Tis the season to be jolly, but some years
ago, Christmas became especially difficult for me emotionally.
Just one month before the holiday, I was getting married after
being divorced for over half a decade, but the wedding did not
take place. Although intellectually I acknowledged that
the break up was meant to be and that better days were coming,
emotionally I felt my heart tug at what could have been.
So it was not surprising when my daughter asked for a “huge”
Christmas tree and I was less than delighted with the idea.
“Heather, with your big brother just moving in with Daddy, why
don’t we have a cute little tree and just use the ornaments we
had from last year?” “No”, she demanded, “I want a real
tree, with the small needles and lots of branches on it!”
Great, I moaned to myself. The more branches, the more
lights I have to tackle with.
“It hurts to be beautiful!” was my mom’s favorite comeback to
tearful whining as she tweezed the hairs from my twelve-year-old
forehead. “Ouch Mom! Do you have to pluck so hard?
Why do I need thin eye brows anyway?” Of course I already
knew the answer, but why did I care if I resembled Groucho Marx?
I was a kid and into football and sports. The unibrow
worked fine for me at the time, as well as straight, stringy
hair she would twist around wire curlers that pulled and tugged
at my scalp when unraveled. My final lament was, “If it
hurts to be beautiful, then I want to stay ugly!”
Daniel Sabia was a charitable man. He
worked hard all his life and always helped others earn a buck.
His advice to his son Dan Jr. after graduating college was to
“do whatever you have to do to earn a day’s pay”. That
turned out to be the motto he himself lived by for 86 years.
Although Dan was industrious, had an entrepreneurial spirit and
a good head for business, his ventures never really produced a
large profit. Instead he worked day-to-day, giving
generously of his time to both his customers and community.
In the end, his positive attitude and altruistic behavior
provided all he needed to finally bring his dreams to fruition.
If I tried to rewind my past and go back to the precise
moment when I realized I was using a manipulation process to
improve my life, I most likely wouldn’t find it.
Instead, I could pinpoint the antithesis and recall the exact
day I realized I was using a negative manipulation process to
attract all that was horrible. It was the day I took
responsibility for my participation in all the abuse I endured
throughout my childhood and as an adult, from the physical and
emotional, to the sexual and psychological. Of course when
I took responsibility for attracting negative it was not for the
purpose of laying blame on myself. How could I
when some of it happened when I was just a child? The message
that I learned that day, however, was very clear: “When you take
responsibility, you take control. When you are in control,
you have power. When you are empowered, you finally have
the ability to create change!”
When you need to hear something,
it will come right to you
December 10, 2003
Although I have never claimed to be a
mental powerhouse, I am acutely aware of my ability to
manipulate adversity and that skill prompts me to share with
readers my victories and methods. Unfortunately,
of late, I haven’t been able to get out of my own way so what
positive do I have to talk about? My life has been filled with
turbulent waves, pounding consistently with negativity,
to the point of emotional nausea. I felt I would be a
fraud if I tried to write, or worse, that my negativity would
come out and adversely affect my efforts to help others.
This is an article I wrote about smoking that was published in
Hammer Magazine sometime in 1999. Although it starts out as a
predictably cynical opinion of smoking and the tobacco industry,
it ends with a less obvious twist.
After the
article appeared in the local trade magazine, many
people approached me to say how it helped them quit the
devastating habit. That prompted me to continue to
share my views with smokers, using the article as an
intro to help them see another perspective. I hope
it helps you on your journey as well.
D.
George and I met almost 15 years ago when his
best friend Mike (his daughter’s father in-law) married my mom.
We weren’t actually related, but his son-in-law was my new
step-brother, so we saw each other often at holidays and family
gatherings. George and his wife quickly became part of my
extended family, and I was pleased to have them. He was a happy
person, always smiling, and had a compliment coming out of his
mouth every time he saw me. He spoke to me as if he was my
biggest fan, but truthfully, I shrugged it off thinking he was
just trying to be nice. I enjoyed being around him, but we never
really engaged in deep conversation or spent time one on one. He
was 30 years older, so I don’t remember ever labeling him
“friend”, nor did I think about him as someone who was in my
inner circle. He was defined as Pop’s best buddy and Lisa’s dad.
To me, he was just a sweet person who happened upon my life.
This is a poem I wrote for the wife of a man
I greatly admired. When he died, I tried to write from his
perspective so I could give a message to his family (from him),
but I just couldn’t find the right words. Just when I gave
up, this poem came to me. Tom was deeply religious, so I
believe he was speaking to me through his religion. His
message is clear: In reality, there is a reason and timing
for everything, but we are only human, and don’t always know the
answer to the “whys”. Just because we can’t see the bigger
picture though, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
What’s the distinction between sitting in
front of your TV for an hour and sitting in traffic for an extra
60 minutes because of rubber-neckers? How about allowing
your dog to poop on your lawn and having someone else’s dog do
it instead? What’s the difference between waiting two hours at
your Doctor’s office and being home for that same amount of time
where you can at least get some work done? The answer is
of course, CONTROL.
A friend once asked me, “Donna, is there anything
you can’t do?” My response was an unwavering,
“Yeap, everything I haven’t tried yet!”
As a dyslexic kid who went undiagnosed till high
school, there were many limitations put on my
ability to learn and prosper emotionally. In
school, every subject introduced to me became
torture as I challenged my brain to adhere
information and concepts that were far beyond my
capacity to understand.
At various points in our lives we all find it
necessary to end a relationship; a marriage, business
partnership, close relative or a dear friend. It doesn't matter
if it was a one month fling, ten years of a friendship or thirty
years of marriage. Just as there was a beginning there is an
end. But why!? Is the question pondered by many. The answer _ To
give each and everyone of us an opportunity to transform. To
forge new beginnings, to start over, just as each life time
affords us the same possibilities.
Many years ago, neighbors of mine lost a
child to a rare genetic disease. Although she was only a
baby when she died, Katherine touched many lives. I
remember vividly seeing her just days before she passed on,
lying on a hospital bed, her tiny, lifeless limbs incapable of
moving. Since she was only 9 months old, it was
inconceivable to think she understood what was going on, but I
took one look into her ageless face and knew in an instant that
she was aware of every nuance of her stay here on Earth.
With her blue eyes sparkling right at me and lips turned up in
the sweetest smile, I 'heard' her say; "everything is going to
be alright." Encased in a delicate, ailing little body,
her spirit was not meant to be here any longer. Katherine
knew it and on a soul level she was trying to convey this.
I remember thinking, "she is talking to me and someday I will
know why she made this connection."
It was the summer of 73’ when my father
told me to put on some nice shorts and a blouse and meet him in
the driveway. “We’re going to play golf,” he announced.
“Golf?” I said in amazement. “Where did that come
from?” “Never mind.” He demanded. “Just get
dressed.”
I was 12 years old, tomboyish and being the eldest daughter in a
package of three, was always selected to take the place of the
son Dad never had, but I wasn’t sure why we weren’t headed to
the bowling alley just like we did every other week.
Ever wonder why some people can teach a subject really well, but
may have never been an expert on what they are teaching?
The French teacher who is neither French nor ever been to Europe? How about an eager friend who can’t
get under a 5 handicap but gives the best advice on the golf
course? The marriage counselor who patches things up with
everyone else but is divorced twice?
It was a gloomy
early morning on Friday the 13th
of July that I found myself driving anxiously down Route 25A to
HuntingtonHospital.
The earlier phone conversation I had with my ex-husband was
playing in my head like a disc on replay; “Matt was in a fight
at a bar. His face and head were beaten pretty bad.
He’s okay for now. He’s conscious, but I think you should
get down here.”