Fallacies, Flaws and the Myth of Perfection

Arrrrggghhhh! My beloved six-burner Viking stove!! ACK!
God I loved that thing. I used to hug it! 

Eggplant I grew in my driveway!

My spectacular Montauk daisies. The were very hearty and last to bloom in the autumn. 

Gorgeous fall color on the hydrangea in my driveway.

Jost Van Dyke's White Bay. Heaven on Earth.

With my friend's newborn just before the trip to White Bay.

Quisset Harbor. Another heaven-on-Earth type location.

Quince blossoms. 

Ranunculus.

Tulip from my garden.

Frittilaria from my Salem garden. I have a giant chocolate variety here that is spectacular.

I've been very nostalgic again recently. Upon meeting new friends including my most excellent friends Amy, Amanda, Kari, Mike, Danielle & her beau, Orion, Sean, Jason, Cap, Camilla, Buster, Brian, Marilyn, Kathy, Margaret, Rob, Suzie and Tracye among several other great humans I've met in the last year, I find that I get reflect-y about my past and my old old old most wonderful friends that I've had for 20, 30 and even more than 40 years!

God, I'm old.

Yeesh.

Annnyyway, it's such an interesting thing to sit and think about all the times you've had with people over the course of twenty years. My friend Penny, for instance - we met when I was in a huuuuge transition period of my life. I had just gotten through my first divorce (never would I have dreamed there might be another), I was moving away from Littleton, MA (thank GOODNESS) back to the coast where I belong. In the meantime, though, I had a job for 4 more LONG months in Worcester, MA. So, that's no drop in the bucket commute.

But I did it. During the height of winter, I commuted back and forth from Salem to Worcester. UGH. One dreary snowstorm on a Friday night had me in my car for three hours to get home. I was not pleased.

Often I'd be the only one in the house when I lived with Penny. We had a rotating third roommate each year. It was uncanny. No one could live with Penny and me! We got along famously. She was a rabid recycler and a Yankee through and through. Frugal, generous and practical. And an incredible athlete skier and cyclist. The heat was low in the winter and electric bills were low year round. I adored Penny right away and have never stopped.

She and I have seen each other through so many changes. Dogs passing away, moves out of Salem, moves within Salem! Deaths of people we knew and loved, life changes that we didn't want, life changes we DID want...

All through it, I never stop knowing that if I needed her, she'd do everything in her power to help. Same goes for her. She knows I've got her back whenever she needs it.

There are just some people like that. Hank, Marylou, Jannie, Nina, Elyse, the Lisas!, Bob, Scott, Kristen, Liz, Karen, Erika, Jenna, Jim, Rocky and his whole family, Jackie and Dave, Janet, Melissa, Steve and George, Bob and his whole family, Addie, Pam, Carol Ann, Maryanne, Maryellen, Debbie, Lynn and her family, Kevin and Jill, Joe, and of course, my beloved parents and their respective spouses, my Auntie and Uncle, their kids and fiances, my people in California, Washington, Maryland, Michigan, and the list goes on and on...

I feel so very very fortunate to have not only made these wonderful friends and to have kept them near and dear even though I'm 5000 miles away from everything. Alaska is out there! WAAY out there.

No regrets moving here though. I cry sometimes because I miss everyone and I don't have the money to keep flying everywhere. I have gone through all of the money I'd saved from the sale of my house. It cost me a LOT of money to move here and then to get my new business all set up and getting the garden in tip top condition as my best marketing tool.

I've networked, joined organizations, taken potential clients out for dinners and drinks, donated to charities with money and time and flowers and other tangible goods. I've bought things for the house, I've sold things! You name it, I've been trying everything to get myself established here in Alaska.

And then the sh*t hit the fan. My identity got stolen, rings went missing, a video camera went missing, money started disappearing from my wallet, from my bank accounts, from my credit cards, phone bills started doubling, fake accounts were set up...And this person was living with us under the guise of being a frightened teenager who was a victim of domestic violence.

This caused immense strife for me and my husband. And he had just had surgery, to boot, so we were both exhausted and not on our game. I'd have figured this out very quickly had I not been completely spent from taking care of my poor hurting husband, the house, laundry, two dogs, cooking, cleaning, bills, etc all during the dead of winter when it's dark and sad and dreary.

I'm surprised I could keep it together at all!

In any case, I started hearing from this person's Mother. It was startling what she told me. I will not go into it here. Not worth repeating.

Since that time, I've had to rebuild my credit, my name, my everything - but most notably, my marriage.

These terrible things that happened were because of about 20 factors that all collided during the darkest part of winter in Alaska. It's not a joke having only about 3 hours of daylight. It rips at your psyche and causes a lot of very bad behavior and very strange events.

Luckily I was aware of the weirdness and used my Seasonal Affective Disorder "happy light" during that time. I took a lot of baths, listened to happy music, watched comedies, watched stand-up comics that make me delight, read a lot of good books...Luckily I was given and have learned the tools to make certain I don't fall into that dark hole that took me down so badly a couple years ago.

Luckily I am extremely aware of my boundaries and my flaws.

There is a fallacy about perfection that most people strive to obtain...

Guess what? No such thing. The only thing even close to perfection is unconditional love and the only beings that seem to be capable of that are our furry or feathered family members. Birds, dogs and cats. Other critters also may learn unconditional love, but pretty much I think humans missed that boat a loooong time ago.

Anyone who tells you they love you unconditionally? Is likely just trying to fool you and themselves.

I have now been married three times and have had a lot of boyfriends in between. I cannot name one time I felt unconditional love toward any of them. It seems to be that the hormones and "higher" thought processes (or in some humans' case the lack of any thought processes!) just clouds what we normally desire to do. Most of us desire health, happiness and comfort.

When someone or something threatens those three things, that's when the trouble begins.

There are few critters on the Earth that truly mate for life. Some birds do, French Angelfish do, some termites do, Schistoma worms do (hilarious!).

The list of mammals? Short:

1 - Gibbons.
2 - Prairie Voles.
3 - Wolves.

Humans try but most fail. I know I've failed miserably at marriage! Terribly miserably! I'm the worst!

There is a bit of blame in the fact that I'm an only child. We learn, very quickly, that we are the center of the Universe!

And then we work for the rest of our lives to undo that attitude.  I know I'm terrible at it!

My poor husbands have had to endure the brunt of my selfishness, my ability to blame others for my problems, my verbal assaults when feeling cornered or disrespected, my need for alone time and conversely my need for social time.

I'm a study in contradiction. I'm fully aware of it. I'm a recovering perfectionist. HELP!  (I'm giggling!)

I have an unnatural affinity for animals - kind of all of them. Even spiders and snakes.

And, generally speaking, I'd much rather be in the garden with my plants and flowers or with the little natures outside than most humans. Most adult humans are just bothersome. That's why I enjoy kids so much - they have no agenda really except the desire to play, explore, learn, and share what they've learned.

Kids are great, but most adults ruin them. They wanna categorize their kids or put them in a box so that they're just like all the other kids.

BLECH.

Boring. Horrid. How terrible to do that to a child?!

Luckily my parents recognized my weirdness immediately. I wanted to be an architect, a concert pianist, a detective like Nancy Drew, the next Dorothy Hamill, the next LPGA tour winner, a champion swimmer, an academic, a dancer, the next Jane Gooddall, the next Diane Fossey or the next Jacques Cousteau. Or Doris Day. Or Shirley Temple. Or a rock god (I rocked out on my bass guitar in my Heart cover band!).

And then I decided to focus. I went the science route. Became an expert on Marine Mammals and seabirds. Then focused on shorebirds and plants. Then became an educator on all of those subjects. Then just wanted to garden and play on my boat and take care of my dogs that were old.

Then that all went away. The garden, the house, the husband, the dogs, everything just went away.

I was left with money. And I didn't care about that at all. I cared about all those other things that just slipped away. Then more deaths happened and more was lost.

And I still had all that money. But I didn't want the money, I wanted those people and my dogs and my beloved garden.

I was utterly and completely lost in a fog. There was no wind to get the fog away, just more fog.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now I find myself feeling light again. Unburdened. 

I now have no money to speak of, but I do have a piano, a little dog that adores me, a beautiful home and a garden that I'd die for! I've got friends, a thriving business,  a husband who is a wonderful person - a flawed person who recognizes his flaws and can apologize for them. 

I guess that's all we can hope for, right? 

Just a person who recognizes their own junk and is willing to work 

with you on muddling through the thing.

Boaty and doggies. I miss the guy there, too.

My sweet Sadie. Sweetest, gentlest animal I've ever known.

Ciao for now. Thanks for reading.

Go do the thing! 

xoxo

About your CONSTANT need to complain...

The view from my house in Salem.

Fourth grade. I still look like this, just less scraggly!

My boat and dogs. That's a dogfish and apparently, my dog Lady did NOT approve!
We threw it back. We rarely killed a fish unless it was a cod, haddock or flounder.

Sadie's nose. She was a sweet pea.

Me as Snooki at one of our epic Halloween Parties in Salem! FUNNNN!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok. A little ranty today again. Sorry in advance. Just saying, you don't have to read this crap. I do this so I get it out of my system so that I can be pleasant later on.

I am completely and utterly and thoroughly done with the kvetching and complaining and "poor me" syndrome that people seem to be embracing lately.

Now don't get me wrong. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. A financial collapse, a lost home, a dead dog, cancer, dying people around you and their families treating you badly at times.

That's not what I'm talking about. Real loss is real and to be respected.

You sometimes gotta just hang on for dear life and hope and pray that things will turn out for the better.

HOWEVER.

When you are big and strong and have money and power and can make your own decisions and opinions about things and you CONTINUE to complain and play the "poor me" card?

I am done with you.

I don't want to hear it for ONE. MORE. SECOND.

SHUUUUTT UPPPP and DOOOOO something to change your situation.

I have money and I have time and I have power and I have the resources to find shit out if I need to know something.

Look at a book. Google that shit.

I am not here to SOLVE your problems, I'm here to be here FOR you, but I'm not going to bail your ass out of jail or do the homework for you.

If you're too lazy to even TRY to help yourself by making a phone call or GOOGLING it? 

Then I'm out. 

Not my problem. 

No monkey on MY back, dude.

So, I guess the moral of the story for ME is that if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

If you cannot stand your job and co-workers, then QUIT and do something else. Or at least make your exit plan and stick to it. Do your homework and then just write that shit down and make your exit plan.

When I got wind of what was happening in a former marriage (I've been married thrice), I got my paperwork in order, started socking money away, even had to borrow some money from relatives (which I paid back pronto, mind you)...

I sold my big house, socked that money away in a nice interest-bearing account and did my due diligence with the lawyers and bankers and paid off loans and then have been living off that income for over three years.

I learned to monetize my blog (sorry if that's a sellout in your eyes), I learned to monetize my Facebook and Twitter accounts...I learned the way to do this from home and how to be clever but also legal.

Sometimes clever people's britches get too big and they start playing with the law. They start thinking they're ABOVE the law. Well, nope. Ain't nobody above the law. Nope and no.

When you're on the right pathway and you do the right thing for YOU, good things happen. The universe gets excited and presents you with fun and amazing opportunities.

I was just invited, asked to do something I've always and forever dreamt about. A voiceover gig for something HUGE. Huge huge. Like the creme de la creme sort of deal.

Will not discuss until papers are signed for fear of disrupting the planets and moons and sun!

However, I told my news to a person who means a lot to me and he questioned me about it. Instead of just being ecstatic about this incredible opportunity, he questioned me.

Broke my heart into bits is what it did.

He's a dufus. He can't help himself because he's not met a woman like me. A person like me.

See, we grow 'em different in Michigan and Massachusetts and basically anywhere in the East. I worked for 20 years on boats with men. REAL men. Salt of the EARTH men.

I grew up with these characters and, as I write this, I'm typing on my Facebook messenger to him about my news!

He and I are talking about this opportunity and because he knows me, Capt. Greg, he does not for ONE SECOND doubt my news! He knows the film crews and the famous researcher and documentarists and the books and newspapers and the other things that had me in them all through my career on the boats.

He probably has been the feature of a number of articles and films himself!

These are spectacular humans I've been priveleged to know and work with. Famous people and celebrities all over the place. The man who discovered the wreck of the Atosha. A super famous guy from SNL. People who are super-connected to the Hiltons and the Chanels and filmmakers and people who work at Warner Brothers Music in NY and CA.

So, last moral to this loooong story:

People are just that. JUST people. They sometimes put themselves out there. Extending their flame of fun or nature or passion for music or art out there for the world to enjoy. Or not.

If you DON'T enjoy their music or art or film, then just turn around and go the other way!

No need to be mean and nasty about someone's passions, right?

As we were all taught early on:

IF YOU DON'T HAVE SOMETHING NICE TO SAY, THEN DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL.

And, for the love of all that is HOLY?

QUITCHER BITCHEN.

Ironic, I know, but it's just the thing. A person can only be pushed so hard and so long and then? 

KERPOWIE!!! 

Ok. I feel better now. Sunrise is upon us and I must go gaze upon it.

And then I'm over to paint my neighbor's kitchen (she changed the color mid-paint!!).

Take care & Ciao for now.

Nice chatting with you Greg! Miss your face. xoxo