Friendships and Choices

I always say life is full of choices and our choices make us who we are. I had to laugh today as someone made a video to notify people publically that she had removed those that were just casual friends from her Facebook. Now this is a community of Chronic illness people I am referring to that she is announcing this to and people have become quite close as we share a common bond..or most of us do and that is chronic illness.

When questioned as to why they did not just use the “filter” button on Facebook, the reply was it failed. Oh really?  One reason I am not a big fan of facebook. As studies have shown, it can bring out “high school” behavior in a lot of people and that competition to have 700 “friends”…oh yeah right..all of those people are dear friends. It becomes a world of high school behavior where people have little cliques just like in high school and they pull some in and shut others out. I graduated from high school a LONG time ago and am not into games which is a trend with some on the internet and Facebook.

I do not put anyone on my facebook except those I consider a friend and if I have personal to say to family, I use the filter button that Facebook designed so that we could do that. But, what made me laugh was making a video..a big production of announcing it instead of just doing it quietly and privately telling people or just simply using the FB filter where she could filter people out totally without any big to do about it. Wait, there is more…and then telling those “casual acquaintances” that she just so publically dumped and saying..if you want to keep in touch you can do it on my dog’s facebook. I had to call son to come look and he laughed and said.”.well that is one way to do it. Wonder how many will catch the insult?”  And we have laughed about this since we saw it.

We all make choices and our choices make us. And some days people might wonder why they have spent their lives never having consistent friends. I have friends that have been with me since I was in high school and I have internet friends that I have never met in person that have been part of my life for well over ten years that I have talked to by messenger, on the phone, on skype.  They have stuck through the good and the bad…that is a real friend.  And relationships..how we deal with them is a choice and those choices define what kind of friend we are to others and what kind of relationships we have.

Now, let me tell you about a wonderful choice a dear friend I made online two years ago did yesterday. She knows I am basically home bound and she messaged me and said “I am putting up the Christmas tree. Do you want to join me?”  She lives on the other side of the country but I knew what she meant. She meant did I want to be on Skype with her while she decorated the tree and I said yes. What a fun time we had with the Christmas music playing and us singing and her showing me all the ornaments and me watching the tree come to life.  This lasted a couple of hours.

And I made a choice. A guy was coming to look at the books we wanted to sell and I told son I was staying with the Skype and closed my door and I continued to enjoy my dear friend and the tree decorating.  Again..a choice. We all choose what is most important to us at the time.

So here are some pictures to share and show you my Skype Christmas tree decorating time. She even let me pick out an ornament and tell her where on the tree I wanted to put it. What fun it was.  And I huge thank you to my dear friend Sherry for sharing this time with me. This is her saying…You with me now?  as she carries me (the laptop) into her living room.

As she turns on the Christmas music and makes sure I can see the tree.

Showing me the ornaments as she put them on.

What a beautiful tree it is.

Our few decorations we have up. In my room..the little tree on the reborns table.

On our little Island in our kitchen

The end of the day bed in the tiny living room

our little tree in the living room

the two recliners in the living room with table

Life is a choice…choose wisely for you may not get another chance.  And give of yourself to people this holiday. Time, like the watching my dear friend decorate her tree, was the best present she could have given me.

A One Last Time Request

Am Asking for VOTES for my friend Sherry E. Showalter in the Yahoo “WOMEN WHO SHINE”. It would thrill my heart so to see her place in this.

If you will vote for her, please go here to vote:

http://shine.yahoo.com/photos/healer-1344925552-slideshow/sherry-e-showalter-photo-1349122294.html

It is a one time vote and runs through the end of October.

She has a blog here: http://drses.wordpress.com/

She is one awesome woman, she worked in hospice 25 + years with people who were suffering and losing lives and loved ones. She was the recipient of the National Heart of Hospice Award for Psycho-Social-Spiritual Caregiving by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. She also proudly served at the Pentagon along with first responders on 9/11 and says her life has been forever changed by those days, months and years. She has supported our men and women in the military and stood behind them. She gives to all with great compassion, love and caring and she shines to all that meet her.

For Someone Special

For a very special person that we love and care about greatly. Asking prayers for them too. Our creator knows who, so no names are needed. Just know friend that prayers are going up for you and that you are loved…unconditionally.

image from httpswww.facebook.comCOL99

You Got Mail!

Thank you so much to those of you that have taken the time to send me a post card. Son came in earlier today and said “you have surprises in the mail mom” and handed me a bunch of postcards. I love them. You brightened my day with them. This is the second bunch that has come.

It is like traveling from my bed. I get to see places and read about things I might not otherwise get to see. Son has them on the wall for me here.   And yes, that is an old sign that says “Think Snow”. My son says only “mom” would have such a sign. LOL. And all that on the door there is the bulletin board where we keep track of all the medical trips and paperwork that has to be filled out.

Look at the colors on this postcard. The Grand Canyon, a place I always wanted to see and what a gorgeous picture took me there.

‘

I look at this card and think about the pioneers who came out here in these mountains. Such beauty here.

And Sedona, what a beautiful place. My friend Sassy has been there often and has pictures there that look like this card with such color and beauty.

I love this. I have friends that live in Phoenix.

This postcard was a reminder to me of how important history..our history of our lives and our experiences…are…for as the card says…our stories tell us who we are. Used to be keeping the “oral history” of the family was important but people seem to not do that so much anymore.

Son said I was like a kid as Christmas holding the cards and absorbing every little part of them and the sweet notes on them. And then, this one below was an envelope filled with hummingbird plant seeds. Something for me to dream of and to keep me fighting for each day so that come spring, I can plant these in the pots on the patio and then show you all my hummingbird garden.

Thank you friends for such special gifts. The fact that you picked these out for me and sent them to me touches my heart. You bright a smile to my face today after a really hard day. Many hugs and much love.

Looking at Life

I have been laying here watching a movie called “The Last Dance” and have laughed with tears in my eyes and then it dawned on me that this is what I am doing with my children and my Sweetpea….trying to give them all I have of me. No I am not planning on dying anytime soon but when you reach the age of sixty and I am 63, the years left are not as long.

This movie is very poignant but also very profound. The older woman realizes that she is sick and will not live years and years and so she begins to look at her life. She starts giving away her treasured possessions to people that she felt would really enjoy them. She knew some of those closest to her did not care about them so she gave them to the bus driver, to friends she met here and there. She wanted her treasures to have a home with someone who she knew would love it and not just sell it or stick it in a closet. I have done that with my sons a couple of years back and what I knew they really liked, I gave to them. What I knew they would never really cherish or keep, I gave to friends that loved whatever it was I had.

And then in the movie, she started sharing her memories with those closest to her and she told the one that she was the closest to the following:

“savor memories..for that is all life is..a series of moments”

“will you take care of my memories for me? I want you to have them and to take care of them”

I loved that because it seems that for so many people accumulating wealth and possessions is the most important and yet all we really have when we leave this world is our series of moments between the birth and death date. Some call that the dash moments. But, they are our memories.

Yes, years ago, there was a family historian or story-teller that took care of the memories and kept them in their head and listened to and kept a record of sorts so that the next generations knew what life was like. We do not do that anymore. And many beautiful memories are lost.

We tend to wait until loved ones are gone to wish we had listened to them more and asked more questions about when they were young and about family.  It is like we are too busy and rushing around and do not take the time, which is sad to me. Are our series of moments in life…our memories not valuable at all?

I remember sitting and listening to my great-grandmother and I was but a small child. She told me about the civil war and the soldiers walking through their town and how scared everyone was as a little girl but that she was not. I have heard the story of my granny Bellamy when she was five swinging on the picket fence in her little dress, whistling Dixie at the northern soldiers. I have even been told that I had her spunk. But, if that story…that memory had never been told, I would not know it today.

It is not just memories of family that we cherish but of friends. I have and have had some of the most treasured friends ever. I love the quote the woman said in the movie:

“The name of friend is common but true friendship is rare”

And some of those friends have entrusted me with their memories and their joyous and sad moments in life. I felt blessed to be the recipient of their trust and their words. They have enriched my life greatly.

What I love about this movie was it stressed the importance of filling each day with joy and love and the things that mean the most. We can not take that fancy house or fancy car or all that money with us.  But, we can leave behind a legacy that will stay in the hearts of those around us for years to come and we can make memories that make each day we have on this earth so full and so joyous that our lives are enriched as well as those around us.

I recommend this movie for everyone. For me, it just confirmed what I wanted to leave as my legacy to my children is in the non material things. My hope has been that my fight and my drive have instilled in them the same fight and drive…and it has. I want to leave them the knowledge of how important it is to know that your happiness lies within not outside of us. I want to leave them the joy of just being with each other and slowing down. I want to leave them with the value of being honest, ethical and moral in all their choices in life. I want to leave them with the knowledge that they are very special and are loved so much. I want to leave them with a feeling of self-respect and the knowledge that I am so very proud of them.

And not only do I want to leave all that for my children, I want to leave it for those that come in contact with me. I want to leave those around me with the feeling that they are just as strong as they choose to be…that they are worth being treated right and deserving of having a life that is less stressful and filled with love. I want to leave those around me with the feeling that at least one person..me…cares about them and what they do and is willing to listen to them. And I want to leave all those around me with a feeling of having been part of my life.

I want to leave people with good thoughts in their heads. I think we have a choice. We can let the media bombard us with all the ugly, we can let those around us fill our lives with ugliness and arguing and fussing or we can fill our heads with good thoughts and make each moment in life special.

We have 86,000 seconds in a day. How many do you spend being thankful and saying thank you, being happy and joyous, making good memories and loving those around you?  How many do you spend with all the negative in the world? It is all a choice.

Tears, Whether On The Outside or Inside, Show Our Hearts

Someone Sent me this and I loved it. It does talk about the tears of a woman but I find that there are men who have the compassion and love and care that we so often attribute to women. There are men who stand by their wives, their children, their families, their friends and yes, even their mothers and fathers. My sons are two of them and I have both men and women on here who are like that. So, this poem is for all of you…all of you who:

 have made me smile when I needed it the most.

have stood by me and been there for me during the rough times.

who have made me see the good side of things when all I could see was the bad

who have given me a glimpse of a better world when we see so much ugliness.

And I say thank you…from my heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

image from goodlightscraps.com

~ Tears of a Woman ~
 

“Mom Why are you crying?” “Why are you crying?” he asked his mom.

“Because I’m a woman” she told him. “I don’t understand,” he said.

His mom just hugged him and said, “and you never will”……….

Later the little boy asked his father, “Why does mother

seem to cry for no reason?”

“All women cry for no reason,” was all his dad could say……..

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry…

Finally he put in a call to GOD; when GOD got on the phone the man said,

“GOD, why do women cry so easily?”

GOD said…….When I created woman she needed to be special. I created her

shoulders strong enough to bear the weight of the

world; yet, soft enough to be comfortable….

I gave her the strength to give life, the kind that accepts the

 rejection that often comes from children.

I gave her the strength to  allow her to go on when everybody else gives up.

The kind that takes care of her family despite illness and fatigue

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children unconditionally 

even when they have hurt her deeply…

I gave her the strength to endure her husband in his faults and

to stay at his side without weakening

And finally, I gave her tears to shed whenever she needs them to be shed.

You see my son, the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears,

nor is it in her face or in the way she does her hair.

The beauty of a woman resides in her eyes. It is the door to her heart.

The door where love resides.

and it is often through those tears that you see her heart go by

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life is a one time thing. We do not get makeup sessions. Every minute we lose is gone forever.

image from Life‑is‑not‑a‑dress‑rehearsal.png

How Is Your Vitamin F?

Someone sent me a story about Vitamin F and I loved it. So, how is your Vitamin F doing? Mine is up there on the charts and I hope yours is too. This is me doing something my friend Sassy says all the time. If you do not like what you are seeing…change your focus. Well, I can sit and worry about all this medical stuff, how will I endure it, exacerbate my fears of being sedated and having new procedures, etc or I can change my view. So, I am changing my view to Vitamin F.

image from https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-newly-created-page-for-special-needs-animals/382895568404793

I did not like all the fears and painful experiences I was hearing and so I decided I needed to change my perspective for a better experience. And what better perspective than looking at my Vitamin F levels.

Vitamin F stands for “Friends” (and “Family” for family are friends too).  Everyone and especially chronically ill people need social contact and need people who really care about them in their life. Sometimes we can isolate ourselves and deny ourselves this wonderful “vitamin” of life. I had to learn to trust after having trust broken so many times in my life. I had to learn to reach out to others and allow them in my life.

And now, my Vitamin F quotient is high and I love it. Friends and Family can help reduce stress, alleviate fears, comfort our hearts, lift us up, encourage us, make us laugh, cry with us, hold our hands when we are scared, and over all make our lives so much better. If one of the Vitamin F’s is high stress, just reduce the dosage. *wink*

So, now I am focusing on my blessings instead of my fears and that makes a world of difference. So, I have only one thing left to say…………………

THANK YOU FOR BEING ONE OF MY DAILY VITAMINS!!!!!!

image from sodahead.com

Kindness

Now words needed. It says it all. Loved this.

image from https://www.facebook.com/Happinessinyourlife

Chronic Illness Is A Roller Coaster Ride

Living with chronic illness and chronic pain is like being on a roller coaster at times. There are highs and there are lows.There are good times and there are bad times and sometimes we just have to hold on and ride the curves.

image from chroniccurve.tumblr.com

Being chronically ill is not a choice but how we deal with it is. The past week has been the barreling down the roller coaster and has not been pleasant but my choice was would I make it worse or  would I hold on and make the ride a little less bumpy by my attitude.

Sometimes when all you can do is lay here and breathe and not so well at that part, everyone wonders what you can do. What I do is to use my mind to relieve some of the stress. I try to lighten my load by taking myself mentally to “places” that bring some pleasure and when you do that…your whole body relaxes and healing can occur faster.

I call Gabriel my therapy doll. One day I dream of owning a little girl one as I never got to have my daughter. I lost a child between my sons and always believed that was my daughter. Anyway..that is on my bucket list…to own a silicone girl doll. I use Gabriel for visualization for when I feel bad and the pain is high, I can hold him and he is weighted just like a real baby and feels like you are holding a real baby. I can hold him and rock in the recliner or lay here propped up on my hospital bed, and close my eyes and take myself back to the days of holding my sons when they were little or my grand baby when she was a baby. And oh the joy those visualizations bring. Son says he can see the smile come and my brow relax which in turn means my body and inner core is relaxing which helps my breathing. When we fight against our health or against the pain we only make it worse. These things to relax myself, etc are  choices I make for my healing.

I am sitting up today on the edge of my hospital bed here typing to you all. I am a little weak and shaky but that is ok. This too shall pass. My choice has been to remain calm and to do the things I needed to do in order to get better…staying on top of my meds, faithfully using my nebulizer machine no matter how bad I felt, eating some to keep nutrition in me, and using the visualization, etc to help ease my pain and the stress on my system.

It is amazing how bright the day looks when we start that climb back up the mountain. It is like the rainbow after the storm and the world seems a little cleaner and clearer and there is a sparkle to things.

I can not thank you all enough for your prayers and love. It reminded me of a time a few years ago when  I was coming out of a building in the rain. When you use forearm crutches to go a short distance, there is no extra hand to hold an umbrella. I was walking slowly with my head down towards my car and the wind was blowing and the rain was coming down pretty hard. My focus was getting to the car when suddenly the rain stopped hitting me. I raised my head to see if the rain had stopped and realized someone had come up behind me and was holding an umbrella over me. That was you all the past few days…you had an umbrella of love and prayers over me to stop the storms from battering so hard. And all I can say is thank you from the depths of my heart.

image from jillmreid.wordpress.com

It seems like sometimes all a person does is thank God for the good things in their lives. I have learned to thank God for all things in my life. I thank Him for the struggles in my health for they make me appreciate all the good things more. I thank him for the pain in my legs and feet for I am blessed because at least I have legs and feet. Some people do not.   I thank him for the past few days for even though I have had trouble breathing…I can still breathe. Some people can not.And so I thank God for the past few days because even in spite of all the sickness, I have found reasons to smile and been blessed with people who truly cared about my health.

And so, today, I shall take a few steps and keep taking a few steps until I am a little stronger and continue this battle. My friend sassy says  “Lord use me all up….just take your time doing it”.  I know that I will be here until God decides to take me home and my prayer is He uses me to touch others and to help others keep going even when it is tough and that He takes His time using me up.

Looks better, yes?

Social Chameleons

image from animalspirits.com

Everyone knows what a chameleon is and how they change colors to fit into their environment. They are extremely smart in survival and knowing how to blend into the world around them. They adapt to whatever is around them to hide the real them.

I believe we also have social chameleons…people….that do this.

“Social chameleons have been defined as adepts in social intelligence, able to make a charming good impression, yet at the price of their own true motivations.”   Wikipedia

You may have met some. They are the ones that try to be everyone’s friend and agree with everyone just for the sake of making friends. They watch and are alert and pay attention to what people like and do not like and if you do not like a certain person….they will say they do not like that person. They act so good and so sweet that they seem almost too good to be true. And they are only I think we are just to taken by having someone who thinks what we say is so awesome and like having someone who praises us all the time that we do not realize that they are doing this to everyone. If you are against a certain thing, they will say they are to you. But, to those that like a certain thing…they will tell them they love and they so agree with them.. They are chameleons who change what they are according to the person(s) they are around. This sadly means they are not authentic but just being a people pleaser. They are good at talking to you and asking questions and learning things about you that you do not even realize you told them and then they use that information to mold themselves to someone who you personally like. And they do that for each person until the real person they are is so deeply hidden that no one sees it. Just like a chameleon.

“EVERYONE wants to make a good impression, but for some people it is almost a way of life.  Those who always try ”to be the right person in the right place at the right time,” according to Dr. Snyder, a social psychologist, become extraordinarily attuned to the ways others react to them. They continually monitor their social performance, skillfully adjusting it when they detect that they are not having the desired effect. Such people can swing with ease from bubbly sociability to reserved withdrawal, or even from conformity to nonconformity, as the situation demands, Dr. Snyder said. And while these same abilities make them skilled at lying, they are just as likely to apply them in smoothing social interactions. ”      Daniel Goleman

Social chameleons can begin in childhood. According to Dr. Snyder, they exhibit these traits as early as 7 years old. When given information and asked to form an opinion, social chameleons will pour over the information and over it and wait until everyone else has given an opinion before they will. As adults, when people are posting an opinion in a group, social chameleons will wait until last to see which group is the more popular and that is the opinion they will post.

According to Dr. Synder, the way to identify a social chameleon is by paying attention to someone who seems to agree with everything you say and tells you how wonderful you are and watch to see if they have these traits:

- They pay careful attention to social cues, scrutinizing others with keenness so as to know what is expected of them before making a response. (are they slow to give an opinion, waiting to see what others are saying before doing so? Do you catch them just watching others when everyone else is giving their opinion? If you are online, are they the last in a group to express their opinion when a new thought comes up? Do they ever change their opinion depending on what the majority is saying or who they are talking to?

- In order to get along and to be liked, they try to be as others expect them to be. For example, they try to make people they dislike think they are friendly with them. (Do they try to be friendly with both sides of a controversy? Do they keep friends that are people who have talked against the both of you?  Are you unsure of where they really stand by their words and actions with others?

- They use their social abilities to mold their appearance as disparate situations demand, so that, as some put it, ”With different people I act like a very different person.’  (I call this revolving door. Depending on which door (or which people) they are around as to what kind of person or words we will hear from them.

Dr. Icks says that those people who rely on living by their conscience and do not sway much on things are difficult people for social chameleons to get along with for they do not give them enough cues so that the social chameleon does not know how to play them or what traits to mimic to impress them.

“The real social chameleons that go from person to person being all things to all people are simply a blank slate in reality. They are either so damaged or so stunted that at some point in their growth they simply shut down and adopted a malleable yet likable persona – a simpleton of sorts that layers could be added or subtracted to depending upon the situation. The layers become a bit thicker through the years but the true person never changes and the values or belief system that make up anyone are simply not present in this core. It is built into the layers – layers that on some issues have both the positive and negative viewpoint to fulfill everyone’s dream for the perfect friend or lover.”   

sapphospeaks

Now, having said all this, does it mean that being adaptable or agreeing with someone at times when we really disagree makes us a social chameleon?  No, I do not think so. I think sometimes we agree to keep peace. I think the difference is if a person does it all the time and goes from person to person doing this all the time so that there seems to be no integrity in what they say. Then I think a person is a social chameleon.

Two things struck me about the real social chameleon. First was that it makes them adept at lying. So, how can you trust anything they say?  I find this kind of behavior manipulative and done only for the benefit of the social chameleon. The sad thing is the internet as vast as it is makes it very easy for a person to be a social chameleon and many people can eventually get hurt by it. Not the social chameleon but those that feel betrayed when they find out that the social chameleon really did not agree with them and was only manipulating them to get the attention or whatever it was they needed..

The other was the need for people to really be themselves and to be brave and speak up and say their opinion even if it is different from others you are talking to. Having a different opinion does not make you wrong. It just make you have a different opinion. Do not try to mold yourself to anyone elses views. I do not care if you love them and want to marry them, keep your own self and your own opinions and think for yourself. You are of value. What you think is of value and just because someone may disagree with you or even get mad at you for saying it, it still is of value because it is what you believe.

Does it mean you should not be friends with a social chameleon? Not necessarily. It means simply know that they are a social chameleon and that what they say is only mirroring what they think you want to hear. And the next person, they will do the same thing to them. When someone seems too good to be true…they probably are.

I was acquainted many years ago with a man who was known as a petty thief. Someone asked me once how I could be nice to him and talk to him. I said it was easy. I knew he was a thief and therefore knew what to expect from him. So, if he tried to steal from me…I would not be hurt for I knew ahead of time.

So the key is knowing…and knowing what to expect from a social chameleon…which is simply they are saying what they think each specific person wants to hear and praising us and telling us how much they like us or how talented they think we are, etc….and knowing that it is just said to make us like them. That it is not their true thoughts about us. So, then when we see them do the same thing with others, we will not be upset. We will know that they are not authentic and accept them as that. I personally do not have much time to invest in a social chameleon for none of it is real and I do not have the energy to invest a lot of time in something not real.