I tried to write a couple of posts recently but they just didn’t come out right. So after editing them and thinking about them, I deleted them. Then, as I was driving to get some groceries, I saw some goings-on at a pop-up park in downtown Poco. Several years ago a building burned down and after removing the debris, a fence was put up around the empty site. Then several weeks ago the fence came down and a wooden deck was installed, along with planters, umbrella tables and chairs. Today, there was a band playing. What a great idea. It made me happy. Talk about taking lemons and making temporary lemonade. I’m not sure the city can afford to have prime city property not making revenue, but I have to tip my hat to the people who thought about and then brought about this idea.

In the grocery store I was standing by the cantaloupes, wondering what a Tuscan canteloup was and whether I should buy it or the regular one. An older lady came by and picked a Tuscan one. I asked her what the difference was. She said she found the Tuscan ones sweeter, so I decided to get one. I asked how you knew you were getting a good one. “Oh hell, I don’t know,” she grinned, “take it home and cut it open!” We both laughed and grabbed the canteloupes closest to us.

There is a balloon arch across the pedestrian walkway just down from our building. There is a seniors fair going on. I can hear live music playing. I’m not sure if it’s coming from there or from Leigh Square, which is a block or two the other direction. Later tonight, Twitter tells me the city will be hosting an outdoor showing of a family movie in a local park. What fun that will be! In my mind’s eye I can see families spread out on blankets, with snacks and toys, enjoying the movie and the evening.

Finding things to make us happy is important, especially now. I’m a political being, so you know what I’m alluding to. Be aware, be informed but look after your mental health, because honestly every morning after googling “Trump news“ I could lose my mind. There are amazing, wonderful people around us doing wonderful, amazing things. And there are hundreds of little things to enjoy every day. I’ve said this before, look for poop and you’ll find it. And as parents of young children will tell you, the smell of poop lingers. If you look for it, the stench will surround you. So, stop looking for it people, because if you’re looking down, you’re missing the pop-up parks, the conversations with feisty older ladies, the little fairs and all those other lovely things that occur around us all the time.

I found my first grey hair in high school. Actually I didn’t find it. Someone sitting behind on the school bus told me about it and I told them to pull it out. I was about 16. By my late 20s I had a thick streak of grey hair across my forehead. By my mid-30s there were grey hairs on the sides too. I wasn’t too bothered about it, until… an Oprah show. It changed my mind. I was getting close to 40, an ancient age it seemed at the time. This particular Oprah show was about looking younger, and dying your hair was the best way to do that. I remember listening to the stories, about women in their 40s who were offered senior discounts because they had grey hair. They seemed downtrodden and depressed, until the make-overs were revealed. With their freshly dyed and coiffed hair they owned the stage. They were positively glowing with confidence and beauty. So, I started dying my hair.

At first I did it myself. Then as the grey meandered around to the back of my head I got Dale to help. I have so much hair that I’d have to buy three boxes of colour. Then one day at a windy soccer game, I saw the home-dyed hair of a fellow soccer  mom. She had missed whole sections of her hair. I was horrified, for me! Because I was sure my hair looked just like hers. When I got home I made an appointment at a salon.

My normally medium brown hair with reddish highlights got lighter and lighter as it got greyer and greyer. And I hated seeing roots. When I was working I went every four weeks. Thankfully, for my budget, for a while I frequented a home salon, although that spoiled me because she was a fantastic colourist and a great friend. For the last ten or so years I’ve been a blonde. It took a while to get there so I never really thought about being blonde. I remember being shocked at being referred as “the blonde lady waiting for extra chairs” at the Hastings racetrack. And at a family reunion, my cousin didn’t recognize me, she thought I was a friend of the family!

My mom has beautiful white hair, and so does my older sister. And about three months ago, I decided it was time to phase out the blonde. I couldn’t when I was in a play, but I had planned to make the change last month. However, when I got to the salon my hairdresser had already made up my formula. So, I mentioned it to her at the end of my appointment. She didn’t try to talk me out of it. She played with my hair as she talked me through what we would do, next time, if I still wanted to do. It would take three hours so we had to plan for that. I said I had been thinking about it for a while and that I probably wouldn’t change my mind. I didn’t.

So, after three hours of cutting and thinning my hair, bleaching streaks and then toning them to match my roots, I found myself in front of a mirror. My hair looked quite light. But as my hairdresser dried and styled it, the grey hair became a little darker and the blonde hair made a scattered reappearance. My face seemed brighter and my eyes seemed bigger. I loved it from the get-go.

There is quite a divide about going grey. One friend asked me to promise her that I would never let my hair go grey. Her mom was in her 80s at the time and she was still dying her hair. I don’t think I made that promise, if I did, sorry. Most men don’t worry about going grey. In fact, it often adds to their stature as an elder statesman, it adds to their authority. I worked with a woman who had to get back into the workforce in her late 50s. She dyed her hair so that she appeared younger, afraid that no one would hire her at her age. Once she got a permanent position, she stopped colouring her hair. There are many opinions online about going grey, both for and against. Most of the women who stop colouring their hair report feeling freer, more empowered. However, few professional women do it, as grey hair on a woman just says old.

I’ve written before about how I’m striving to embrace my age and all that goes along with it. My decision mostly came down to this; it was getting harder and harder to plan my life around my roots. And after spending almost 30 years doing it, it was time for my hair to retire. Besides, all the cool kids are dying their hair grey. My hairdresser said she does it several times a week for young clients. Alrighty then. Now I’m like all the cool kids, finally.

This is the right decision for me. I’m lucky. I have thick, healthy hair, like my mom and sister. When the dyed colours, blonde and grey, are gone, my hair should be as gorgeous as theirs. I fully understand that other women might not ever want to go au naturel, and that’s fine. Hey, I’m all for choices on most decisions because what’s right for me might not be right for you, hence the need for them.

I feel fabulous. I feel like me. When I look in the mirror it looks right. It might be a little short right now but I can grow it. And if I need a boost, there are temporary colours, and brightly coloured extensions. I could even go rock and roll gramma and get a thick pink streak or two or ten. And if my grey hair makes a community theatre director feel that I look too old for a role, I can wear a wig. But my bubbly personality and my incredible acting skills will probably make them totally forget that I have grey hair.

I have friends who hold beliefs that I don’t hold. We can talk about our differences. We can have political, philosophical, theological and ideological conversations and still be civil. We can concede points that are well made. We can agree on some things while disagreeing on others. And, I believe we have moved each other along the continuums of our truths. We have been passionate in our discourse but there was always a good measure of love and respect in our voices, hearts and heads. And you know what, I don’t need you to believe everything I believe in order to be friends with you. As long as you respect what I believe and as long as I can respect what you believe, we’re good. My son says all systems of beliefs boil down to this – don’t be an asshole.  And I’m happy to say, most of you are not assholes.

Some people, however, hold beliefs and act on those beliefs in ways that are deal-breakers for me. Treat people, or speak of them, with disrespect because of their skin colour, their religious beliefs (or lack thereof), their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their size, their disability or whatever, and I’ll call you on it. If you are clearly disrespectful and judgemental and unwilling to at least curb those tendencies around me, then you’re gone. Thankfully I haven’t had to do that in real life. Because before you become a real friend I’ve determined that you’re not an asshole. Some of you don’t get to real friend level if I’ve seen your asshole tendencies. So we can be polite and discuss the weather and be superficial. Try to go deeper and I’ll politely take my leave. Be belligerent and I’ll tell you what I think before I leave. However, social media has changed that.

Some of you got into the “friend” circle because we met at some event or through some mutual friends and you sent me a friend request. I’m a polite person, I accepted that request. For some of you, I read your posts or comments and decided not to reply. You’re entitled to say what you want and I’m entitled not to respond. Some of you I stopped following. Your posts and comments offended or irritated me but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, or get into a contentious discussion, so I just stopped seeing your posts. And you may have done the same to me, I don’t know and if you have, I don’t care.

But yesterday I actually unfriended someone whom I shouldn’t have friended in the first place. We had some face-to-face discussions where it was clear we did not hold similar beliefs. This person told me all teachers were lazy and entitled, that the public school system was crap, and he knew I had been a teacher. He said that doctors were in the pocket of big pharma, that I was crazy to be taking prescribed pain medication. He told me he grew up in the US and he may have told me how he ended up in Canada but I don’t remember. I pushed back a little but I was polite and restrained. I knew that our time together was ending so I could deal with his assholiness. Then he sent a friend request on a social media site. And I accepted. Stupid me. But his posts were few and far between and quite innocuous. Until yesterday. He reposted a pro-Trump, anti-immigrants article with his own comment attached. That was the final straw. First I unfollowed him, but then I went back and unfriended him. Calling immigrants vermin and agreeing that they belong in concentration camps is not something I can look past. I grew up in Canada and I’m a typical polite Canadian. But as our Prime Minister recently showed the American President this person supports, we will only take so much. And as I’ve said in past blog entries, I’m done with people’s negative energies. You are all welcome to your beliefs, but I’m not obliged to see or listen to them. As are you, so unfollow and unfriend as you see fit.

Now I’m off to do my daily yoga routine which I put off to write this, to stretch my tight neck and shoulder muscles and breathe out the negative energy this called up. Namaste.

Several years ago we joined Ancestry.ca to try to unravel the complicated story of my darling husband’s lineage. We were able to trace his maternal grandmother’s family back two more generations. We found the immigration records of her parents coming to Canada from Russia (but claiming German heritage) via Liverpool on the HMS Pretoria in 1907. To go any farther back we had to join Ancestry.com. We were able to find my husband’s great-great grandfather in Russia, born in 1844. That was pretty exciting. But it was the end, the records got too hard to follow.

We had nothing to go on to trace his maternal grandfather. His name was John Smith and we had no other identifying information. You can imagine the endless results of a general search for a “John Smith”. My husband’s father was adopted, so that line was totally untraceable. My husband took the Ancestry DNA test and we linked the results to his meagre family tree. Well, that got results. First we received a message from an older gentleman listed as a possible second cousin. His tree contained many Smiths, even a J. Smith, but he couldn’t find any other information to help us. We thought maybe our J. Smith was a son or cousin not directly in this gentlemen’s line. We knew there were relatives out there but we couldn’t find them. So, our search was stalled again. Then, a message came through that changed everything.

A woman contacted us to say that her grandfather’s second wife was Dale’s grandmother, and her grandfather’s name was John Arthur “Archie” Smith. Well, the world of Ancestry.ca and Ancestry.com opened wide with that information. I found Archie’s death certificate, his marriage records, his father, and his grandfather and so on and on. On Archie’s direct paternal line, I was able to go back to Thomas Smith, born in 1800 in Ireland. That would be my husband’s third great-grandfather. I was able to go farther tracing both the paternal and maternal lines of some of my husband’s relatives. I found an eighth great-grandfather born in Alvescot, Oxfordshire, England in 1646 and a fifth great-grandfather born in County Monaghan, Ireland in 1752. This line of the family had a son transported to New South Wales, Australia. He was convicted of treason, for speaking out against the English rule of Ireland. He left grown children in Ireland that continued the family line. In my search I was not able to find when the people in my husband’s family came to North America. The names are too common and the dates unreliable, but they got here, and I can find them. Most moved to Ontario.

On the Canadian census documents, my husband’s grandfather’s family considered themselves Irish. My husband’s DNA profile shows that 56% of his DNA is from Great Britain. The direct DNA connection to Ireland is small, so the ancestors I found there must have roots in England.

The upshot of all of this is that my husband, who once felt like he couldn’t determine his place in the world, has a huge family tree. He reconnected with his two cousins, who were thrilled to hear from him and to learn about their common grandfather and their extensive extended family. But the best part is this, our younger son is getting married soon. His fiancée’s father is Scottish and he’s wearing a vest made of his family’s tartan to the wedding. Well, the Irish have tartans too, not based on clans but on counties of birth. So my husband was able to order a vest made of the Monaghan tartan. And we now have places in Ireland and England to visit, where we can check parish records and wander through cemeteries looking for family names. My darling husband went from someone who knew nothing about his mother’s family and who couldn’t find  out anything about his father, to someone who has a family tree that goes back to the mid-1600s. Rather cool.

It’s been a lazy Monday. I’m sitting on the couch with a warm Magic bag wrapped around my neck. The windows are wide open and the scent of freshly mown grass is mingling with the heavenly smell of the lilies in the bouquet of roses Dale bought me for our anniversary. I’ve sent Dale to the store to buy some bubble bath. I need the calming influence of lavender to prepare me for bed.

Scent plays such a strong part in our lives. Smell is the strongest trigger of memories. The smell of freshly baked bread instantly transports me to my childhood. Mom baked bread all the time and the best treat in the world was the warm heel of the bread, all crusty and dripping with melted butter. The smell of tall, dry, dusty grass calls to mind the big old barn on Nanny’s farm where we frolicked in the loose hay. I don’t have a clothesline but I do hang up some laundry in an upstairs room. I walked by the clothes earlier today and with the window open in the room, they smell like they had dried outside in the sun and the wind. I’ve been renewed by the smell of the sea. I’ve breathed in the earthy smell of a forest. And the smell of a new baby grandson is just as wonderful as the smell of a new baby son. There are few scents that bring up negative memories for me, and I am thankful for that.

There is a huge market bringing us scents; candles, air fresheners, perfumes. Every product we buy to put on our bodies has scent, unless we search out unscented versions. Sometimes the scents carried by others are overwhelming, both in nice and bad ways. Perfume or aftershave sprayed too liberally is just as offensive as body odour. The best way to smell perfume or aftershave is in a hug. Get really close and there it is. It’s too much if you can smell someone before you see them. There are fresh scented body washes to wake us up every morning in the shower, rich scents to help us seduce would-be lovers and, as I mentioned above, scents to help us sleep. I have some friends who wear signature scents, a perfume they have enjoyed for years. I don’t usually wear perfume but the scents of other products linger on me, I’m sure. I worked with a colleague who hated the bathroom sprays that were necessary in a workplace where we shared two small bathrooms. He said the sprays just made the room smell like poop around a rose bush. Ahh yes, some smells can’t be masked, just blended with other smells to hopefully make the original smell less offensive.

I’m sure we can all list the scents we love; freshly ground coffee, clean sheets on the bed, local strawberries, bacon frying on a Sunday morning, an evergreen tree brought inside from the cold, every part of Thanksgiving dinner, the smell after a cleansing rain – the list is endless.

I remember doing an experiment in school, both as a student and as a teacher. People were blindfolded and asked to eat something. They could always identify the food. However, if they were blindfolded and their nose was plugged, they relied on texture for identification. It was funny to see them think they were eating a piece of apple when they were actually munching on a piece of potato. I saw a show once about a woman who had lost her sense of smell. She said food had no taste for her. She had to have something with a crunchy texture to get any enjoyment from her food. God, that would be torture for me! Not to be able to smell or taste chocolate? Or pizza? I know from all the cooking shows that I watch that chefs believe we eat with our eyes first, that the composition of the plate influences how much we enjoy it. That is true. But I’ve enjoyed plates of food thrown together just as much as the artistic plates. So, if it was suddenly decreed that we had to lose a sense, I would have to think about it, but I can tell you now, the sense of smell would be the first I would protect.

The last two plays I’ve been in have been more dramatic than comedic. Community Theatre groups like comedies because they put bums in seats. Audiences love to go to the theatre to be transported, to laugh and then go home, without giving much thought to what they’ve seen. And I don’t mean that in a negative sense. We are all so overwhelmed and overworked these days that comedy fits the bill. The laughter de-stresses us and we go home happy. And comedy isn’t easy, not everyone has the timing or the acting chops to pull off a good comedy. However, ask any actor and they will tell you that every now and then, it’s nice to try something a little different. I was lucky enough to get two opportunities to do that this year.

In the fall I did The Memory of Water with a great cast and crew in Langley. The play had very funny, almost slapstick moments as three sisters come home to bury their mother. But as that premise suggests, there were heart-breaking moments as the tension of the situation brought up past conflicts and secrets. I think all the women in the play cried at some point. I did, in several places, every night. I was in pyjamas for most of the play, with my hair tied up. My make-up was minimal and I know I sometimes had ugly-cry face. It was not a glamorous role, but it was very enjoyable, cathartic even. Heaven knows sibling and parent issues are universal. The cast was close knit and I think our strong relationships offstage played well onstage. We struggled at first to define what we were doing, but we finally decided on “ dark comedy” as “dark, funny, touching family drama” wouldn’t fit on the marquee.

Early in the new year I made a last minute decision to audition for another play with Langley, Blood Relations, a Canadian playwright’s take on the Lizzie Borden story. While it had a few laughs, it was more of a psychology thriller, even though we all know what happened in the story. Some audience members called it creepy, which was exactly what we were going for in some parts. Again, the cast and crew were great, and the relationships strong, on and off the stage.

I have enjoyed all of my theatrical endeavours. Each one has given me something to remember with fondness. Each one has given me new realizations, new skills and new relationships. However, these last two productions have given me more satisfaction as I felt I was really doing something good, something to be really proud of. Our production of Blood Relations won three awards at the Fraser Valley Zone Festival, and garnered six nominations from the Community Theatre Coalition and the Memory of Water got three nominations so I guess my pride was justified. Congratulations to everyone involved with these, and other productions. Theatre is important and I am continually blessed to have the privilege to be a part of it.

I am a woman of some advanced years. I like to think it means I have experience in areas that only come with those advanced years but while that may be true, there are times when those years and that experience don’t mean a dangblad thing. I still forget things and take other things for granted.

The first thing I take for granted is my body. Yes, I know I’m getting older and yes I know I have osteoarthritis but I’m not immobile. However there are days when I stand at the top of the stairs and wish that I didn’t have to go down. And I plan my trips to the mall on days when I feel extra specially fit. This spring I was involved in a very rewarding production. We rehearsed for almost three months and then had a five week run culminating in the Fraser Valley Zone Festival for Theatre BC. I saw all of the shows in the Festival, which meant going out every night for a week. On the Sunday after the Festival, the first free Sunday in four months, we had the family over for a barbecue. I was tired but I thought I was fine. However, as the day went on I felt my body tightening. My arms protested when I lifted and then held my grandson. I had trouble turning my head to follow conversations. By the end of the night I had a splitting headache and my neck and shoulders were so tight I could hardly move. After a warm bath and a gentle massage from my husband I fell quickly asleep but I woke up in pain and feeling drained. I slept most of the day, finally rallying around three o’clock. I was able to change the sheets and finish tidying the kitchen before I had to take another break.

I would never dream of playing softball or basketball again. I know I’m not physically capable of those kinds of athletic endeavours now. But I did think I was able to handle a full run production. Maybe I can, but when you throw in a few full days of babysitting a toddler and then end it with a week of watching shows every night and comparing them to your show, well I guess that’s what tips it over the edge. Thank goodness I have the luxury of being able to waste most of an entire day refilling my energy bank. And that may stretch to a few more days; right this minute I don’t want to do more than tap away on my IPad, watch TV and drink tea.

I don’t know if other people take their health, their bodies and their physical capabilities for granted. I do know that sitting on a bicycle for a long bike ride is far more uncomfortable now than it was in the past. It isn’t as hard on my legs because I have an electric assist bike now, a clear adaptation to my declining abilities. I do know some of my friends around my age like to nap (as do I) and we are letting younger people take over tasks we have done for years. I also know that I’m not ready to give up doing everything I love. But I may start auditioning for only supporting roles, well, I might start thinking about only auditioning for supporting roles.

Thank goodness we don’t have a big yard to maintain. Thank goodness we can get away for lazy weekends, where others cook and clean for us as we enjoy doing as little as possible. Thank goodness we have drugs to take the pain away and machines to help us do our jobs. And those are things I’m not taking for granted today. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to put the kettle on so I can have a cup of tea before I have a little nap before my husband gets home. The poor man works so we can maintain the standard of living to which I have become accustomed, and that is also something I don’t take for granted.

We are obsessed with labels. From the moment we are born we are labelled: girl, daughter, sister. Then we grow and add new ones – toddler, student, friend. In our families we get other labels – the troublemaker, the peacemaker, the pretty one, the smart one. And sometimes those labels follow us into school. The labelling never really stops. Girlfriend, wife, mother, grandmother. We label ourselves with the things we do – student, clerk, teacher. And when we stop working outside the home we simply add retired in front of the label.

Some labelling is necessary. If we embrace who we are, without confusion, we accept that we are a girl, a sister, a daughter. They do more than label us, they define us, they give us our place in the world. Some we celebrate – fiancée, bride, graduate. Some we don’t – put your own nasty labels here. However, every label that somehow attaches to us, even for just a moment, affects us, and affects how people see us.

There was a topic on a talk show that got me thinking about this. Hillary Clinton’s Twitter bio lists some labels. Her personal labels started with wife and then mother, grandmother and so on. The discussion was that she shouldn’t have listed wife first, I guess because she and Bill had had marital issues, remember? It’s been changed by the way. She now lists her professional labels first, then starts her personal ones with mother. Really? People got upset over that? There are no rules for listing labels for people. It’s easy to do for our food – start with the most prevalent ingredient and work your way through the list to the least prevalent. If I choose to list “fairy godmother” at the top of my personal labels, well, let’s just say anyone who disagrees with that would feel the wrath of my wand across the top of their head.

Sometimes we do label ourselves with too many negatives. And we can get too hung up on some of the labels. However, there is no way we could ever list every label that fits. We have to pick and choose the ones that bring us the most joy or the ones that most fully describe who we are, at the core of our being, at this moment in time. Because we change, our labels must also change. And some labels have become offensive. We once used words no one should utter now to describe people of different races or cultures or people with developmental delays and/or difficulties. Some days I embrace my negative labels. Yes, I can be a bitch, which just means that I disagree with you and I’m willing to say so. Yes, I can be a little obsessive but that doesn’t really interfere with your life so back off. I know that sounds a little aggressive, so feel free to add that to the list too, along with smart ass.

If I were limited to a handful of labels, what would I choose? Twenty-five years ago I would have chosen wife, mother, teacher and that would have been about it. Those labels consumed most of my time. Today my list would be wife, mother, grandmother, friend, writer, actor, cookie maker and happily retired afternoon couch napper. Tomorrow I may have to add more, or take some away, depending on my state of mind and body.

This I know however, my labels don’t define me. I’m so much more than a list of words. And so are you. So embrace the ones you like, discard the ones that don’t fit any more and get on with it. Oh yes, you can add bossy pants, or inspiring leader, to my labels.

Okay already, this rain can stop any time, please! It’s another rainy day in the lower mainland, at least in my neck of the urban woods. Thank goodness we had a sunny break in February when we went to Arizona. We had unseasonably hot and sunny weather there, according to the locals we spoke to. We came home to rain and it feels like it’s been raining since then, even though there have been clear breaks with weak sunshine here and there. I know those breaks have occurred because it was then that the frigging crows in our neighbourhood tried to build their frigging nests on our building again. Okay, breathe. That’s not what this entry is about.

When the days become longer it feels so good to wake to sunshine. It invigorates you, it makes you want to leap out of bed to take on the day. When you wake to overcast skies with the sound of rain on your windows, you want to pull the covers up and stay in bed. When you do finally get up, that mood lingers. Most rainy days find me on the couch with my Kindle, or my script, and cup of tea. I feel half asleep all the time; the sound of the rain is soporific. And even when I venture out in the rain (which I must do, for if I wait until the rain stops I may never leave the house again) the sound of the raindrops falling on my umbrella slows my steps. There is no spring in Spring this year. We are all dragging our feet, feeling more like Eeyores than Tiggers. My colourful Spring clothing hangs in my closet or lies folded in my drawers. I’m still gravitating towards my long-sleeved, warm tops, and I’m wearing socks. I don’t like wearing socks but I don’t like cold feet either.

So how do we get through such a miserable Spring? How do we get over our instincts to continue our Winter hibernation? Well, we take advantage of the little breaks in the weather to get outside. We put on gumboots and raincoats and pop open our umbrellas and we walk in the rain. We stop and revel in the Spring flowers that are blooming around us, and we bring Spring flowers home with us from the grocery store. We put on bright colours and we pack our Winter blacks and greys away. We start eating lighter meals, full of fresh vegetables and fruit. We banish Winter and we force Spring into our homes, lives, bodies and souls.

Spring brings hope. It is literally a rebirth every year, the start of new things after the dormancy of Winter. Even if it’s cold and rainy in April, it’s still Spring. And we can make it feel more like Spring by adding colour to our lives, by ramping up our activities and changing our mindset. The daffodils and tulips are blooming, as are the camellias,  magnolias and rhododendrons. The cherry blossoms are pinking up, getting ready to emerge.

Okay, I’ve convinced myself. My Winter butt is getting off this couch and going outside. And when I get back I’m changing out of my long-sleeved black top into something lighter and brighter. And if I’m a little cold I’ll put on that pink summer-weight sweater I have. Yes, it’s time for us to force Spring since it appears Mother Nature is still on her Winter vacation in the sun, lounging around the pool and sipping drinks with umbrellas. I’ll resist calling her a nasty name and just pick up her slack.

My circle of friends and acquaintances is large and varied. I know some people who have amazing lives. They make huge contributions to society. They have wonderful stories to tell, full of fascinating details that draw their listeners in. But one or two of these people are a little grandiose; their stories feel embellished and they seem to be telling them to make themselves appear better than the rest of us. They have travelled to more places than the rest of us, stayed in better hotels, met more celebrities and had bigger adventures. When you tell a story they have to at least one-up you. They can’t help themselves because they are either so self-involved that everything has to be about them, or they are so insecure that they have to take every chance they get to bolster their faltering self-image. I suspect the former is more often the case.

But I don’t really want to talk about them. I want to talk about people who live little lives like most of us do. Most of us will never be famous. We won’t have schools or hospital wings named after us. We won’t become Olympic athletes, or play in the big leagues. We live small lives that will never be turned into movies of the week or best-selling books.  By definition, most of us are average. The bell curve has the few famous and accomplished on one end, the few infamous and dastardly on the other, with the rest of us falling somewhere in between. While that means that the world doesn’t have many Einsteins or Mandelas, it also means that the Trumps and Kardashians are also few and far between.

So why is being average bad? At what point did we decide that just living our lives wasn’t enough? Why do we have to all be movers and shakers and change the world? Because you know, that’s just way too much pressure for me. And I think it’s too much for most of us. We have enough pressure just making a living, raising moral, responsible and independent children and trying to be faithful to the important truths we all hold.

There is nothing wrong with living a “little” life and as I write that in my head I am using my hands to indicate air quotes. We need to stop thinking of our lives as social media posts that need to get millions of likes. We little people make small ripples as we live our small, insignificant lives that extend out from us and could possibly make world-wide changes. We’ve all heard the stories about how someone got a smile from a stranger that stopped them from doing something horrible. One small ripple. From an ordinary person. Some kids organize a nationwide movement after their little lives are blown up. Several small ripples merge into a tsunami. See where I’m going?

So when I’m sitting listening to that person who has to tell me how important and funny and smart and everything they are, I’ll just smile and let them. I can’t compete so I’m not going to even try. I’m confident that my little life is sending out ripples. And that’s enough for me.