Posted on by LA · 84 Comments

Leave them Laughing

The secret to a happy ending, Mom used to tell us, is knowing when to walk away.

Jennifer Egan Candy House

I’m guessing you all know what my question is today:

Is the secret to a happy ending knowing when to walk away?

I think it is YES in the particular frame of one’s own personal perspective- if you call the shots, you can control your happiness. But if someone else is calling the shots…like…Person A breaks up with Person B because they don’t see a future. Person A gets their happy ending- they left a relationship when they were ready- but Person B is crying over their latte…

I don’t know if I’ve ever had a happy ending. Most endings end up with me in tears, or banging a wall, or binge eating something. I think of endings as necessary evils- you push through the bad to eventually get to the good. So my next question is :

do happy endings actually exist?

There’s your thought exercise for the day. What say you about happy endings?

Posted on by LA · 53 Comments

Trust

"Do you trust him?"
She hesitates. "Yes and no."
"That means no. Trust is all or nothing."

Jennifer Egan The Candy House

I think about my own experiences- I tend to be a distrustful person with people that I don’t know… I assume the email is SPAM, I assume that the deal is too good to be true, I don’t think the check is in the mail, I know that I’ve already blocked the Prince of Nigeria…

You get the idea…

I operate in a world where I don’t normally trust.

But…

I do give my friends and family the benefit of the doubt. I trust them until they show/prove that they can’t be trusted. I’ve had a few people in my life do me wrong- I admit that I cut most of them from my life- not so much because I couldn’t trust them, but because of the drama that they bring. I think I can forgive- but I don’t like things that add stress to my life. There’s already enough stress just living day to day- why add more?

There are some people in my life that I don’t trust at all- but you can’t always cut those people out. What I’ve learned is that I take everything they say with a grain of salt- I assume that they’re lying, and behave/act accordingly. If I give them money I assume that it’s not coming back to me…when people believe their own lies there is really nothing that you can do. I have NO TRUST in certain people.

Last week my word for the week was TRUST, and I had a lot of great comments from people about the word, the idea and the topic. Though I know the answers of many of you, I will ask the simple question:

Is trust all or nothing?

Posted on by LA · 72 Comments

What are we doing?

I wonder if it’s shyness- whether Sasha and I should be asking him more about what he’s doing. But Mile’s history makes those questions feel loaded, or patronizing, and anyway, we’re in our fifties- do people even ask what we’re “doing” anymore? Hasn’t that already been decided?

Jennifer Egan Candy House

For my friends who are in their 50’s or beyond: Do we know what we are doing?

Ok- loaded question. But do we tend to write-off people who are older, and assume they have nothing going on in their lives? Or that everything is same old, same old?

While I admit I don’t lead the most exciting life, I like to think that I have a life– that I do things, that I try new things, that I still have lots of innings left in the ball game. I hope that people want to ask what I am “doing” because I hope that I am still “doing”.

But do we stop trying as we get older?

Do we stick to the same patterns and routines?

Do you not ask your friends and acquaintances what they are doing because you already know the answer?

Discuss:

Posted on by LA · 121 Comments

Sinners?

Holding my phone, looking out at Lake Michigan, I understood with sudden clarity that doing the right thing- being right- gets you nothing in this world. It’s the sinners everyone loves: the flailers, the scramblers, the bumblers. There was nothing sexy about getting it right the first time. Jennifer Egan The Candy House

I’ve been thinking about this since I read the book…

Do we idolize sinners?

Do we love to glorify the people who do bad, as opposed to those who do good?

On job interviews, do we ask when was the biggest screw-up, and how did you overcome that?

Do we think that people who never screw up don’t take enough risk, and therefore don’t deserve our time?

I admit, this quote made me STOP when I read the book: I reread the quote at least three times. In a world where I have tried to teach my daughter that she should do the “right” thing, have I been steering her wrong this entire time? While I’ve given her the latitude to make mistakes, and gave her tiny pushes outside her comfort zone…I’ve tried to make sure she followed the path that was lined with good intentions…that she was a “good” person, not quite a “sinner”…

Was I wrong?

Do we really admire those who don’t follow the “rules”?

So what do you think about the quote, about “sinners”, about anything I touched on:

Discuss: