I have always told my children and friends this, “What comes out your mouth is how you feel about yourself”.  If you can wrap your mind around this concept, you will think before you speak and “damage control”, will never be needed.  Once it comes out your mouth, its official and you can’t take it back.

I have always been an incurable romantic.  I want everyone to be madly and passionately in love every day of their lives.  It’s not a bad philosophy and if you make a conscious effort to think this way, your efforts will be rewarded tenfold.

Some actions we take have a way of boomeranging back on us.  That could be in a good way or a bad way.  Fortunately for me, I love people and always seem to find the best in others.  And, I also give a wide birth to negative people.  They are like vampires and they have a tendency to drain your energy away.

Men and women need to have something left over at the end of their day to share with spouses and children.  Giving time to your family is one of the best investments you’ll ever make.  Giving and showing love and affection to our mates and children is the gift that keeps on giving.  And sitting all together at your table for any meal without distractions, (television or cell phones) is soul food for the entire family.

Our children are watching us all the time.  They are learning from us and the more we realize this, the better off we all are.  Life is what we all make it.  We live on this beautiful planet together and not being taught to be prejudice towards others is the biggest blessing you can give.  Besides, “Prejudice is someone else’s leftover garbage anyway”.

Without prejudice, the slate is completely clean and we relate to others in the best possible way.  I grew up in Chicago in the ghetto and I consider this fact to be one of my greatest blessings.  I went to school with every ethnic and religious group you can name.  I watched as immigrants came from all over the world.  Everyone seemed too thrive in this new environment and many began to start their own businesses.  I remember their names and faces with great fondness after many years.

Attitude is altitude and the better your attitude, the richer your life becomes.  And, this does not mean money.  I’ll take happiness every day of the week over money or any inanimate object you can name.  The only things you get to keep are the things you give away.  Like; affection, humor, intellect, understanding, empathy, compassion, support, forgiveness, understanding and the list goes on and on.

If a genie in a bottle gave me three wishes I would ask for, “Health, health, and health”.  The rest I can get all by myself.

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Life is like water under a bridge when it comes to all the memories we accumulate in a lifetime.  I re-connected with a childhood friend of my children on Facebook which also reunited me with his mother Chris too.  Our kids met when they were in fifth grade, but life has a way of spinning people away from each other.

When I told my eldest son Jamie that I had found his childhood friend Marvin, he contacted him immediately.  I arranged a dinner with my son and his wife and invited his friend Marvin to surprise him.  Marvin and I met just before Jamie and his wife Julie got to the restaurant.  I noticed them coming and Marvin got up to open the door for them.  I watched my son look at this childhood friend and slowly his memory banks flooded with the realization that he was looking at his dearest childhood friend.  It was pure serendipity!

They began flushing out all the memories that were stored in their brains and it was heavenly to watch this process happen.  They told each other how much they loved and admired each other and I knew that they were truly brothers from another mother. It was delicious to hear them talk about all the things that they had done together.  Simple things like buying a box of donuts and riding miles to Legg Lake to eat them and watch the world go by.  They rode miles on their bikes together and talked about the times we all went to Seal Beach during the summers.  It seems so idyllic to me now.  Today, it seems like the world is spinning at Mach five, but the memories they made together happened in a much simpler time.

Kids used their imagination then and knew how to entertain themselves.  Playing tag, kick the can, hide and seek, board games, using a yo-yo, playing marbles and having a bat and a ball was the order of the day.  If you could have a Coke, a bag of chips, and some penny candy, you felt like you were the happiest kid on the planet!  And, earning money to buy a Superman comic book was heaven on earth!  Remember when kids made money to buy themselves a treat?

They could put bikes together using all kinds of parts, and they built ramps to jump their bikes on, and I have the movies to prove it!  Evil Knievel was their hero and they imitated him all the time.  They could fix or build almost anything and they still have that ability today.  But the price of their toys began to increase as they grew up.  Does Harley Davidson ring a bell?

I hope that our dinner together is the first of many happy gatherings in the future.  All this proves my point, that love is the answer to everything.  And showing it, sharing it and speaking of it is how you fill yourself up.  Its soul food and good for anything that might ail you!  After all – it’s your job to make you happy!

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It’s almost eight years since my amazing husband Sig passed away. I will love him for the rest of my life.  He doesn’t even have to be here for me to continue to feel this way.  Thankfully, I am coasting on all our shared memories we made over decades.  He was my best friend, and I am fortunate enough to have had many other friends over my lifetime.  But the saddest thing about the aging process is that slowly, but surely, we begin to lose the people we love and admire.  They move away, change jobs and die.

I still communicate with grammar and high school friends and the many friends I’ve met throughout my life. At 76, I know how to recognize someone that I might like to invite into my life.  I have given teas and lunches for my lady friends for over forty years.  Those teas became the place where I and friends came to re-charge our batteries.  We talked about everything from soup to nuts but never men.  We laughed and cried together and taught each other how to navigate the rough patches.

When we get married, we exchange vows and say, “Till death do us part”.  Of course when this as written, people only lived into what we call middle age.  The longer we are together, the more we understand who we are, who are spouses are and if we’re still on the same page!  After 25 years together, that’s when the love part really has to kick in.  There are no illusions about one another and if you’re lucky you still remember what made you pick your mate.

If you go back five years and remember what seemed important, and go back another five years and so forth, you will  come to understand that the things you felt so strongly about have diminished and no longer are part of your belief system.  It’s really a good thing if you feel good in your own skin, and know how to share your space and have no expectations of the people you love and admire.  I have the right to ask, and you have the right to say no and I take this right for myself.  That’s my personal can’t miss system for the friendships I have.  It took me a while to understand that being able to say no to anyone was a necessity.

The last luncheon I gave was for a dear friend who is moving to Texas.  I used to have 12 to 14 people come for teas.  The last one was attended by four people including me!  So many of my friends have passed away or moved away, and some suffer from Alzheimer’s and conversations just don’t happen.  And, I don’t know which is worse of those three things.

Personally, I’m going for quality of life, not quantity.  I want to be around as long as I can get around and make it to the john!

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