Me and France and the Politics of Sad

OMG. So here we are . . . you, an unknown age. Me? Closing in on 60, and I am going to declare right here-LIVE ON THE CYBER HIGHWAY-that being alive is good. Better than good. It is damn good. It is freakin' awesome. Even on grey days. Even when the media is exploding with stupidity. Even when you are surrounded by idiots, haters, and people who preach division. Even when buzz saws wake you up with their not to be ignored whining at 7:01 when gawd knows you probably should be up and thriving, but you are still snoozing because you spent last night FEASTING on a free Hulu British 5 part series called "Mrs. Biggs" which is great for oh so many reasons!! Shut up buzz saws!!! I had to watch the last part and that kept me awake with green tea until . . . OK. 3 am. But it is all good, all great like I was saying, because a tiny pot of coffee later, some caffeine fueled inspiration from my beloved daughter muse-the world's greatest known painter BTW-and we are together here cyber flying once more. I am going to breathe life into my blog AGAIN because I simply cannot help myself. Rather than endlessly torturing my FB friends with complicated oversharing and sometimes less than astute but always fairly irreverent constant cupcake postings, I will simply download all of my high jinks and daily escapades into this familiar blog. VOILA!!!! As I simply must say. So TODAY I bring you one of the coolest and most useful figuring out Lise's life experiments that I have ever done . . . are you ready? It is a game changer for sure and even though I cannot believe that I just said "game changer" aloud, I will proceed. Livestrong has many perfectly shaped, happy, bright white toothed people all pretending to be worried about fat and calories and fat and calories and berries with unpronounceable names and exercises and endlessly the emails come to my box with all sorts of LIFE CHANGING advice, which--as an aside--almost always involve not eating butter!!?? but I digress--anyway, I read about a man biking across America, watched his little videos and read his story. Something in his words sparked: "I made just ONE change in my life." Because of his ONE change, so many other things that he had been trying for, attempting and failing, and not even imagining happened for him. And they were all good. He asked: "What one thing can you change?" and oh I hopped on that bandwagon so quickly! Always the retired English teacher, I pulled the pencil from behind my ear and began my list. Wait. My walls are COVERED with inspirational every things. I have tried my Happy Face blog, I have drawn out months of my life with each day neatly decorated and blocked out with yet more happy faces and yet more inspirational quotes and oh no oh no oh no . . . was this just going to be a repeat of my past folly? ACV didn't work. Drugs didn't work. Therapy didn't work. Diet changes didn't work. Exercising didn't work. Change of mate, job, bank, hairstyle, wardrobe, perfume (yeah, a weakness of the French kind), car, routine didn't work. Although, in truth, most worked momentarily or for a short spell. I remember clearly the day I looked at my book stacks which were threatening to take over my house and realized that 75% of my books were written by people long dead, ones who had killed themselves, profoundly depressing, and solidly in the life is hell on earth don't even try to make it better or imagine anything different just suck up and get over yourself this is life OK? genre, and WOW. That was a powerful moment. I had SIX COPIES of "The Stranger" for gawd's sake. LOL. That is pretty damn funny. I think I had literally  everything Oates has ever written. My gas oven door was a place of permanent threats. Seriously? How much had my love of dreary Hell's Kitchen writing influenced my thoughts and feelings? A lot of those books, piles of them hit the thrift store. And I am no Pollyanna!! People think of me as "sweet" but OMG, I don't think they know me all that well because I hang out at the local neighborhood bar of Cynical and if Lewis Black wasn't married? I think I would find him and stay with him all the time so that I could yell along with all of his rants. I can be pretty damn sarcastic. OK. BUT HERE IS WHAT I INVENTED AND TAKE IT AND MAKE IT YOUR OWN: I decided to eliminate the word "sad" from my vocabulary. Yes. You heard right. One little three letter word. SAD. As in the I use that word all the f'ing time. I have said "sad" probably more than ANY OTHER word in my entire lifetime. I simply described everything in my life as sad. My tea kettle sang itself dry? Sad. I have too many bills and not enough money? Sad. I am getting older? Sad. The little old man at the store looks lonely? Sad. Chickens in cages smaller than a piece of paper? Sad. Babies aborted at 5 months? Sad. I cannot get published? Sad. People drive too fast? Sad. The Sojourner raised cookie prices? Sad.  My rent got raised? Sad. My hair is getting thin? Sad. My car needs vacuuming? Sad. People walk and text? Sad. I have nothing new to read? Sad. My kids grew up and left? Sad. No one calls? Sad. OK. You understand what I am saying. At first IT WAS SHOCKING. I was like the hilarious TV show where everyone cusses so much there is a bleeeeep every other word. My jaws literally hurt from the many MANY times I clapped my hand over my mouth to stop the word SAD from coming out. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE!!!! I had allowed my use of the word sad to color my ENTIRE EXISTENCE. It was my own personal pair of sadglasses. AND BECAUSE OF MY SAD EXPERIMENT, MY WHOLE LIFE CHANGED. Don't worry--caps in most cases indicates something I think is so dang awesome or dare I say profound--it is not yelling. Although I do honestly feel like yelling my NOT SAD ANYMORE story. And here is how it works--because I NO LONGER attribute my kneejerk response of "sad" to every imaginable situation and experience and exchange-I am forced to examine my life from different perspectives.  The price of good food is not sad, it is a challenge. New laws on the books are not sad, they are worthy of investigation. Rude people are not sad, they are to be avoided. Hating my looks is not sad, it is worth confronting. Lacking sufficient work and involvement is not sad, it is a life pursuit. AND WITHIN DAYS, my entire life changed. Seriously. I am not kidding you. I was able to CRYSTAL CLEARLY avoid and distance myself from people and situations which were depressing and unchangeable. I was able to attribute SAD to the REAL tragedies and sadnesses in life-world starvation, treatment and health care of our esteemed elderly, animal abuse, racism still rampant, wars in many places, you know-things that are genuinely sad. There you have it. My "just one change" has caused TREMENDOUS CHANGES IN MY LIFE. Thank you for reading once again and now I will ask you: "What ONE thing can you change in your life today?" And BTW, haters and the "everyone already knows this" tribe need not respond. Just move on over to another blog. There are billions of them.
LOVE ALWAYS!!!