Author: samandoat

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Navel Fuzz

To believe your life is no longer worth living is one of the saddest things.

Life will throw a lot of things at you, but if you chose to give up the fight, you have lost an important truth.

Life is a gift. It is precious.

I know this appears to be a trite statement. But I have found that these words are on a much higher level than I realized.

You don’t need to have a purpose, or meaning to your life, I certainly don’t.

You don’t even have to make a significant contribution, or have much realized impact on the world around you. I never have.

It is not about your title or position or what people say and think about you. I’ve found no matter how hard I strive, most of my efforts are ignored. I’ve spent most of my life feeling unworthy of any good thing.

Yet. I. LOVE. LIFE.

It seems like a contradiction to write that, but it is true.

I don’t love all of it, there are things that I hate, detest and make me very angry.

But I consider it ALL to be a process of my life. The good, the bad and the ugly are what makes me, me. This is what life is. You are not special because you suffer, we all suffer. Grant it some more than others. Life is NOT fair, ever. Count your blessings when it is fair to you.

Being alive is a blessing given to you.

This sounds yawn worthy, but there is a deeper message in that. Take your nose out of your navel and look around. See the big picture instead of your own navel fuzz.

Before you become bitter about life, consider what is worth staying around for.

You’ll find it has nothing to do with you at all.

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Mental Load

I read an article that addressed the mental load that women carry in addition to the physical demands they cope with as mothers and wives.

But it is true of all women, not just those with children and husbands.

We are the ones expected to do not just the physical chores of maintaining our household, cleaning, laundry, cooking, dishes, etc. but the mental work too.

We are the ones who maintain relationships. We are the ones who provide the emotional support for others. We are caretakers, we nurture, provide sympathy, advice, help. We find the right medical help. Buy and administer the medicine, make sure of the right dosage at the right time.

We organize social events, parties, get togethers, dinners. We make sure we have household supplies, food. We prepare checklists, schedules. We make sure things are done on time. Appointments are made and kept. Arrange transportation. Plan vacations and make reservations and all that goes with it. Keep track of bills and payments, bank accounts and credit cards. Check on emails. Write letters. Make invitations. Prepare paper work and fill out forms.

We are also expected to be concerned about the world. Up to date on current events. Maybe even volunteering to help clean up pollution, fight poverty, take care of the elderly, rescue abandoned pets.

And then we do all the physical work too!

We also have to do all this at our jobs!

No wonder we are exhausted.

(A nod to my Mother – if only I had of realized how much you did when I was growing up. I am truly sorry I did not. I am so grateful Mom. Forgive me.)

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Star Wars

I recently watched the first Star Wars movie and was sorely disappointed.

The story is great and timeless.

So why, Mr. Lucas did you muck with it?

Countless fans have already bemoaned the changed scenes, so I don’t need to rehash that. Especially the who shot first scene of Han Solo. But I also was unhappy with the stupid looking creatures added and the times the words did not match peoples mouths (the words had been changed).

As a writer, I know the temptation to go back and improve something created a long while ago, believing I know better now.

But I look at my old work as standing on their own and being the best I could do at that stage in my life. And what was true decades ago may no longer be true, may even be offensive today. How could I know that then?

But if someone loves my past work I am not ever going to change it. If they hate it and it is out of synch with the current times, I’ll delete it completely.

I have watched movies that have so many deleted scenes the story no longer makes sense. Why do they do that? Even the Muppet movie, of all things, deleted an entire scene from their version of the Christmas Carol. How crazy is that? And The World According to Garp removed the beginning scene, that although yes, some might find offensive, was the defining thing to the whole story. There were other parts removed from that movie that also made things a bit weird. Erik the Viking is another movie that got hacked up. But gee whiz. Modern movies are so full of graphic violence and sex and foul language that I find are a thousand times more offensive than any old movie or book.

I don’t care if the special effects of an old movie are dated, are not state of the art CGI. What matters is the story. If the story is terrific I can overlook the rest. You need to consider the time when things were produced. In the time period something was created there may be things that are politically and otherwise incorrect or offensive today. A Hitchcock movie made in the 1950’s is still very good. A book written decades ago is still thrilling. You can’t update them, they lose their magic. I think people are smart enough to realize that it is a product of the times, or if something is deliberately being offensive.

So please, give us the originals and let us decide for ourselves if we like it or not.

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Owning Your Truth

Several things have happened to me in the past year that have put me in the familiar situation of either owning my truth, or trying to save face.

Women are trained from the moment they enter this world to not only apologize for everything, even things they had nothing to do with, but to explain themselves.

It is one thing to apologize and yet another to explain yourself and justify why you did or said something.

We are taught to be flustered in situations where we did something wrong. It is to make us weak and end up feeling very very bad about ourselves afterward. Making excuses and explanations leaves an awful bad feeling in ones soul.

We are taught to fall all over ourselves with explanations. To gush with them.

It is to make us a good girl.

To just apologize, a simple I am sorry and stop there, takes a lot more courage than you might expect. A woman will be questioned, no, interrogated to explain why she was a bad girl.

Even for us to say no, we go into explanations. This is very demeaning. Why can’t we just say no. No I won’t work on my day off. No I don’t want to go out with you. No I don’t like that. No, I don’t want to do that.

Recently I apologized for something I did do wrong, and for something I said. I did do those things and I was wrong to do so. I owned my truth. I did not elaborate. I was interrogated but I said nothing further, just repeated my apology until they finally understood that was all they were going to get from me. And that was enough.

My heart was pounding. My temperature rose to a hundred degrees. I sweat. But I felt terrific later.

Being true to yourself is extremely hard. No one likes to admit they were wrong. Especially if they did or said something on purpose. And women are suppose to explain why, which is so humiliating.

Sometimes I just fuck up. Sometimes I am in a bad mood. Sometimes I don’t know why I did or said something. Sometimes I do. But why do I need explain it to anyone? We all make mistakes, accidently and on purpose.

Own your truth without a single word more. It is freeing.

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Rewrite the Ending

I bet there are a lot of books and movies you wish had a different ending.

I watched Labyrinth during the Christmas holidays. I had not seen it in decades.

The ending should have been that Jareth joined in the party at the end instead of flying away as an owl back to his miserable lonely life in the castle. He could’ve had friends, fun and the girl.

I was disappointed greatly in the ending of All the Light You Cannot See. This novel was beyond awesome and then the ending was like a flat tire. Ffffffsssstttt. All that build up to such a wimpy end. Blah.

Of course Andie should have stuck with Duckie in Pretty in Pink!!

I hate unhappy endings. It is too much like real life.

If I’m going to read a novel or watch a movie, I want it to be uplifting. To hell with reality. I face that every damn day.

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Forms

My fingers are numb from filling out forms.

From the moment we are conceived (and actually for generations before we are even thought of) we are data on forms. We can trace our lineage practically back to the cave man thanks to forms.

Everything we do in life is recorded on forms. Your birth, death, marriage, financial status, health, shopping, you name it. You fill out forms over and over and over, in duplicate, triplicate, ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.

You fill out forms for yourself with cross references to others who also have their piles of forms making a huge web of interesting, but probably mostly useless connections.

You fill out forms to prove you filled out other forms.

And those forms are passed on to others who fill out more forms to prove they have read your form and it goes on and on and on. Entire departments are dedicated to this. It employs a lot of people, which is good I suppose. Eventually you have quite a pile of forms about yourself, with virtually the same information on them, that sits on a server somewhere. Forever.

Until you need that information for some reason.

And then it can’t be found anywhere.

There is no record of you ever having been there, done that, purchased this, returned it, had it repaired, filed it, been at this place, seen this person, had this conversation, underwent this procedure…

The information is lost, misplaced, stolen or just never received.

You need to fill out a new form.

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Shut the F Up

Do you know how extremely fortunate you are?

Perhaps you need a reminder.

I know a person who whines continually about how hard life is. This person has their own house. Their own car. Their own housekeeper. They live alone. They go on extended paid vacations overseas. They buy expensive clothes. Eat at expensive restaurants. But life is so very hard, don’t you know? So difficult to find a work life balance.

I know a man who works 3 jobs to support himself and his family. He works when he is so sick he can barely stand up. Because if he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. And if he doesn’t get paid, a whole lot of other people don’t eat.

I watched a young man stealing menstrual pads in the drug store. Stuffing them into his pants and sleeves. Why would a man steal that? Because he and his partner are broke.

To all you self entitled spoiled brats out there, you need a wake up call. A hefty reality check.

Maybe we can’t solve poverty on our own, but we can be damn grateful for what we have, and not ever forget it.

Next time you go to whine about a privileged first world problem, check out what life is really like for a large portion of the population in one of the richest nations on earth.

And shut the F up.

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Jiminy Cricket

I recently watched Pinocchio, not for the story, it is too traumatizing (I don’t know how I watched this without being upset as a kid – it upset me as an adult!) but for the incredible animation and graphics that, considering how it was painstakingly made, by hand, makes it awesome.

I hadn’t seen this movie since my youth, which is, ahem, quite a while ago. I loved Jiminy Cricket. I had a little model of him, and bought a slightly bigger one a few years ago to sit on my desk.

Happy little fellow isn’t he?

Well, I discovered my little friend here was a bit of a sexist! He put his hand on a dolls behind (he apologized for that, but only because he was embarrassed), he made a lewd remark to a dancing doll, and with eyes bursting through binoculars, ogled some marionette dolls doing the can can!

Jiminy!

So much for being the epitome of conscience! I think your gold star is a bit tarnished!

Now mind you, in 1940 this was considered quite normal behaviour. It was a bit jarring to encounter it in 2023. However – such behaviour, unfortunately, is still very much alive in today’s society. I hate to admit that.

But I still love you Jiminy, though I would never date you!

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Christmas

I love Christmas!

There is a spirit that sweeps up even the most hard hearted. It has nothing to do with what you believe or what religion you are. Joy is universal at this time of year.

I love everything about Christmas. I love all the glitter, the lights, everything sparkling and bright. I love the music. Even the sad music. Especially my squeaky attempts at I’ll Be Home for Christmas on the flute. I even love all of the commercialism because I see how abundant we are, how giving we are, and all the happiness that buying and giving and receiving brings. Our hearts are full at Christmas.

I love all the fruitcake and shortbread. Turkey and cranberry. Chocolates. Yule logs. Yep, I put on some poundage starting as soon as these things arrive in the store.

But of course I speak from a privileged place. I’m not rich, but I am okay.

Yes, I know, not all of us are so fortunate. I cannot make sense of why this is. This world has more than enough of everything for everybody. It is disheartening that our abundance gets bottlenecked by just the few greedy rich. Our whole social system needs an enormous overhaul. If only we could take the spirit of Christmas into our doings all year long and make better decisions. Banish greed and corrupt behaviour and with it, poverty and crime.

I believe joy could win with the right attitude in the right places. At least I found that to be true in my own life.

I am glad every year ends with Christmas. It reminds me of what I am grateful for, and why I want to live forever.

Christmas wipes out all the bad and gives me hope.

May it do the same for you, and everyone.