Pancakes

When I was writing last Thursday's post about attitude making a difference, I thought about my mom. I lost her to breast cancer a couple of years ago now. It doesn't seem that long, but wow, it's coming up on three years. It still feels as if I just lost her.

As I was writing about attitude, I thought about my attitude about her death. The doctor who gave us the terminal prognosis said she had about 6 weeks. We lost her in 6 days. I could have felt angry that I had five weeks taken from me, but I didn't. I was happy that she hadn't suffered and she was suffering, especially at the end. She'd also lost the ability to speak, to walk, to do almost anything the final four days. I know she didn't want to live like that.

I feel blessed that I was with her the night before she passed, holding her hand and talking to her about stories I wanted to write. She was in home hospice at my house, so I was there when she was in extreme pain in the middle of the night and my dad was lost as to what to do. And I was there the following morning when he woke me up and said she was gone.

But when I think back on those last six days, I have two distinct memories. They make me smile, but they're bittersweet.

The first is when we arrived home from the oncologist who had just given us the six week estimate of the time she had left. My mom was in bed, I lay beside her and my dad sat at her side and the three of us talked, we cried, and yes, we even laughed as we shared stories. It was the last time she was able to really hold any conversation. By the next day, speaking had become difficult for her.

The other memory, the one that definitely makes me laugh now involved pancakes. My mom wouldn't eat much of anything those final days, but we were able to get her to eat pancakes. (Loss of appetite is a sign we were told in stage 4 cancer.) It was only one or two small pancakes, but it was food.

My dad starts arguing with her, saying she has to eat something else, that she couldn't only eat pancakes. (I think this goes along with him feeling lost.) I looked at him and I growled, "If she wants pancakes, make her pancakes!"

We were laughing about this recently. He wanted her to eat chicken or something with more protein, but at that point, I was like the important thing is that she eat. It doesn't matter that it's pancakes meal after meal.

Talking about this made me cry--still--but it also made me smile. Pancakes will forever be tied to my mom now.

One Small Thing Part 2

Tuesday was Part 1 of these two part posts. That was the day I talked about a small thing that irritated me and probably shouldn't have. Today I'm going to talk about a small thing that makes me happy even though it's silly to get so excited about it.

For years, I've always worn black. I like black and it's practical for my job. Need to go to the hangar for something without warning? I'm dressed for it. But I didn't realize how stuck in my rut I had become until I bought something in teal. It was on sale!

Seriously, every time I see the teal color, I smile and feel more lighthearted.

It's ridiculous. Really. I mean what difference does it make? And yet it does make me happy and I look forward to teal days. I think this means it's time buy more colors and get away from black.

Even though it's silly, I also think that life is about small pleasures and we should seek these things out. Attitude makes such a difference and if something can improve one's mood, I say go for it. Going through life, always looking on the bleak side or always creating drama is a tough way to live and, sadly, the people who do this don't even realize they're guilty of it. We create our reality and our reactions to events in life--big or small--affect our mood. And our general happiness.

So even though I posted on Tuesday about something that put my mood on a nosedive, I'm working to not let it bother me. It still is, but I'm working on it. ;-)

Life is tough. I don't want to make it any harder than it already is. It's in the attitude.

Happiness 911

I was listening to a podcast a while back that talked about using music when you need to feel happier. The two hosts went on to talk about several of the songs that perked them up and I thought this was a super cool idea. Their only rule was that Happy by Pharrell could not be one of the songs--I guess because it's too obvious.

This is kind of a cool exercise. I'm very aware that music and mood go together. On a Friday afternoon, when I'm driving home from work, I don't want dark, heavy music because it doesn't fit how I'm feeling. I want light, happy, upbeat songs. In movies, the score is very important to driving tension and mood. Maybe it's just me, but I'm usually not consciously aware of music in movies very often, but when I pick up the soundtracks later (I like instrumental music sometimes when I write), I'll notice how very fitting each song is to the corresponding movie scene.

So my happy songs, the ones I play when I need a pick-me-up:

Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
Knock on Wood - Amii Stewart
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol

There are more, but they're not coming immediately to mind.

I have a lot of 80s songs on my list and that's because--overall--80s music is happy music IMO. Even the songs that are slower and supposed to be ballads feel happier to me than a lot of the music that came out later. And this is actually one of the reasons why I still listen to so much music from that decade--I want music that makes me happy. The titles listed above are simply the songs that make me happier than my usual mix.

Do or Do Not

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." Henry Ford


This quote from Henry Ford has been making the rounds on the internet for a while, but I like it and I think it's true. I can already hear arguments: "But just because I think I can do something, it doesn't give me the skill to do it."

That's true, but I think attitude does make a huge difference. Let's take running a marathon as an example. If a man has been sitting on the couch for ten years and one day decides he wants to run a marathon. The man who thinks he can't do it will either give up right away and continue sitting on the couch or he'll go run the marathon the next day and fail.

On the other hand, the man who thinks he can run a marathon will start training. Even if only jogs around the block the first week, he believes he can be in shape to run in the race six months from now. Because of his attitude, he goes out every day to get ready, and when marathon day does come, he finishes the race.

Attitude.

I think we all know at least one drama queen who takes the smallest molehill and creates the biggest mountain out of it. I always wonder if they care how unnecessarily difficult they make their lives by big dealing everything. IMO, life goes much more smoothly when I step over the molehill instead of trying to scale a mountain.

I do understand there are limitations. The sixty-year-old man dreaming of being a major league baseball player is out of luck no matter how much time he puts into it or what kind of attitude he has. The only way he plays for the Nationals is if he makes a deal with the devil as the lead in Damn Yankees did. Some things in life just are unreachable and that's okay.

I highly recommend a lecture done at Carnegie Mellon a few years ago called Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. I've watched it more than once and it's truly inspirational and worth taking the time for. One of the dreams was to be Captain Kirk and Dr. Pausch mentions how he realized that dream wasn't achievable, but he went with standing next to Captain Kirk and he showed a picture of himself with William Shatner. Dr. Pausch had an incredibly good attitude and was upbeat in the face of some pretty dire circumstances. Please take the time to watch and see for yourself.

Attitude doesn't fix everything. It can't. But it does impact how we deal with the hard, ugly things life throws at us. It also plays a role in how we effect the people around us when life is hard.