Just Jazzy 162

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

Marilyn Monroe

I love you a lot. Not as much as I love red wine, but still, a lot.

Just Jazzy 83

“If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.”
– Robert Frost

Learning to laugh at your own mistakes could lengthen your life….laughing at your wifes could shorten it.

Learning the Hard Way

After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.      — Sophia Loren

Today I learned the hard way that if I don’t answer a prompt in a timely manner my brain turns to mush on the subject.

I also learned not to ask my significant other what lessons he learned the hard way if I’m not prepared to listen to him get all nostalgic about how clueless he was in the ice and snow and all manner of polar regions in general, going on and on about it for well over forty minutes. Yes, I asked for it. I will not make that mistake again.

Long ago I learned that if a six-year-old eats an entire jar of pickles she will get a wicked stomach ache, just like her mother warned her. It appears I have been learning things the hard way ever since.

The No Great Shakes Chronicles

Confessions of an Ordinary Life

Chapter One

This is not a compilation of memories from a lifetime filled with lofty aspirations and brilliant accomplishments. I find that type of person rather hard to like, and much prefer the unpretentious and the down-to-earth. Unless of course they reach the stage where they’re completely unambitious and devoid of any kind of passion. Apathy is a terrible thing. Better to be merely lackadaisical. It just sounds better.

As a baby I liked to sleep. Apparently people remarked on it to my mother so much that she began to wonder if I was normal as she jumped to her own defense by vowing that I had not been drugged in any way. I still like to sleep –  it’s one of my favourite things to do. Perhaps in another life I was a cat. I can nap anywhere. If there is ever a sleep marathon, I like to think I would be a serious contender.

As a child I liked to tell lies, the bigger and more ridiculous the better. I was strongly advised to tell the truth. I knew the difference, but the truth was way less fun. When my daughter showed a similar inclination to exaggerate we called her interesting ramblings ‘hard to believe stories.’ Perhaps I’ll throw a few of those into this book just to see if you’re paying attention.

As a teenager I was Miss Goody Two Shoes, secretly longing to be wild. I made some mistakes, I fell in and out of love, I tried to decide who I wanted to be. I got married and had children and worked hard and lost myself, being so many things to so many people for so long that now I’m afraid I still don’t know exactly who I am. Sometimes I think it’s rather unfortunate that I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m just too lazy to care whether I ever figure that out.

As an adult, mother of grown children with families of their own who call me grandma, I’m thinking maybe this is one of the best people I’ve ever been, one of the most delightful roles I’ve ever played.

I’ve been awake for years and years! It’s time to put my memoirs together and pass them along before I forget everything. Maybe someone else can define this ordinary life and discover what it meant to be me, before I fall asleep again forever.