Dandy & the Rose
What’s the best way to build self-confidence? It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times.
The simple answer is to believe in yourself. The harder question is: how do you do that when you’ve spent years believing something else?
I spent decades living in the shadows of family members, friends, co-workers, and complete strangers. Why? Because that’s what I was taught, and therefore what I believed.
I grew up with a sister who was put on a pedestal for just about everything she did. There’s an entire photo album to prove it.
We were born at a time when taking photos required effort. You had to buy film and flashbulbs, have the film developed, pick it up, and pay for every single picture.
In other words, photographs weren’t accidental.
So when there’s an entire album documenting your sister’s life before her first birthday, it says something. At least it did to me.
Apparently, I was also baptized, celebrated my first birthday, and received my First Holy Communion. I know because there is evidence.
No album. Case closed.
When you’re a kid, you don’t see the whys; you see what’s in front of you. Or, in my case, what wasn’t. To me, this was proof.
Proof that I wasn’t special.
Proof that she mattered more.
Proof that I should cheer from the sidelines where I belonged.
Then I packed up those beliefs and carried them to school, where they were reinforced by the adults I feared most.
The nuns.
My sister was two years ahead of me and had apparently left quite an impression. Every teacher seemed to know exactly who she was and exactly how wonderful she had been.
Then I arrived. The disappointment when they realized I wasn’t a carbon copy was impossible to miss.
“Your sister sat in the Rose Aisle. I don’t understand how you’re a dandelion.”
A freaking dandelion.
For those keeping score at home, Dandy the Dandelion endured twelve long years of that nonsense.
The strange thing is, I was never angry at my sister. If anything, I admired her to a fault.
I spent years talking about her accomplishments while barely mentioning my own. She was the smart one. The talented one. The successful one.
At least, that’s how I saw it.
Ironically, she was the one who got frustrated with me. Why?
Because she saw something I couldn’t. My value.
When she tried to talk me out of getting married at twenty, I assumed she was jealous.
When she encouraged me to take college classes, I assumed she wanted me to be more like her.
When she told me I was smart, talented, creative, and capable, I dismissed every word.
Why would I believe her?
I had already built a mountain of evidence proving otherwise.
There was a missing photo album.
The nuns.
The comparisons.
The labels.
The years spent cheering from the sidelines while everyone else seemed destined for center stage.
By then, “not good enough” wasn’t just a thought. It was my identity.
Looking back, I can see what I couldn’t see then. My sister wasn’t trying to compete with me or change me. She was trying to convince me of something she had known all along. That I belonged on the stage, too.
The problem wasn’t that nobody believed in me. The problem was that I had spent so many years believing everyone else’s opinion of me that I never bothered forming one of my own.
And that’s the thing about self-confidence. It isn’t built by becoming smarter, prettier, richer, or more successful than everyone else. It’s built when you stop letting other people decide your worth.
Talk about childhood baggage. At sixty-plus, I’m still unpacking.
Wait. What was the question again? Oh yeah.
How do you build self-confidence?
You stop believing the stories other people wrote about you and start writing your own.
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An Infant Choosing Centerpieces
How much time do you have?
The list of dos and don’ts is endless.
I cringe when I think about 20-year-old me. Ugh.
Picture a young woman wearing the thickest pair of rose-colored glasses known to mankind. A girl who had no clue who she was while trying on wedding dresses. Someone who didn’t know her own worth, hadn’t discovered her talents, and was still trying to figure out where she fit in the world.
According to my birth certificate, I was an adult.
In reality, I was an infant choosing centerpieces.
I believed with every fiber of my being that getting married would somehow fix everything. Tell me, what else, other than a wedding band, could possibly erase my people-pleasing tendencies, quiet my insecurities, and magically bestow the wisdom I’d somehow missed out on during my first two decades on Earth?
What was I thinking?
Oh, that’s right. I was 20. Delusion was my middle name.
It seemed perfectly logical at the time. I’d spent years believing in happily-ever-after endings. Naturally, I assumed that once I walked down the aisle, exchanged rings, and kissed the groom, a transformation would occur.
The music would swell.
A bright light would shine from heaven.
And the insecure young woman standing at the altar would instantly become a confident adult with healthy boundaries, excellent judgment, and enough self-esteem to stop giving second, third, fourth, and fifth chances to people who hadn’t earned the first one.
Including the groom.
I’ll pause while you laugh.
Back to the question at hand. If I could sit down with that young woman today, I’d tell her this:
You’re not fat.
Everything will work out.
Trust yourself more.
You’re enough.
Follow your ambitions.
Use your voice.
Say “no” more.
You don’t have to earn your worth. You already have it.
Learn the difference between people who support your dreams and people who merely tolerate them.
And for the love of all things holy, take off those rose-colored glasses!
At 20, don’t be so desperate to grow up and figure everything out. Take your time.
Life isn’t a race to the finish line. It’s a series of lessons, and trust me, you’re about to earn a PhD in learning things the hard way.
The good news?
It was all worth it.
You survive every one of them. And someday, you’ll look back at that confused young woman with a lot more compassion than embarrassment.
Because she didn’t know what she was doing.
But she kept going anyway.
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Catholic Guilt Strikes Again
This is impossible to narrow down to one song. I’d feel like I was cheating on all the others, and my ingrained Catholic guilt would never allow it.
Two songs immediately popped into my head: Shiny Happy People by R.E.M. and September by Earth, Wind & Fire.
I’m not surprised they were the first to appear in my orbit because no matter when or where I hear them, I’m not only moved to groove, but I also find myself smiling.
Music is powerful that way. It has carried me through some of the best and worst moments of my life.
I can’t listen to Betcha by Golly, Wow by the Stylistics without thinking of a lying, cheating boyfriend. And I can’t hear Everybody Hurts without being transported back to the day I learned of a friend’s suicide.
Music has a way of bypassing logic and heading straight to the heart. Somehow, a three-minute melody can bring memories to the surface that we thought were long gone, leaving my 60-plus-year-old self with the urge to slash the tires of that lying, cheating boyfriend.
Then there are the songs that take me somewhere I’d gladly visit again. The moment an ’80s Madonna song comes on the radio, I’m young again. The windows are down, my tan is fresh, and my girlfriends and I are singing Holiday at the top of our lungs without a care in the world.
I can forget hand soap on my shopping list twice in one week, but if Funkytown hits the airwaves, there I am, reciting every word, and reliving every memory from the Summer of 1980 at the Jersey Shore.
Songs are time machines, comfort blankets, celebrations, and wounds. Sometimes all it takes is a few notes, and we’re right back where we were, laughing, crying, dancing, grieving, or falling in love, or out of love.
That’s the power of music!
So, no, I can’t just pick one song.
I’m positive the songs I left behind will forgive me, but that Catholic guilt never will.
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Mr. Bliss
I’m going to roll with Ignorance Is Bliss, because I believe it is.
But only for the ignorant person.
Let me explain.
Everyone seems to know someone who is the human embodiment of this proverb. A person who drifts through life without a care in the world and, coincidentally, without a single gray hair on their head.
The heads around them, however, are white.
Why?
Because the rest of us spend our time worrying about things like rent, food, bills, medical care, and other inconvenient details required to survive.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bliss, who may or may not be my brother-in-law, has a serious case of COPD and continues to smoke.
Naturally, I asked if he’d seen a pulmonary specialist.
“No,” he said. “I get steroids from Mexico online.”
Which led to the obvious follow-up question.
“How do you know they’re steroids?”
Without missing a beat, he replied, “Because I can breathe better.”
Suddenly, my fear of taking two Advil seemed a little excessive.
Years ago, he lost an eye and ended up with a prosthetic.
His eyes are brown.
The replacement was blue.
Of course, I asked why.
He looked at me as though I were the unreasonable one.
“Because women like men with blue eyes.”
I considered explaining that women generally prefer two matching eyes, but decided against it.
Now, before you get too distracted by the blue eye, I should mention that the blue eye was later stolen by a roommate.
Yes, stolen.
No, I don’t know why.
And yes, he simply ordered another eye online.
Which somehow led him to explain that you can’t trust things that come from China.
This is from a man who orders replacement body parts through an internet search box.
Just when you think Mr. Bliss has exhausted the list of things that could cause his family concern, it turns out he has lost his dentures.
Lost them.
A full set of teeth.
Naturally, questions followed.
Where did you leave them?
How do you lose an entire mouth?
Why weren’t they in your mouth?
For once, I was relieved by the answer.
“I don’t know.”
What I wasn’t prepared for was the next step.
He ordered replacement teeth online.
Apparently, there is an entire corner of the internet devoted to body-part replacements that I never knew existed.
The teeth that arrived were tiny.
Not slightly small.
Tiny.
Like doll teeth.
Do dolls even have teeth?
As I’m writing this, I can feel new gray hairs forming.
Which brings me back to the proverb.
Ignorance Is Bliss is absolutely true.
It’s just important to remember that the bliss belongs to the ignorant person.
I know you’re all wondering where the eye went, who stole it, why the teeth are doll-sized, and whether those mystery steroids from Mexico are actually Tic Tacs.
But sometimes we’re not meant to get answers, because they just create more questions.
At this point, preserving my hair color is more important than solving the mystery.
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Just Call Me Rosie
I’ve already been disappointed by things I wanted to see in the future.
When I was a child, I firmly believed I’d be flying to work in my personal aircraft, walking my robot dog, and coming home after a long day to see Rosie the Robot cooking and cleaning. That’s the future I thought I was promised.
Well, here we are, more than half a century later, and I don’t have any of it. I’m still sitting in traffic. I’m Rosie, and the closest thing I have to a household pet is my vacuum cleaner, which I seem to fight with every time I use it.
So, when I read this question, I have a question of my own: how far into the future are we talking? Because I was already supposed to be living in the future at this point, and that prediction was missed by half a century. After patiently waiting 50-plus years for The Jetsons’ lifestyle to show up, and getting nadda, forgive me for not putting too much excitement into forecasts.
The problem I see with looking too far ahead is that we miss what we can do today to make change a reality.
As with most things in life, I believe that getting back to basics will create a better world for my grandchildren. Simplicity goes a long way, just ask every kid on Christmas morning who has the time of their life playing with a piece of wrapping paper.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting for flying cars and started paying attention to the things that actually improve people’s lives. Most of them aren’t complicated. They’re the basics: kindness, responsibility, respect, common sense, strong families, good neighbors, and communities that look out for one another.
Technology has given us remarkable things, but it hasn’t solved every problem. In some cases, it has simply replaced old frustrations with new ones. The words Press 1 for can send the strongest of wills into a frenzy.
My interest in futuristic gadgets has faded over the years. The older I get, the more attracted I am to the character of the people who will inherit the future. After all, character is the foundation of any future worth having.
Back to the question at hand, I want to see some basic human qualities in the future.
Of course, this answer isn’t nearly as exciting as those flying cars and automated homes I dreamed of 50 years ago, and I know my younger self wouldn’t have been impressed at all, but it’s the one I believe in.
The future I would love to give my grandchildren is one with a little more kindness, responsibility, respect, and common sense. I’ll consider that a far greater achievement than finally getting my flying car.
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Girls Just Wanna Have Sun
It all depends on the genre. I have a little bit of everything in my collection: horror, Hallmark backdrops, rom-coms, thrillers, and, most of all, comedies. I’d love the chance to be part of a Marvel project someday. As for superpowers, I’d choose either invisibility or the ability to fly, but I digress.
Hmm, let me think, since we’re heading to Summer, I’ll share something from that season.
Many moons ago, at the age of 19, I made a decision that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. I wore a bikini to the beach and doused myself in baby oil.
What could possibly go wrong after exposing my skin from the depths of winter, directly to the sun’s surface, with oil?
Have you ever seen a female body painted pink, except for the private parts? I have.
After a doctor’s visit, multiple applications of baking soda paste, and missing a week of work. This 19-year-old genius made another wise-at-the-time decision to go drinking and dancing with a large group of friends.
There were a few obstacles, and a lot of determination to make this happen. The problem: I was still unable to wear undergarments due to the now-blistering sun poisoning.
Now, for reference, this was the 1980s. Thongs weren’t mainstream, “going commando” wasn’t a thing, there was no Google, and there certainly wasn’t social media to crowdsource solutions to my predicament.
All I had was my older sister.
“Wear Mom’s underwear,” she suggested.
“Okay,” I replied.
Out the door I went with underwear that served as an adult onesie.
The dance club we went to was called “Rocky’s”, yes, like the movie, with a raised dancefloor that looked like a boxing rink.
While drinking and dancing my sun poisoning away, Sister Sled’s “We Are Family” came on. At some point, someone came up behind me, grabbed my waist, and started forming a chorus line.
What I didn’t realize was that somewhere during all the dancing, my skirt had completely detached from my body and was now lying outside the dance floor.
What I did notice, in glorious slow motion, was my sister spraying her drink across the room while my friends pointed and laughed.
Still in slow motion, I turned around.
Mouths hung open.
People stared.
And there I stood, center stage, wearing nothing but my mother’s enormous underwear pulled up to my chin.
Then, as if scripted by Hollywood itself, I heard the DJ’s voice crackle over the speakers:
“Will the girl on the dance floor in her…”
pause
“…underwear, please sit down?”
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Standard Poodles, the Beatles, and Elvis
Have you ever met someone you admired from afar for years? Maybe a favorite musician or movie star?
I’ve always wondered how I’d react. I imagined I’d be dignified somehow, saying something clever and memorable, something the person might repeat on their talk-show circuit.
That fantasy went to hell in a handbasket the other night when I had the pleasure of meeting the author who can make me laugh no matter what: David Sedaris.
He came to a small, cool bookstore in town to launch his new book, The Land and Its People, which I’m certain will bring me great joy, until I remember this encounter.
There I was, sitting maybe four feet away from the man who had made me laugh with his antics for decades. The man who had me laughing uncontrollably while performing my civic duty: jury duty. The man who isn’t afraid to write about things that are undeniably funny yet well outside the confines of political correctness.
What happened?
I started sweating profusely.
Was it panic? Was my body reacting like one of those teenage girls fainting at the sight of the Beatles or Elvis? Or was it a heart attack?
Naturally, a heart attack was my leading diagnosis. But when a mint and a sip of water cured it, I revised my diagnosis.
I listened and laughed my way through the event.
Then, as I filed into line to get my book signed, I noticed my copy looked exactly how I felt.
The book has been in my possession for no more than 2 hours, and it somehow had a coffee stain on page three and a sticky cover with a slight tear.
If anxiety were a book, it would be this one.
I was calm as a cucumber in line, watching the interactions of all the patrons before me, no doubt having some witty, meaningful exchange with David.
This is when my inner coach was giving me the hype talk I needed. “You got this.” “David is going to love you.” “This is your moment.”
I approached the table. David said my name.
For a nanosecond, I thought he knew me!
Until I saw the post-it with LISA written with a black sharpie.
What came out of my mouth?
I have no idea.
Some sort of verbal recipe about standard poodles, the Beatles & Elvis.
Then, just as I was about to walk away, I asked what I thought was a decent question: “How did you choose the photograph on the cover?”
David looked up, we met eyes, and he thoroughly explained how it came to be with his trademark sarcastic wit.
In the end, you could say I got my dignified moment with the author I love and admire.
Unfortunately, it came after introducing myself as a malfunctioning garden hose, spewing random nonsense about standard poodles, the Beatles, and Elvis all over the room.
Enjoy the Ride!
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No Memo, Just Chicken Tenders
If I could have dinner with any philosopher, who would it be?
Okay, my answer is definitely not traditional.
My choice would be a child. Preferably a 3 or 4-year-old with a decent vocabulary. Why? Well, there are a few reasons.
First, deciding where to have dinner would be much easier. Their palette is limited, and chicken tenders and mac and cheese go a long way.
Secondly, there are no filters. They haven’t been contaminated by society in a way that adults are. A 3-year-old will ask anyone anything without a second thought.
Recently, I had green velcro rollers in my hair for little volume, and my granddaughter, without missing a beat, asked with a disdainful tone, “Grandmom, why are you trying to be a dinosaur?” Which left me wondering, “Is that what I’m trying to do?”
This is exactly why I would choose a child. Philosophers seem a little too deep for me. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. Bring it down a few notches. Questions such as “Why is the sky blue?” can prompt answers that go on for days, are filled with scientific facts and equations. Or we can accept the 4-year-old response I heard:
“It’s the best color that goes with the yellow sun.”
Honestly, do we need more than that? I don’t.
Children have the superpower of cutting through all the nonsense. They get right to the chase without overthinking. At least for a moment.
I guess it goes back to being your authentic self. Somewhere along the way, we learn to filter, complicate, and stop trusting our instincts, looking outside ourselves for answers. Children did not get this memo.
And maybe what makes them the best philosophers after all.
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Oh, We’re a Throuple
How do you handle fear and self-doubt?
The short answer is “not well.” But that answer wouldn’t make a very good essay
Let’s just say my relationship with fear and self-doubt has been… complicated. It’s stretched on for decades and feels less like an ordinary struggle and more like a bad marriage, or in this case, a throuple. One of those relationships you read about, where the participants love to hate each other. I think it might be professionally called Trauma Bonding.
At this point in my life, one of us has done some work to break the cycle, but the other two always find a way to lurk around the corner. Just when I think they’re out of my life, they find their way back in like a 3a.m. booty call, uninvited and somehow impossible to ignore.
Now I recognize them for what they are, do my best to give them the cold shoulder, and focus on what I’m meant to do without their two cents yelling from the sidelines.
If there is anything funny about it, and not the ha-ha kind, it’s that after decades, therapy, growth, self-awareness, and every other healing cliche you can think of, they still show up. Like toxic exes whose only form of consistency is showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That consistency is what’s given me the upper hand. How? Well, whenever I’m about to embark on something new, I expect the dynamic negative duo to come knocking. But now, I welcome them in for coffee. I tell them to take a load off and let them know their presence carries a different meaning these days.
So, how do I handle fear and self-doubt? Awkwardly. I haven’t evicted them. I certainly haven’t conquered them, and even with all of my efforts, I haven’t been able to silence them either.
Maybe that was never the goal. Maybe the goal wasn’t to get rid of them at all. Maybe it was to stop treating them like enemies and start seeing them as familiar faces. The kind you unexpectedly run into at the grocery store after five years, only to realize you’re now trapped in aisle six for an hour.
Now my reaction is different. I hear them, but I don’t hand them the microphone.
I’ve finally understood that if these two have entered the picture, chances are I’m standing on the edge of something bigger than comfort, and they don’t like it.
They wouldn’t be there if I weren’t about to do something great.
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Is Sentiment Genetic?
My daughter recently moved … again. That’s an essay in itself, but I’m still recovering from the ordeal.
Anyway, in the process, I was advising her to start letting go of some things she was holding on to. Moving is a great time to purge, and boy, do I love a purge.
She was going through her card container. I remember moving this a year ago. It is one of those plastic under-the-bed containers that needs two people to move because of the weight. All cards, some going back to her baptism, 33 years ago!
I suggested that this time around, she should go through the container to see if it could be lightened up a bit.
As she was going through the mountain of memories, she found a $ 100 bill in a birthday card from her aunt celebrating her 28th birthday. Okay, did this come at a good time with moving expenses, yes. Did it add to her argument for holding on to cards? Also, a yes.
One thing this did was spark my interest in going through some much smaller containers of my own. Apparently, the guilt of throwing away cards is genetic. Who knew?
I realized I had sympathy cards from the passing of my father 30-plus years ago. I read through them and was pleasantly surprised by some of the senders who haven’t been part of my life for decades. I read them one last time, gave them a quiet farewell, and purged.
Next came birthday cards, ones that made me laugh, brought tears to my eyes, and left me with a full heart. I’ll admit, some of those had to stay. I’m not quite ready to let go of my mother’s handwriting… or the love within it just yet.
As I sorted through the memories, I found myself thinking about the importance of the written word. I know so many people who no longer send cards because of the cost or because, as they say, “I’m just not into cards.” Fair enough. I can understand both, right up until that little voice in my head whispers, I’m not worth a stamp once a year?
But then I remembered what I had just been holding in my hands. What gets lost in those thoughts is the sentiment, the memories, and the tangible evidence that someone existed, that they loved you, and that, for a moment, they stopped what they were doing and put it into words.
I also have a container of cards from someone I never met in person, but who has been part of my world for over a decade. A fellow blogger who appreciates a good card, the written word, and the U.S. Post Office, like me.
As I sat on the floor reading those messages, I was reminded just how much human connection matters.
In a world where texting and disappearing messages have become”normal,” the power of holding a piece of someone’s thoughtfulness in your hands is profound. A card or a letter is so much more than paper and ink; it’s proof that someone took time from their day to say, “I’m thinking of you. I remember you. You matter.
I’ll never second guess sending a written note again.
No wonder my daughter has a hard time throwing these things away. It’s a wonderful notion to remember how much someone, especially those who are no longer physically here, loved you enough to leave a piece of themselves behind.
Looks like we’re not saving cards, we’re saving the love inside them, and somehow the weight of that container feels different now.
Enjoy the Ride!
Life With The Top Down 
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