Month: December 2018

Another Year Over

/ Ann Coleman / 87 Comments

I have never gotten into the habit of writing regularly in my journal, but I do make it a point to take lots of photographs, print them out and label them, and then place them in a photo album.  Those albums come in handy when I’m trying to remember which year we went on a particular vacation, or who was present at one of our family gatherings.  All I have to do is leaf through my photo albums until I find the right photo, and voila!  I have my answer.

And as 2018 draws to a close, I find myself thinking back over the year and all that happened in it, both the good and the bad.  I don’t really need my photo albums to recall the moments that were most significant to me personally, as my mental pictures are still very clear.

IMG_4149I remember the first time I saw my grandson, just moments after his birth, and how perfect he looked and  how I fell in love with him so instantly and completely.  I remember the hot summer night we spent in the swimming pool at my son’s new house, enjoying a pre-4th of July family dinner and swim party.  I remember sharing my 60th birthday dinner with friends I have known for almost every one of those sixty years.  I remember answering the door on Halloween night and being greeted by a tiny little penguin who promptly took my hands and waddled his way into our living room with a huge smile on his face.

I also remember gently stroking our beloved dog, Lucy, as she took her last breath.  I remember hearing the sad news of the deaths of my sister-in-law’s mother and the mother of a good friend on the same weekend, and how bad I felt that the funerals were hundreds of miles away so that I couldn’t attend both services.  I remember how my heart broke when I heard the horrible and tragic news that a dear friend’s beautiful daughter died suddenly and unexpectedly.  2018 was not a year without tragedy and profound sorrow.

Some of my memories are rather bittersweet.  I remember the how scared I felt when my grandson had to be hospitalized for RSV when he was only ten months old.  But I’ll never forget the sight of my son-in-law singing to his sick little son during a particularly unpleasant procedure, because he knew how much the little guy likes music.  Love is expressed in so many ways, and truly is what gets us all through the hard times.

2018 will soon be history, and I know that eventually my memories of most of the year won’t be nearly so vivid.  (Good thing I have those photo albums.) But the changes and the events of the past year have definitely left their mark.  And all I can hope is that I am just a little bit wiser, a little bit stronger, and most of all, a little kinder than I was twelve short months ago.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Silver and Gold

/ Ann Coleman / 85 Comments

I may be sixty-years old, but I love Christmas just as much as I did when I was a child.  Even though it’s a such a busy time of the year and I sometimes feel tired and stressed,  I still enjoy the shopping, the wrapping, the baking and the decorating.  I look forward to singing “Silent Night” by candlelight at the Christmas Eve service and to opening gifts with my family on Christmas morning.  Despite all the extra demands it brings on my time and energy, Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, and I think it always will be.

IMG_4289Part of the attraction is probably nostalgia.  I am fortunate to have many happy memories of Christmas celebrations when I was a child, which probably explains why I decorate my house and my tree with the glass ornaments, ceramic Santas and other knick-knacks that were so popular when I was growing up.  I think on some level, I’m actually trying to recreate the best of Christmas past.

But life is about nothing if not change, and even at Christmastime, change can be a good thing.  This will be the first year we get to celebrate Christmas with our grandson, and I’m looking forward to it very much.  He’s not quite a year old yet, so he’ll probably be more interested in the empty boxes than in the actual presents he receives, but there’s still something so special about having a little one in the house at Christmas time.

It reminds me of how much my husband and I looked forward to our first Christmas with our first child, and how that year marked the time when our focus shifted from what we wanted for Christmas to how we could provide meaningful celebrations for our own children.  It was so fun to buy gifts for them, and to let them help with the cookies and the decorating.  They even participated in our Christmas giving by choosing some of their own toys to donate to children who weren’t as fortunate.

fullsizeoutput_4d70Later, when they grew up, married and moved into their own houses, we found new traditions to enjoy with our family.  We toured Christmas light displays together and even quaffed a few drinks at a “pop-up Christmas bar.” Now that our family includes a baby,  we skipped the Christmas bar but did take him to a light display at the local zoo and he did just fine.  My son-in-law said that was because the little guy was so bundled up that he couldn’t move and was probably blinking an SOS with his eyelids.   But for whatever reason, he behaved beautifully.

This year, just like every other year, Christmas will be a blend of old and new.  We’ll honor the most treasured of our old traditions, and remember the loved ones who are no longer with us.  And we will also find new ways to celebrate the season, hoping that we’re starting new traditions that will be meaningful for many more years to come.  This Christmas, like every Christmas, will be unique.  And that’s as it should be.

Wait For It

/ Ann Coleman / 76 Comments

IMG_4280Last Thursday, I made what I hoped would be a quick trip to a local store to finish up my Christmas shopping.  I usually enjoy shopping for Christmas presents, but this particular expedition wasn’t going well.  I needed to buy a stocking for my grandson and was pleased to see that the store had a large selection of them.  I was less pleased to see that for some reason, they had placed several large pallets stacked high with cartons of soda pop directly in front of the stocking display.  While I could see the stockings I was interested in buying, I couldn’t actually reach them.

I looked around for someone to help, but the only other people around were harried shoppers trying to push their enormous carts through the aisles that were partially blocked by the pallets.  Undaunted, I grabbed a roll of wrapping paper and used it to reach over the pallets and snag some stockings.  I made my selection and was just considering what to do with the stockings I didn’t want when man came up and wheeled away one of the pallets.  Which was a good thing, because it saved me from having to decide whether to use my wrapping paper roll to try to replace the stockings on the shelf, or to simply toss them over the pallets and hope they landed in the right spot.

Next I needed a board game, so I went to the toy department.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the game on my list but I was pleased to see two staff persons chatting in the next aisle who should be able to help.  I approached them and waited patiently for them to finish talking so that I could ask about my game.  And waited.  And then waited some more.  Finally, I gave up and stomped off, but not before muttering, “No wonder so many people shop online!” just loud enough for them to hear.

I know that the trend toward online shopping has made it very difficult for real “brick and mortar stores” to survive.  And while I do enjoy the convenience of online shopping, I also feel there is a real need for actual stores that provide real jobs and give me a chance to physically examine (and sometimes try on) something before I buy it.  Besides, I really don’t want to live in a world where we all shop, learn, conduct our social life, etc. while sitting in front of a computer in our underwear.  Real stores allow us to get out into the real world and engage with one another in person, and there’s a certain value in that.

But I was beginning to have very dark thoughts about real stores that morning as I went back to the toy section to look one more time for the game.  I had just given up (and was thinking that I might never shop in that store again) when a staff person walked up and asked if she could help me.  Surprised, I told her what I was looking for, and she told me she thought they had a few of them in stock.  “Stay right here,” she instructed me, “and I’ll get it for you.”  Sure enough, she came back a few minutes later with the game, and asked if there was anything else she could help me with.  She couldn’t possibly have been nicer, and I have to say that our interaction changed my mood completely.  I think I was even humming along with the Christmas background music as I made my way to the check out line.

The whole incident reminded me how often I am too quick to judge a situation, especially in a negative way.  Sometimes first impressions aren’t everything.  Who hasn’t had a day that started out very badly but ended up with something really good happening?  Or met someone they didn’t like very much until they took the time to get to know them better?  Sometimes we just need to let things play out a little before we react.  And sometimes good things happen when we’re willing to just give it a little time.

A Happy Anniversary

/ Ann Coleman / 128 Comments

It wasn’t until  sat down to write this week’s post that I realized this month is my blog’s four-year anniversary.  (I’m embarrassed to admit that I actually thought it was my blog’s fifth anniversary until I did the math one more time.  Some of us just weren’t cut out for working with numbers….)  Anyway, I’m happy to say that the blog I started with much hope and trepidation four years ago is still going strong and that the experience has turned out to be a very good one.

It’s impossible to do something for four years straight and not learn a few things along the way.  Prior to starting my blog, I had harbored a deep distrust of the internet, and couldn’t even buy something on line without panicking at the thought of actually putting my credit card number out there in cyberspace.  The thought of putting my writing on the internet for all the world to see (and comment on) was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome before I could summon up the nerve to publish my first post.  One of the first things my blog taught me is that the using the internet isn’t quite as dangerous as I had believed.

Yes, there are hackers galore, and there are also lots of folks out there who spend their days making nasty online comments to perfect strangers just because they can.  But there are far more good people who are willing to offer encouragement, advice and kindness to the people they meet online.  One of the best things about writing a blog post is getting comments on it that expand and improve on the point I was trying to make, and that happens a lot.  I feel very lucky to have readers who are both smart and generous with their knowledge.

I’ve also learned that we humans have much more in common than I ever realized.  My intended audience was middle-aged women, mostly because that’s who I was (yes, I know at sixty I’m stretching the definition of middle age a bit) and I figured those were the people who would relate to what I had to say.  But I have regular readers who are male, and regular readers who are either younger or older than I am.  It turns out, most of the issues I struggle with aren’t restricted to middle-aged woman at all.  They’re human issues that most of us can relate to just fine, no matter what our age, sex, belief system, or nationality happens to be.  The blogging community can represent diversity at its best.

Finally, I’ve learned how important it is not to let my fears, both the reasonable and the not-so-reasonable ones, stop me from doing the things I really want to do.  I love writing and I love writing this blog, yet if I hadn’t managed to overcome my fears of “putting myself out there” on the internet, I would not have spent the past four years writing this particular blog.  And that would have been a real shame, because I would missed out on all the gifts this blog has given me:  the chance to grow as a writer, to connect with terrific people from all over the world, and the hope that (with a little luck and a lot of work) I may make it to my actual five year blogging anniversary.

Only The Best

/ Ann Coleman / 99 Comments

I was at a restaurant the other night when I noticed a young couple being seated at a nearby table.  As soon as they sat down, the man placed his laptop computer on the table in front of him and began typing.  The woman immediately pulled out her phone and gave it her full attention.  The looked up from their devices just long enough to place their orders, but I don’t think they said more than three words to each other before their food arrived.

DSC03670 2Once the food came, the man pushed his computer aside and began to eat, but the woman kept her phone out and used it to take some photos of her dinner.  And apparently the lighting over their table wasn’t very good, because she picked up her plate and carried it to an empty table, where she put it down and took another photo.  I guess that photo wasn’t satisfactory either, because she repeated the process at several other tables before she finally carried her food back to her own table and began to eat.

I’ll never know exactly why the woman was so concerned with getting a high-quality photo of her dinner, but I assume she intended to share it on social media.  We certainly live in a time where it’s common to share almost every detail of our lives and almost every thought that crosses our minds, and the internet makes it so very easy for us to do so.  But it seems to me that all too often, we have lost sight of the difference between the things we should share and the things that we should be keeping to ourselves.

Honestly, sharing all the mundane details of our lives only annoys other people.  (I know I could live happily without ever seeing a photo of someone else’s meal.)   But far worse is the kind of sharing that is downright hurtful. When someone we care for voices an opinion that we think is just plain silly, we don’t need to actually tell them that.  I’ve never yet met a pregnant woman who appreciated being told about someone’s incredibly long and painful labor.  And people who have made difficult decisions don’t benefit from having someone second-guess their choice afterwards.  A good rule of thumb is that if sharing our thoughts will cause unnecessary stress or hurt feelings, then those thoughts shouldn’t be shared at all.

Sharing is a good thing, as long as we do it wisely.  We can do an incredible amount of good when we share our resources with those who are in desperate need, and sharing words of encouragement and hope can make a huge difference in the life of someone who is struggling.  The trick is to make sure that what we are sharing is something that is actually wanted and/or needed by the person we intended to share with.

I still think about that couple at the restaurant.  Maybe they really didn’t have anything they wanted to say to each other.  But I believe that their dinner would have been so much better if, rather than focusing on taking a good photo of their food to share online, they’d chosen to give their time and attention to each other instead.  That, in my opinion, would have been something actually worth sharing.  Because good things happen when we choose to share only the very best we have to offer…..