I never have shoes on and I believe being right side up should be optional.
This is from 2022.
While my life was all upside down in 2023, I was never literally upside down. Didn’t occur to me. Had too much going on. That said, I think being upside down is good thing.
Sometimes, it’s just boring being grown all day long … A bout of childishness, with in the context of an otherwise orderly life, can be a welcomed change of both pace and perspective.
Oftentimes, we lose skills because we don’t regularly engage in them. Of course, I’m not a silly person, so I don’t see me having any real need for this particular skill. I mean where am I gonna pull that out and use it? It’s too late to join the circus.😂
That said, though it may not have intrinsic value, it does keep you flexible. Maintaining flexibility as you age, in both body and mind, is an important thing.
While a flexible body helps you navigate the physical world, a flexible mind helps you negotiate your emotional life.
If you’re rigid in thinking, all manner of notions that exist outside the narrow scope of what you know can irritate and upset you. But if you have a flexible mind you can entertain a wide range of ideas. You don’t ultimately have to adopt them but think how much easier everything would be if you got interested as opposed to agitated by new and different.
Deeper still, you’ll learn a thing or two. And I don’t know about you but I know for a fact I’m not right a lot. The cool thing about that, though, is the more often I figure out what I’m not right about the closer I am to getting there.
Looking at things from all sides helps with just about everything.
Therefore, now that I have some equilibrium back I intend to invert regularly in 2024.
#Goals
If you’re not making progress you’re just standing there. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Relevant #Tolerism: I do not claim to possess the #truth, but I do chase after it like it stole my car.
#emotional #emotionalintelligence
I am not simply a #widow. I am a widow working her way out of the weeds. The former is a state of being. The latter is a way of living.
I am in progress.
#love #marriage #relationshipgoals Happy Sunday! I have been on a very aggressive pause of late. I’m just out here floating. I miss him.
This is also me re-accessing the best parts of my life.
#flashbackfriday (lol I don’t even know if that’s a thing anymore)
This was one of the best nights in my life. I had been asked to give a speech in Paris so that meant I got paid to go there for free with BigE.
Now I speak French but I don’t SPEAK FRENCH if you get what I mean.
BigE was in heaven the first night there. Four young beautiful women picked us up at the airport and took us straight to a magnificent restaurant. I insisted we only speak French. They asked (in English)if it would make him feel excluded. He said, “knock yourselves out.” It was a perfect scenario for him. Surrounded by women he can look at but didn’t have to talk to while eating an outstanding meal.
Anyway, they got me an interpreter because though I’m functional in French I can’t go full tilt Toler in it.
So I started my speech with a greeting in French then switched to English. I said something funny, she translated, but no one laughed. So I decided to pay attention to her translation when I said the next thing and realized she was not anywhere close. Then I looked down, then back up only to see my interpreter flee the scene.
So there I was in front of 800 French speaking people alone. I had two choices panic or persevere. I pulled up everything I could think of and went for broke. Then I started asking the audience questions because I’m better with answering in French than pontificating in it.
I was up the 20 minutes before this young lady came out of the audience and translated for me.
I got a standing O.
Went back to the hotel, got BigE found a great restaurant and drank copious amounts of scotch. I was both relieved and proud.
BigE snapped that pic. I was swimming in happy.
Feeling better feels better when you do better first.
Adversity occurs. How you push back is up to you.
Thirty five years worth of wonderful memories. I am not going to let loosing him steal those from me. Just not doing it.
Am I crying now? Of course. But I smiled for quite a while first.
All progress should be duly noted.
I am a #widow working herself out of the weeds. #emotionalintelligence #love survives
I was unhappy with my unhappiness so I made a decision to do otherwise. I put on some #makeup, did my #hair. Put on what I thought was a clean sweatshirt but alas … 😮 Y’all have a good day. They can’t catch you if you keep moving.
I just wanted to fall through and say Merry Christmas!
Range of motion issues be damned. When the #funk runs deep, your every move speaks.
Old in the afternoon dancing with a bunch of girlfriends. I could make that work.
Yesterday I wrote a long mixed-metaphor riddled screed about some new drama in my life. I didn’t say what it was but the post was pretty cathartic.
I had three #Tolerisms and everything.
For some reason, most logically my own state of mind, it didn’t post.
I broke at least five of My Mother’s Rules this week.
I need to recalibrate.
Shoutout @allauthenticsoles
You can’t just expect things to get better. You have make plans to meet a bad day on YOUR terms.
I’ve got some dark I have to get through. I finished his memorial three volume picture book and sent one to everybody. My goal was to get it there before the anniversary. I’m fielding texts now. They’ve apparently arrived.
The meat of the holiday is on me … and I do mean ON ME.
I ain’t gonna let it OWN ME though.
There is some other nonsense jumping off that I can’t share but oooohh, I ‘m like, really?
Really.
Et tu,Toler.
The vissitudes of life come for us all.
But I tell you what, dark is gonna have to chase a sister. I’m not going to just stand here and watch it descend. There will be no hand wring or pearl clutching. Sometimes you gotta play hurt.
In case you aren’t up to speed, I am perched on patio furniture that I am going to put together over the next few days. Give me a few nuts, bolts and some mildly confusing directions and I am good to go for hours.
#emotionalintelligence #widow working her way out of the weeds.
Feeling better feels better if you do better first.
I’m at The Doing part.
.
Unable to extricate myself from my bed, I reached out from here.
Shoutout @sportscenter. DM for further credit or removal.
First of all, his expression was an entire soliloquy. Pops was doing his job.
Quiet as it’s kept the booty shaker (who I assume is his daughter) was doing her job as well. Kids are supposed to test the limits, find it, and then retreat. (That last part is important)
Then there was the woman who re-focused pops. Those kind of women are critical. They see the situation for what it is, and they rescue the evening with a smile and gentle re-direction.
And , to his credit, he went back to it.
I bet he’s gonna mention it later though!
Shoutout @blackdadstv DM for further credit or removal.
#Family will work you. #daddy #daddyduties
Happy Tuesday!
I wore a #wig once out to dinner with BigE. Between the appetizer and the salad, I went into the bathroom and took it off.
He liked it too because I had cut all my #hair off the year before, and that wig looked like my old hair.
Me: I tried.
Him: That’s all I can ask.
That’s as deep as I can get this morning. I have no lessons to impart or Tolerisms to share.
I’m in a good mood, just not firing on all cylinders this morning.
I hope you are!
Shoutout @doctor_ming21
If I do say so myself I have a fairly good record of creative problem solving.
My mother, Duchess, was that way. She used to say, “while you can’t always solve a problem you can dull its edges so it doesn’t hurt as much.”
I think sometimes we get paralyzed by the size or number of difficulties we might have. Unable to find a pure and universal solve sometimes we end up just staring at trouble. Problems get bigger when you just sit there and look at them. Fear feeds both flaws and failures. If you focus on all the things you can’t fix you’ll miss seeing the ones you can.
Mom taught me to shake out the sheets of my problems… (you know like when you’re making a bed) That way you can see all of it laid out. Increases your chances of finding any a thread you can pull on so you can’t start to unravel the issues..
Amelioration beats exasperation.
Relevant #Tolerism: You’ve won even if you didn’t get where you were headed as long as you ended up somewhere better than you were.
Like our equine friend here. Didn’t have room to jump it so he did the next best thing.
#emotionalintelligence
Sometimes you just have to roll with it.
Shoutout @teknik_amele1
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I try to keep an open mind. I do. But at some point you have to take a step back from what you’re doing and ask yourself: has the rising tide of a current cultural phenomenon swept me up into the River Ridiculous? You know, that rushing white water tributary that leads to Lake Ludicrous. There’s one near by us all.
If nothing else, understand time and place. If you know junior’s there then …?
Relevant #Tolerism:
Everyone is doing it is an insufficient explanation. Never go with the flow unless you’re quite sure you know where that flow is trying to go.
Shoutout @hilarrious
So the question becomes :
What is YOUR ‘what is’ that you can decide to enjoy?
A ‘what is’ is something going on that is problematic but that you’ve found a way to make it ok. Like dude here.
I’ve found a few.
1) This will be a low stress Christmas. I am going to repeat the Beef Wellington I made for Thanksgiving because it was, if I do say so myself, outstanding. (This is me taking a victory lap 🏃🏾♀️)
After that there are no expectations and it’s a relief. Christmas often devolved into mommy wife showtime. The lights the presents the pressure. Not this year.
2) got everyone the same thing. I can’t say what it is but it was a year in the making.
3) I found a new #hair regiment that is making that particular persistent irritation less irritating.
4) While distracting myself from my feelings this year, I created all new habits of neat and clean. Calming!
Metaphorically speaking this is me relaxing in the rain, enjoying my ´what is’ as best I can.
Relevant #Tolerism: Enjoy ´what is’ because there are plenty of people living through what’s way worse.
So if you find yourself sunk in #holidayblues, find a ‘what is’ and find something in it to enjoy. I’m not gonna lie, it’s ’s not always possible. For the first four or so months this year there was no ‘what is’ in sight. But I’ve lived through that part and am now embarking on a ´what is’ that’s going to be way better.
Shoutout @sekitarbandungcom #emotionalintelligence #emotion #mood: unbowed.
Now see, I love this kind of stuff because I’m pedestrian in a lot of ways.
I don’t chase dreams nor do I believe I have one true purpose in life. I don’t manifest and I have had nary a light bulb moment that didn’t involve something tremendously mundane. Like in my car. I’d be doing something the hard way and BigE would say “you know if you …” then he’d show me some feature on the car and I’d be so excited.
I can’t tell anybody how to make their dreams come true because I fell into my line of work ass backward running from things I didn’t like.
More importantly, I have no intention of making up some quest-like story so I can sound like it was intentional or pretend I can impart some great secret to success.
I am not a dreamer. I’m a serial solver. I nibble at the edges of my troubles until they get small enough to swallow.
I am not saying this is THE WAY to be. It’s just how I am.
I don’t storm cities with an army of ideas. I guérilla fight, house to house, with different ways of doing business. I love process and procedure.
My everyday goal is just to be better than yesterday. I love a lot of small obtainable wins, like putting together furniture.
I said all that to say, I like this video because it’s speaks to the manual laborer in me.
Speaking of which, I am going to start putting together the backyard patio furniture today.
I am all excited. Nuts and bolts appeal to me both physically and intellectually.
#peace
Relevant #Tolerism:
I do not contend to possess the truth, but I do chase after it like it stole my car.
Shoutout @viralworking
My head has been hurting for a week.
BigE loved Christmas lights. Now everything around me screams “he’s not here.”
I did not think the anniversary of … would be this hard but it is.
I would like to thank @thewilliamsfam for the brief respite.
2023 was, as you might imagine, not my favorite year.
But it’s pulling to a close and now I have to look forward and put procedures in place to enter 2024 with all my faculties at the ready.
That’s the key. You can’t just wait and see.
I’ve always got plans. Most don’t work but they keep me busy and I don’t keep score on attempts.
Typically what happens is I aim for X and get dropped off somewhere around M. That’s when I stop, look around and see what’s up with M and also take a peek at L and N to find out what they have to offer. Sometimes all I get out of the whole thing is a funny story. That, too, has merit.
Relevant #Tolerism:
#Motivated: the art of being dissatisfied without being discouraged.
If I waited until I got all my ducks in a row I’d never get across the street. Sometimes you have to grab what you’ve got and make a run for it.
You will see me next year in a full sprint with yellow feathers flying everywhere.
BigE hated nothing more than a quitter.
I get that each new year is just another day. But it’s an opportune time to realign and recalibrate.
Did you see that kids face? That’s exactly who I feel about the year that was.
#love #marriage #motherhood #widow #cutetoddler #toddlers #emotionalintelligence
Shoutout @pubity credit: Stephen McManus via viralhog
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First, of course, I hope she is okay.
Second, I’ve seen a number of videos of people taking a tumble trying to navigate this kind of chair. They might want to look into that. You know, weight distribution, counter balance and the average size of the population. Don’t know when they came up with that design but they might want to take a look into how the average consumer has changed.
Of course, that’s all speculation on my part. Just cause it sounds right doesn’t mean it is. Remember that as you scroll.
Third, the fight, the fall and then the water. A whole lot went on in a very short period of time.
Fourth, did you see the dog jet behind her?
Yesterday I took a tumble. Got caught up in this thing I was moving, ended up in the wrong position and over I went. If I had film of that I’d show you. It was hilarious.
Life happens. How you respond is up to you.
Be well. Roll with it.
Find fun in your foibles. Humorlessness is a dangerous thing.
Shoutout @sickmemesplug DM for further credit or removal.
#momlife
Frankly, I thought I earned every whoop and holler I delivered.
I mean really. You get pregnant… you get fat. You can’t sleep for the last two months because you’re just that uncomfortable. THEN you go into labor. Get to the hospital and get poked and probed by all manner of people you never met in the most intimate ways possible.
Then you get them home. Your boobs tumble to the floor and the baby won’t sleep and they … well, you know the drill.
So yea, I felt I had a right to make some noise when I see my son out there doing his thing.
Though I was never on the ground banging Son6 of 6 once said, “you are louder than all the other mothers, every time”
And I am quite sure I was.
#Motherhood is a tough hood, a never enough hood a forever ‘you should’ hood.
Ain’t no moving out either … Not even when they’re gone.
You know what they say, A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child.
Jeez… I keep skidding off Happy Post Road into a puddle of unexpected pain on the side of it.
I keep thinking I’m okay then … I even did a mile on the treadmill. Which might be a part of the problem. That’s where I was the last time I saw him. I didn’t think anniversaries meant much but ohhhhh, every Christmas light I see dims my heart a little bit. He loved Christmas lights.
You know what? I’m gonna clean out the garage!
Have good day. Holler for happy every chance you get! #cheer
Shoutout @cpa_lions
It’s only 7:00 a.m. where I am and I have already made 3,472 mistakes.
I’m all wound up and wobbly.
Have a good day y’all.
I’m looking to turn this one around.
Shoutout @drunkpeopledoingthings
This video has been around forever. Never gets old for me because it is simply adorable. So much s any commentary there on would just be gilding the lily.
Have a great day!
#toddlers #toddlersofinstagram
Shoutout @karate_champs DM for further credit or removal.
I think the most important thing my mother taught me is that you have the capacity to decide how you will #feel.
It takes practice and it doesn’t always work, but even if you can’t pull yourself into the #mood you want, if you know what you’re doing, you can level out of a mood you don’t want to be in a little at a time.
Of course you’re not going to hear my newly widowed behind tell you, you can simply decide to be happy no matter what.
But I will say this, even when jacked up stuff happens you still have #emotional options.
Being widowed is like having your own personal apocalypse. There is an all consuming destructive event and the world as you know it ceases to exist. But I am trying to look at it more like The Book of Eli, than The Walking Dead. (And if you are not familiar with those shows, my bad) I refuse to keep running from hoards of horrible feelings that simply won’t die. I am, instead, making my way THROUGH the desert and drought that is the aftermath of his departure to a new beginning out west with the best of what he left me in tow. I will not put it down or leave it anywhere. He comes with. Period.
That’s the game plan anyway.
Work your mood like the job it is and I’ll keep working it with you. What else are we gonna do?
Sometimes a good laugh and a skip can ease the angst. And if not, you’ve lost nothing by giving it a try.
#emotiinalintelligence
Shoutout @pukele_ka DM for further credit or removal.
