My neighbor wears earrings
Barb has been my neighbor since I moved into my house over ten years ago. She's probably flirting with eighty years old, cute as a button, and lives alone. Her husband passed away about four years ago after a long and painful battle with Alzheimer's.
Her family and his family have been hit hard with the disease. It's something crazy, I don't remember the exact number, but it's like 8-10 people on each side of the family.
She has lived alone for several years now, and her children and grandchildren visit on occasion, but not often. I will stop and chat with her when our paths cross (trash day or picking up the mail), and she'll fill me on the neighborhood gossip. And tell me about the drama with her little group of friends that meet weekly to have a forbidden cheeseburger which they all know they shouldn't do. It's so damn cute.
I walked over to chat with Barb one day while she was out raking leaves and noticed that she was wearing earrings, had her makeup on, hair curled, all the jazz. I asked her if she was going out for the forbidden cheeseburger, and she said: "Nope, staying home today, just me."
What?! I thought, why in the world would you curl your hair or put makeup on if you aren't going anywhere or planning on seeing another human. I mean, my neighbors probably mistake me for Sam Kinison when they catch a glimpse of me running down the curb to drop off the trash cans - hair a mess, pajama pants, the whole nine.
I think Barb has only seen me with makeup on once, and she looked confused. Lol. Seriously, she said, "Wow, you look kind of pretty today." And I only had makeup on because I was going to do a little improv performance (shout out to my partner in crime) that night.
Barb is a great reminder that we get to decide how we want to show up in life. We get to choose how we show up emotionally when the people in our life aren't doing the things we think they should be doing. When life isn't going the way we had hoped, and when we feel powerless with the hand we were dealt (which we never are, BTW).
Barb could easily decide to show up angry and miserable about everything. She watched many close ones struggle with a brutal disease and is one of the few left in her "tribe."
Most people would agree that she has more than enough reasons to be angry at the world. But she's not, she chooses to focus on what she has rather than what she has lost. And she continues to wear earrings even when nobody is looking, and she continues to stack up the neighborhood gossip for the next time she runs into Sam Kinison dropping off the trash cans.
Machele Galloway is a Certified Life Coach through The Life Coach School. She's based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and specializes in helping her clients manage their time and their minds. She firmly believes that you can't manage one without managing the other. She virtually coaches women nationwide. If she isn't coaching clients, she is studying concepts and techniques. And if she isn't doing that, she's probably playing with a dog somewhere. - “Life is short. Play a little.”
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