On Turning 60
http://rosinalippi.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Secret-of-Life-James-Taylor.mp4
What follows is a list of things, good and bad, I have learned or come to accept about myself or life more generally.
Above all things I admire and respect generosity of spirit, thoughtfulness, and integrity.
Things I will never learn to appreciate and have given up on (note that these are not things I hate. That would be a different listing altogether): lima beans, kale, oysters, marshmallows, beets, chess, the mystery genre, Monopoly, William Faulkner, South Park, Family Guy, football.
I am impatient with the incompetent, and intolerant of the willfully ignorant. Delusional people and magical thinkers bring out my misanthropy. The other way to look at this is that I have completed my training to be a cranky old woman. With honors.
Hypocrisy, moral cowardice, arrogant and prideful ignorance make me retreat in disgust. This often makes me look insensitive, superior and condescending when what I am, primarily, is frustrated. With the less fortunate I can and will gladly curb both impatience and intolerance.
I have no talent for music.
OCD runs my life, much of the time.
The older I get, the more I avoid meeting new people. I am uncomfortable at parties, even when I know and love everyone there.
I would like to believe in karma. However, I see no evidence for this actually being the way things work in the world.
Paisley is too ugly to tolerate.
I am convinced that Cheney faked needing a wheelchair so he wouldn’t be obliged to stand when President Obama was sworn into office.
The quickest way to offend and possibly make an enemy of me: to underestimate my intelligence; placate or condescend to me; betray my trust, maliciously hurt or cause harm to someone I care about, brag and claim credit where none is due.
Some things that make me happy: dogs, good weather, peonies, hazelnut meringue, a well written or told story, fruit, New England, New York, New Jersey, history, libraries.
I don’t belong in the countryside. I should live in a city.
A life lesson that still shocks me when it happens: There are people who choose to declare you to be a bad or negative person so they can escape feeling guilty about the things they do or have done to you. These are often, but not always, family members.
At the same time: If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time, cease to react at all. (Yogi Bhajan)
Things I regret: the time and effort I put into launching Quilting Arts Magazine, not getting my father to talk to me about his childhood in Italy, majoring in linguistics rather than history, leaving Michigan.
Everybody needs a tribe. And a dog. Because dogs are the most perfect of creatures under the sun.
Never, ever will I be able to play (let alone win) a timed word game I freeze. Thus: I vow to Boggle no more:
True extroverts amaze and disconcert me.
Housekeeping and cleaning: not for me. At the same time: I feel terribly guilty about a less than clean and tidy house.
I have only ten years to be in my sixties.
Lots of money really does make life easier. If you come by it in a way you don’t have to be embarrassed about. Still unclear to me if I can make that happen.
From about twenty-five to forty I lived on the periphery of pretty. In part because my inescapable genetic fate is to be a little old round Italian lady, I will never live in that neighborhood again. The lack-of-pretty has always caused me discomfort, and that will not go away with age.
I have never earned and will probably never learn how to accept flattery; it makes me both uncomfortable and suspicious.
The secret of life really is enjoying the passage of time.
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What follows is a list of things, good and bad, I have learned or come to accept about myself or life more generally.
I put this together primarily for posterity (that is, my daughter), but I decided to post it here, too. Tucked under James Taylor, so you might miss it altogether, and that’s fine, too.
Above all things I admire and respect generosity of spirit, thoughtfulness, and integrity.
Things I will never learn to appreciate and have given up on (note that these are not things I hate. That would be a different listing altogether): lima beans, kale, oysters, marshmallows, beets, chess, the mystery genre, Monopoly, William Faulkner, South Park, Family Guy, football.
I am impatient with the incompetent, and intolerant of the willfully ignorant. Delusional people and magical thinkers bring out my misanthropy. The other way to look at this is that I have completed my training to be a cranky old woman. With honors.
Hypocrisy, moral cowardice, arrogant and prideful ignorance make me retreat in disgust. This often makes me look insensitive, superior and condescending when what I am, primarily, is frustrated. With the less fortunate I can and will gladly curb both impatience and intolerance.
I have no talent for music.
OCD runs my life, much of the time.
The older I get, the more I avoid meeting new people. I am uncomfortable at parties, even when I know and love everyone there.
I would like to believe in karma. However, I see no evidence for this actually being the way things work in the world.
Paisley is too ugly to tolerate.
I am convinced that Cheney faked needing a wheelchair so he wouldn’t be obliged to stand when President Obama was sworn into office.
The quickest way to offend and possibly make an enemy of me: to underestimate my intelligence; placate or condescend to me; betray my trust, maliciously hurt or cause harm to someone I care about, brag and claim credit where none is due.
Some things that make me happy: dogs, good weather, peonies, hazelnut meringue, a well written or told story, fruit, New England, New York, New Jersey, history, libraries.
I don’t belong in the countryside. I should live in a city.
A life lesson that still shocks me when it happens: There are people who choose to declare you to be a bad or negative person so they can escape feeling guilty about the things they do or have done to you. These are often, but not always, family members.
At the same time: If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time, cease to react at all. (Yogi Bhajan)
Things I regret: the time and effort I put into launching Quilting Arts Magazine, not getting my father to talk to me about his childhood in Italy, majoring in linguistics rather than history, leaving Michigan.
Everybody needs a tribe. And a dog. Because dogs are the most perfect of creatures under the sun.
Never, ever will I be able to play (let alone win) a timed word game I freeze. Thus: I vow to Boggle no more:
True extroverts amaze and disconcert me.
Housekeeping and cleaning: not for me. At the same time: I feel terribly guilty about a less than clean and tidy house.
I have only ten years to be in my sixties.
Lots of money really does make life easier. If you come by it in a way you don’t have to be embarrassed about. Still unclear to me if I can make that happen.
From about twenty-five to forty I lived on the periphery of pretty. In part because my inescapable genetic fate is to be a little old round Italian lady, I will never live in that neighborhood again. The lack-of-pretty has always caused me discomfort, and that will not go away with age.
I have never earned and will probably never learn how to accept flattery; it makes me both uncomfortable and suspicious.
The secret of life really is enjoying the passage of time.
Tweet
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