Day 65 Go Canucks!
Game Four against Chicago, will the Canucks prevail? I believe!
And I’m watching the game, so no more blogging. (But in case you’re wondering, I’m still doing my daily 90 minutes of Bikram yoga and surviving celebrating marriage, motherhood and menopause.)
So, as Arnold says, “Ahh’ll be bahk.”
Tomorrow.
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Never mind. I still buh-leeve. But that was seriously ugly.
Day 64 Zero Sum Life?
It’s playoff season for hockey fans. The Canucks look like they might just make it to the Cup this year and put on a fantastic show doing it.
I haven’t always been a hockey fan; I started watching because my husband is a fan. This was back in the early days of our marriage when our babies were small, our recreational budget was non-existent, and “movie night” meant hauling a rented VHS machine up to our 17th floor apartment. It was a fun thing to do together. It was either watch hockey with him, or be alone. And now, I cheer as loudly as any fanatic.
But generally speaking, I step back from activities that, in order for me to win, someone else must lose. I don’t like losing, and if it doesn’t feel good to me, why would I attempt to win, thereby making someone else feel like a loser?
I know, I know, not a “winning” attitude. Not a mentality prized in today’s competitive world where “getting ahead” is the be-all and end-all. I believe in excellence, in doing your chosen work with passion, but does it have to be an elbows-up, watching-over-your-shoulder situation? Because it’s a short leap from staying ahead of the competition to rank paranoia.
Maybe this issue splits down gender lines. (My husband once asked me, after a yoga class, who won.)
I guess I’d prefer to see my life – my ideal life, in which I’m the person I strive to be, rather than the clay-footed one I usually am – not as a competitive event, but as a cooperative event. I’d like to think that if I offer someone a hand up, it benefits us both. And that if I’m struggling, other hands will reach down for me.
I don’t think life has to be a zero sum game.
Day 63 “I See You”
During my college years, I was the girl people brought their problems to. I was a “good listener” and apparently my advice wasn’t too bad because they kept coming back. One weird roommate (my daughter once told me that creeps are attracted to me) bouncy and oblivious as a Labrador puppy, would sit at the foot of my bed, going on and on about this guy Dalton who, clearly, was never going to notice her.
“I’m tired, so I’ll just get ready for bed while I listen to you,” I offered, reluctant to physically elbow her out the door.
She barely paused for breath. “…and we both love volleyball, and pizza…”
“I’m going to crawl under the covers now,” I told her, stifling a yawn, “but I’m still listening.”
“… and he smiled at me in the hallway yesterday and it was so perfect, I think this is it, finally, right?? RIGHT??”
“I’m going to close my eyes,” I mumbled, “but I’m still listening.”
She eventually went away but my dreams were tainted with Dalton, fending off a gangly Labrador in thick glasses, who kept trying to lick his face.
The thing is, weird girl aside, I like listening to people’s problems, maybe because I see them as stories. High drama or melodrama, it is the stuff our lives are made up of. Plus it distracts me from my own navel lint.
To be a confidante is to be gifted with trust, to have someone say “I will let you see the real me, weak and wanting, unwashed and unvarnished, because I believe you will not laugh, or judge, or rear back in horror.”
In the movie Avatar, the main characters declare their love by saying “I see you.” To be truly seen – and heard – and still be found worthy of love, well, that’s pretty amazing.