christmas or how excited they get over the prospect of going camping or visiting the animals at the zoo.  These are events that most adults take for granted and do not become as excited about, while attributing the child’s excitement to their and inexperience.  However, there are adults, some of which are very old and experienced, who have this child-like excitement about life.

                Two women that I have known to have/had a zest for life are Jane, who just recently passed away, and Bertha, an eighty-something year old grandmother.  Both of these women own/owned shops in my historic hometown of Augusta, and even though I don’t think they make a lot of money (Jane’s shop was practically a museum of antique toys…which is truly what she would have liked it to be) their joy came from talking to the customers.

                Those women loved people, especially young people.  One of their favorite pastimes was hanging out in the local bars with the middle-aged crowd and drinking anything that came in a “fun” glass (i.e. margaritas and martinis) and chardonnay.  You could also find them dancing with the young 20-30 year old men anytime there was good dancing music playing.  Even those that were 40 years younger than them would have trouble keeping up with their social life.  Sometimes you would hear them complaining about how their friends were getting too old for them.

                This is how they lived life; having as much fun and getting as much excitement out of life as they could every day.  I think that we should all take a page from their book and learn to relax and enjoy life rather than worry, stress, and take for granted the every day.

Rewarding Bad Behavior

All of my life I’ve always been told that if I do good things, then good things will come to me.   This is basically how I live my life.  I work hard to get what I get and I appreciate it when something goes the way that I planned.  However, I resent the people who do things to mess-up their life and then have other people help them out by doing things for them.  The story of the Prodigal Son comes to mind when I think about how these people have been “rewarded” for the mistakes they have made.

                For example, I know a girl who became pregnant with a guy she had only been dating for a few weeks.  While her life seemed to be in shambles at first, she now has her in-laws (yes, she did eventually marry the guy who got her pregnant) paying for her vacations, giving them cars, and putting a down payment on a house.  Meanwhile, her younger sister is going to college and pays for everything herself, including tuition.  This just doesn’t seem fair.  Why should the girl who makes the mistakes get rewarded while the girl who works hard has to fend for herself?

                Maybe the true reward for the person that works hard and doesn’t have everything handed to her is a feeling of pride and satisfaction.  I think that working for what I have has made me a stronger person.  Hopefully in the end my determination and independence will give me bigger rewards in long run.

 

Almost Perfect

I’ve always heard that “No one is perfect,” and while I believe this, I also think there are some people who come frighteningly close.  I’ve only ever met one person in my life who I would say was almost perfect, and that person would be my great aunt, Judy.

                Judy was the type of person who never had anything out of place in her home, and her yard looked like it belonged in a gardening magazine.  She aged gracefully and never got grass stains on her tennis shoes when she mowed the yard (a trick that I have never figured out how to do).  As a hobby she enjoyed painting, though the amount of skill that had for the craft is astonishing.  Because she loved art so much she was a major founder of the Augusta Art Guild.  Living in the small town of Augusta, she was also involved in many other projects that benefited the well-being of the town.  This is only a short list of the ways she was an amazing person, because to list them all take probably a page or more.

                Last May was when it truly sunk in that my aunt was actually human and not some special creation that had no flaws.  Judy had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  After a hysterectomy was unsuccessful, the doctors tried chemotherapy treatments.  She lost her hair and had a lot of trouble eating.  Unfortunately, these treatments were also unsuccessful.  My favorite aunt was going to die.

                The month of August was probably the hardest.  She couldn’t eat and there were many days when she didn’t get out of bed.  Watching this beautiful person wither away was the most heartbreaking things that I ever had to do.  

But even in her last days, she still seemed to radiate grace and dignity.   That’s odd to say…that I watched someone die with grace, but that is the reality of it.  She never complained, and she still tried to have manners and be a lady by apologizing when she had to burp or chew ice.   Her ability to still be selfless even in sickness was truly inspiring.

The town of August was so inspired by Judy that they declared September 14^th Judy Federer day, and ever year on this day I will think about her and how she has influenced my life in such a powerfully perfect way.

Letting Kids Just be Kids

Riding bikes, playing in the snow, climbing trees, and coming home covered in dirt are just some of the activities I enjoyed as a child.  Playing outside and getting dirty are just some of the privileges that no child should be denied.  However, there are many parents who, in my opinion, are over protective because they will not allow their children these simple pleasures.

                My mother owns a child care center that is operated in our house, so I have known a wide variety of parents, and heard a lot of different restrictions placed on their children’s play.  One of my favorite restrictions is that a child is not allowed to play in the snow followed by the explanation that it is too cold outside and the child might get sick.  But it doesn’t snow in July, so when are these children ever going to get the chance to build a snowman if it’s too cold to play outside when it snows.  What has made these parents so afraid?

                For centuries children have played outside, scraped their knees, and gotten bruises, and while I don’t have the research to back it, I’m pretty sure that the fatality rates for such activities are fairly low.  We only have a few years to have this kind of carefree fun, so parents should just let their kids have fun and be kids while they can.    

 

Under Pressure

As a student, there are times in my life when the pressure builds so high that I feel suffocated.  It is on these occasions that I tend to ask myself “why.”  Why do students let the pressure of “making the grade” control their lives?

                I was recently burdened with the task of studying for four tests which were to be administered all in the same week, and because of pressure that I felt to do well on all of the tests, I lost interest in subjects that I would have normally enjoyed.  In my casual observations, this loss of interest seems to be a common occurrence for many college students.  It is my fear that this seemingly temporary loss of interest will continue, and students who were once destined to be life long learners will have lost their passion.

                Sometimes I feel as if the pressure of the classroom has squashed a lot of my passion…at least for the time being.  Once the pressure has lifted, I hope that the passion can be reawakened.

 

Planet Earth

Sitting on a large rock at the edge of Laurel Lake, feeling the wind comb through my hair and the sun’s rays gently warming my face, I realized how amazing nature can be.

                In my everyday life, I usually don’t have time to “stop and smell the roses.”  However, during those rare occasions when I am able to venture away from the chaotic flow of the city, I truly enjoy the wonders of what many people call “mother nature.” 

                It is very fitting the way we humans personify earth in this way since earth seems to function, grow, and repair itself in similar respects to the human body.  Flowing rivers, lakes, and oceans fuel living creatures.  Forests repair themselves, and animals evolve and adapt to changing environments.  The earth is a living, functional being, and were it not for the interference of human intelligence it would be perfect.

                The perfection of nature connects with me on a spiritual level that I don’t receive anywhere else.  Although I don’t consider myself a religious person, this perfection serves as reassurance that something more powerful than the human mind exists.  All people should take the time to enjoy the smells of a forest, the feel of a warm breeze, or the sound of a flowing stream, because the wonders of nature are some of the few rare things that are available to everyone.

The Neighbor Kid

At some point during my many years of Girl Scouts I learned at very insightful song about friendship.  The song includes the lines:

 

Make new friends, but keep the old

One is Silver and the other’s gold

 

The older I get the more I realize how precious true friends are and how they become more invaluable the longer you are friends.

                I only have one true friend from childhood that I have stayed close with throughout the years (over 14 years of friendship by my estimate).  We grew-up next door to each other, and although she is three years younger than me and usually got on my nerves, we did practically everything together.  Because she was one of the younger kids in the neighborhood, she tended to be the target of immature jokes.  For some reason she still continued to play with us which is probably the reason why she eventually acquired the title of “neighbor kid.”

                The neighbor kid has become a part of my family and I a part of hers.  I can go for a month or more without talking to her and expect nothing about our friendship to have changed the next time I dial her phone number.  I’ve also never had a fear of loosing her as a friend, because I know that even if we have a fight, I call her the next day or even the next hour and everything will be as it should.  Knowing that she will always be there for me and I for her is what makes her invaluable.  She’s the neighbor kid.  She’s a true friend.  She’s my sister.

  

What it means to be “MAN”

Girls tend to resolve their conflicts through conversation.  Boys, on the other hand, like to use physical violence.

A lot of males, whether one classifies them as men or boys, always have a desire to “be the bigger man.”  Unfortunately, this is usually accomplished by picking fights with other men, be them friend or foe, over unimportant issues.  For example, I have witnessed one of my guy friends attempt to start a fight with one of his friends over having his shirt tucked in.  Fortunately in this case the argument did not come to blows, but would not have surprised me if it had happened otherwise.

The problem with the male tendency to solve conflicts with violence is that it results in physical and emotional harm.  Not only can those involved in the fight be seriously injured, but friendships can be injured or even destroyed as well. 

Sometimes I think this “tough guy” act is performed as way to conceal insecurities, but other times I think is just a part of the way guys are socialized.  At a young age boys are taught to be strong, brave, and tough.  Backing down from a fight would result in name calling with feminine words such as “sissy.”   Some boys grow out of the immaturity of calling other boys names for not fighting, but so many others keep the tough guy ideal imprinted in their brain throughout their adult life.  If parents and the media discontinued the lesson that boys must be tough, then they would not grow up thinking it is acceptable use physical violence as a solution to conflicts with other men.

Babies Having Babies

It seems like every time I turn around there is another girl around 20 years old having a baby.  Just this morning I found out that three of my childhood friends are pregnant.  None of them are over the age of 22 and only one of them is married.  Why do babies keep having babies?

As wonderful as having children is, it amazes me that so many young women would rather raise children during what I consider to be their youth, than enjoy the freedom of this time while it lasts.  The 20s are supposed to be the years of independence.  This is the age when one has more freedom from parents but also freedom from being strapped down to a spouse or children.  Young mothers miss out on this time of freedom.  I wonder how many mothers today in their 30s and 40s who had children around age 20 wish they had waited just a few more years.

I think this is truer for women who do not plan on having children at a young age.  For the two of my friends who are not married, their pregnancies were not planned.  One of these young women is living with her mother, while the other was impregnated by a 42 year old man who has been cheating on her.  Thinking about stories such as these makes me sad, not only for the mothers but for the babies who will most likely grow-up in homes that are unstable.

What really frustrates me is that these unplanned pregnancies can be prevented.  Even if a woman decides to have sexual intercourse, there are so many different options of birth control that unplanned pregnancies should not be as prevalent as they are.  For the sake of the babies and the mothers, I wish young women would be more responsible and take actions to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

Shooting away life

The other day I had a really weird and frightening dream.  It all started at a party where one of my friends who usually has way too much to drink began a crazed shooting spree.  He killed almost everyone in sight.  The dream shifted and the drunken friend morphed into another male alcoholic I know who while the scene shift to my father’s house out in the country.  This alcoholic was also shooting and killing everyone in sight.  By the end of the dream, a friend and I were being chased by the maniacal killer, who had change for the third time into different male alcoholic.  As the friend and I increased the distance between ourselves and the killer, he stopped chasing us and instead killed himself.  As all of this happened I had the realization that the killer somehow had the power to make us live very boring and meaningless lives.   By letting us live, he also had the power of killing us, but instead killing us physically he killed our happiness.

The interesting thing about this dream is that while I was very frightened of dying in the physical sense, the doom really hit when I came under the realization that I was going to live a very dull and joyless life.  It made me think about whether we should be more afraid of death or just of an unlived life.