“49″ today and feeling “Confident”

Hello everyone,..

Well today is my “49th” Birthday,…when I was 15 I thought “49″ was the ‘end of the line’ for people! *lol* But being here,…has the definite feeling of a ‘beginning’,..and no ending in sight.
It’s funny, I thought 49 would feel so much different because it is so close to 50.

Maybe I was just a late bloomer…but the truth is that it has only been in my 40’s that I finally started to feel a sense of ’self’. Started to understand myself better. Started to accept I could not be all things to all people,..including me some days.

I feel like the experience with raising my granddaughters started the process of allowing me to thoroughly “sort myself out” as a person. To separate the wheat from the chaff – so to speak.
Kids’ are so unpretentious and have a way of pointing out the obvious, and at this stage of my life I actually had the wisdom to truly LISTEN.

I read something recently that stuck with me,…it was talking about how as people we tend to focus on the things that we are NOT good at, in an attempt to become better,….instead of focusing on what we are great at,..in order to become the best!

That when children come home with a D in Math and an A+ in Science,…they are advised to put more ‘time’ and ‘energy’ into improving the D,..and there is no emphasis put on the A+ because they aren’t having an ‘issue’ in that class. But what they are really revealing is that they have A GIFT and if the emphasis would be put on encouraging and developing that gift, they could become the BEST at it,..and that D would be a vague memory.

When you think about it,..that is a very relevant point.

And FINALLY at 49 I understand that I am NOT GOOD AT EVERYTHING…..but I am exceptional at a few things. Now if I put my time and energy into the FEW things I am good at, that is all it takes to create the life I want. It doesn’t take being good at everything,….to succeed.

SO there are my words of wisdom as a new 49-year-old who loves her life! And it is not because it is ‘perfect’ by any stretch of the imagination……but because I FINALLY own it, good and bad alike..and it is a great feeling.

CELEBRATE YOU, AND WHAT YOU ARE GREAT AT TODAY – throw the rest to the side, and quit struggling to be all thing to all people.

A lesson on “Family” – I learned in Nepal

I was in Nepal for a few months in the year 2000. (the little country sandwiched between India and China) Why I was there, all the things I experienced while there, are stories for blog posts to come, but it was a life-changing experience for me and it altered my perception of the role of Grandparents in the lives of their grandchildren forever.

When I was growing up ‘extended family’ was just a fact of life, whether you liked them or not.
Beyond the usual contact on holidays and special events, we also has a Sunday ritual that lasted for a few years…of showing up at both sets of grandparents, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. There were great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, siblings, first and second cousins, coffee, tea and food, all stuffed into a couple rooms. The adults totally oblivious to what the 25 – 30 kids they brought with them were doing. (If they only knew!) Even though the family ‘rifts’ were well known there was an obligation to show up and be polite,..and that was not the time to speak of them. No matter how tense or uncomfortable anyone was upon arriving, within an hour the room was filled with laughter and people trying to talk over each other as they recalled a ‘different version’ of the memory being shared from ‘the good old days’.

Eventually the harmony of the ‘good old days’ was exhausted and all that was left was the ‘disharmony’ of the present, silence hit and that was the cue to pack up the family and head home.

Little did I know that what I was experiencing was in the process of becoming extinct
Over the next 30 years,…things changed. The influence of ‘extended family’ disappeared.

I don’t know that I thought much about it, other than to reflect occasionally on memories, but when I was in Nepal, it really hit me.

I observed the ‘generations’ of family living together, great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, children,…all under one roof. (A tough concept to imagine for most of us independent, self-sufficient Americans to fathom!) But I was fascinated at how it all worked. If parents went off to work, there was no discussion of “Will you watch the kids”,…the children were a part of “everyone’s life”, and everyone shared responsibility for them.

I watched as great-grandparents and grandparents took walks or sat down to talk to their grandchildren, teaching them the history of their ancestors, giving them a solid sense of ‘connectiveness’ to who they are and where they came from, broadening their minds to see that THEY were not the center of the universe but a part of something bigger.

I believe that is one thing that is sorely missing from our Americanized lives,..a sense of “Connectiveness”. As family’s and as people. And I truly grasped on to the DEEPER benefit of having children raised around the foundation of mulitple “GENERATIONS”…instead of strangers at a daycare who dont share your values or heritage.

I AM SO THRILLED to have the privilege of influencing my grandchildren and their futures. I don’t take it lightly but have a lot of fun in the process!