i must be old

i don't want to sound like an old, judgmental person, but i'm walking down the street today and saw so many young people with piercings...through noses, eyebrows, lips, tongues, cheeks. and those are the visible ones. i couldn't help wonder what they were going to look like in 30 years when their skin's elasticity isn't quite the same.

don't get me wrong, i had 4 holes in one ear when i was 19, but 3 have since closed up. the holes are still visible, leaving behind some pretty funny memories. back then, i was quite good at piercing  friends' ears. a little ice to numb the lobe, an earring to push through. scotch was used too...either as an anesthetic or antiseptic. don't really remember that part.

fast forward all these years and now i'm a parent. the only rule i have about piercings, tattoos and the like for zach is nothing permanent until you're paying your own bills. so far, so good, but he's only 14. years ago, a friend passed along what i considered to be great advice: don't worry what length your son's hair is - it'll always grow or can be cut - just expect it to be shampooed. what a great analogy for life.

wwcd: so take chances, be different, maybe just nothing too permanent

just say no

i walk the same 4 blocks to and from work each day...sometimes a couple of times a day, depending on if i want to walk lucy midday. i listen to music or talk on the phone, but i always see some of the most interesting looking women as i walk. well put together, running to the gym, pushing strollers, on their way to work, lunch, the doctor, shopping, meeting friends.

over the last few years i've begun to notice and be a bit put off by the many young women i see who have had plastic surgery or botox or restylane or some new filler or paralyzer that makes them look younger. supposedly. and i've also noticed too many women who appear to be anorexic. and today a question for all of this hit me like a truck. are we raised to hate ourselves?

at first the thought made me sad and that feeling quickly changed to anger. i do think we are raised to hate ourselves. whether it's too much hair in the wrong places, carrying too much weight, letting hair go gray, being too short, being too tall, having thick eyebrows or too thin lips, and the worst offense of all - growing old and allowing wrinkles to appear.

wwcd: can we ignore media messages and peer pressure and start liking ourselves?  

a little perspective

i woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat. one of those sore throats that makes it so painful to swallow. i tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but that became impossible. got up and stumbled into the kitchen to make the time-tested, sore throat fixer of warm water and salt combination. gargled a few times and was able to go back to sleep.

three hours later the sore throat was gone only to be replaced with constant sneezing. despite not feeling 100%, i decided to get myself out for a walk. it was colder out than it's been in a while; the flowers and trees are in full bloom throughout the city. it was too cold to walk in the park or on fifth, so i walked 5 miles on madison. at about 90th street, i saw 2 people walking in my direction. they were a couple of feet apart and the man was walking with an odd gait. it was only when they passed me that i realized why.

the woman was someone i went to high school with and the man was the man she married many years ago. not long after he was diagnosed with parkinson's disease at a young age. he's been incredibly outspoken on behalf changing laws for more promising research technics and raising money to help find a cure. so as they passed me and i recognized them, i understood why the man was walking unsteadily. i imagined what day-to-day life must be like and not having any real sense of it, i stopped complaining about my cold.

wwcd: when you have your basic health, the little sniffles mean nothing

getting what you want

so i'm grappling with not getting something i wanted, thinking it was what i really wanted. but i'm still disappointed...actually a bit more like crushed. it was a change that seemed so right on so many levels - the timing, the challenge, the whole deal. well, at least to me, but now what? 

i pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. it's a song from swing time - 1936 with fred astaire and ginger rogers. i grew up singing these words to get me through tough times and just found myself humming it. it's such a little positive visual that it can't help but put you in a good mood.

and after the good mood starts creeping in, i return to my normal self and think: everything happens for a reason and timing in life is everything. and my positive self resurfaces and wonder if just mean there's something better coming. if you don't rest on a few cliches, how do you get through these times otherwise? 

wwcd: just put on a happy face

quack

this seems to be the week of news stories that i'm having a hard time believing, understanding and have been wondering why these problems still exist. how many more priests are men going to identify as pedophiles who molested them when they were boys? the problem is so prevalent in the church, it now involves the pope. and how many more men will come forward with stories of being molested when they were in the boy scouts? 

it's heartbreaking to listen to testimony from these men describe their innocence being taken, their trust of male authority figures shattered. are we in such denial that we can rationalize away each account as it surfaces? if it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. we've heard about priests in the catholic church being relocated to other parishes once they're identified as sexual predators. not only are they relocated, the stories are buried. money is paid.

why do parents continue to place their children's emotional and physical safety in jeopardy? if you've read anything about pedophiles, you would know they hang out where children are - schools, camps, playgrounds, amusement parks. you would have also learned they are usually repeat offenders. they're cunning, sly, they gain the trust of kids over months. i have a 14 year old son and there have been times when i've gotten an odd feeling about a person, when something did not seem quite right. lacking anything but this feeling, i didn't confront the person, but i did not leave my son alone with them either.

wwcd: trust those feelings - you have them for a reason