I have always prided myself in being an open book, meaning what you see is who I really am. Another birthday has come and gone; and that sometimes has a funny way of taking you back to past memories. Of other birthdays, of childhood, of lost loves and of loves gained throughout the years.
I feel fortunate to come from a large family. A family that loves me no matter what is going on in my life, knowing that I can be imperfect, make wrong decisions, take the road less traveled, confident that at the end of that road there they are waiting for me and happy to see me. That to me is everything. That is the core of who I am; my family.
Once in a while, you meet people who live in the shadow of who they used to be. They don't live in the present, for some reason they can't. I'm not a psychologist. I will not attempt to try and analyze. I will only say, how sad. How sad that they can't trust the people that actually love them. Their father, mother, brother, sister. How sad that they can't comprehend that only they have the power and obligation to make their life worthwhile. How sad that they feel they need to do it all by themselves and live their lives as if they had no family at all.
Sigmund Freud analyzed that most insecurities, anxieties, failures and personal short comings are attributed and caused by one's own mother. In tune with that philosophy, its no wonder why so many people are angry with mom. I, myself, am guilty as charged. I have been angry at my mother for decades, to the detriment of no one but myself. But in all that time, I have never stopped loving her and never will. She taught me what love is in so many ways.
So for all the women out there who wonder why their grown children are not as close to them as they wish, stop torturing yourselves. There is something innately engrained in us that make us rebel against our mothers, our first nurturer, our first love. Rest easy in the fact that child rearing is not easy, and for many, the cards are stacked against us from the beginning and yet somehow we managed to raise our children, with love and compassion. We can only be there for our grown children when they allow us to be there for them. And that is totally their choice, not ours. What they do with their lives after they leave the nest, rests solely on their shoulders. To attempt otherwise is futile.
Saint Valentine's Day is actually attributed to 14 people (mostly priests and bishops), all named Valentine, all martyred for a noble cause, during Roman times. But for the sake of lovers the world over, I will narrow down the specifics to the priest of which this holiday is most noted for.
St. Valentine, was an 8th Century priest, who was caught marrying couples and helping catholics at a time when it was a crime to do so in Rome. Valentine was arrested and sent to jail. Roman Emperor Claudius II, actually liked the charismatic priest and engaged him in several discussions regarding life and religion. Claudius attempted to convert Valentine to Roman paganism. Valentine refused and instead attempted to convert the Emperor to Christianity. For this reason, Claudius sentenced him to death. Valentine was beaten with clubs and stoned. When this failed to kill him, he was beheaded on February 14. The actual year is still in dispute to this day.
The catholic celebration of St. Valentine had nothing to do with romantic love. It wasn't until the 14th Century that the romantic notion of St. Valentine's Day as we now know it began to take shape. Valentine was simply included and celebrated in catholic circles as one of their many martyrs.
In Early Medieval times, romantic legends about Saint Valentine began to emerge in Literature, as in Legenda Aurea, and peasant Folklore.
- Since Legenda Aurea still provided no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. Wikipedia searched under "Valentine's Day."
- There is an additional modern embellishment to The Golden Legend, provided by American Greetings to History.com, and widely repeated despite having no historical basis whatsoever. On the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he would have written the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved, as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed, or both. It was a note that read "From your Valentine." Wikipedia searched under "Valentine's Day."
So here you have it, a history lesson on the meaning of Valentine's Day. For those of you who are die hard romantics, St. Valentine is a tragic hero who gave his life for the sake of forbidden love. For the cynics among us, St. Valentine was a fool who defied an Emperor and got what he deserved. In any event, may you always be surrounded by love; platonic, divine and otherwise.
What exactly is being a middle aged conservative? Can someone please explain this concept to me? What is it's importance in the grand scheme of life? And why on earth would this vast population of the human race refuse to evolve and leave the cave already. Because the way I see it middle aged conservatism is fast approaching extinction and the saddest part is, their refusal to see that our social environment has changed in such fundamental ways, that simply reminding themselves that they are conservatives doesn't quite bring about the same comfort as it did in the past. Does this remind anyone else of the ostrich with it's head in the sand?
Part of the problem is that people have infused so much religion into our daily lives that its hard to figure out what ideas and beliefs are actually ours and which were pounded into our subconscious by well intentioned parents and other adults during our formative years. Another part might be just doing business as usual. For a long time there was no other acceptable way of living your life but collectively conservative. Anyone acting or speaking out of the norm were labeled as rebels, hippies, communist, anarchist; whichever label that threaten their lively hood sufficiently enough to get them back in line.
This anal conservatism would permeate all aspects of life. From deciding what professional field your female child should pursue to deciding if she should bother to dream of pursuing any professional field at all. It even intrudes in the bedroom. It would be impossible to estimate how many relationships have been affected by the puritan conservative notions of what constitutes acceptable sexual behavior between two consenting adults. If anyone believes that I am spewing nonsense, just ask any military personnel what would happen to them if their superiors found out that they are engaging in any type of sex with their legally married spouses other than in the missionary position. For those that are not familiar with the term, missionary position refers to the man being on top of the female. That is all that is allowed. Anything else, could land a soldier in jail.
I am of a more liberal mind. I believe in the freedom that comes from the expression of thought. In the live and let live, philosophy. In the pursuit of happiness but not at the detriment of others. In the let's enjoy love while we are lucky enough to have it. In the, oh my gosh, let's see what surprises are in store for us tomorrow. In the, "All that I'm saying is give Peace a Chance."
And yet, as a cruel test of fate, but well within the roller coaster that is my life, I must find a way to reconcile the two colliding worlds that is that of Liberal and Conservative, because as luck would have it, I am in love with a Midwestern Conservative.
Now a days, in this all consuming commercialized race to accumulate possessions, I ask myself, in today's social environment, what is a woman's worth?
I had an interesting professor in one of my paralegal classes at Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus. His name was Mr. Blum, an older gentleman, a former judge, old school for sure. He posed a question to the class and the question was "Are women really better off financially today than they were in past centuries?" He based his assumption in that in the past men were responsible for the financial well being of the females in their life. And with that mentality, that women did not need to worry about finances because the men in their lives, their father, husband, brother, uncle; some male benevolent entity would make sure they were taken care of. Which at the time, I now admit, I didn't give myself the time to really analyze. I immediately took an adversary stance, the feminist in me challenged him right away and I made it very clear to him that his view was not only outdated but offensive to women at the very least. My reaction brought about a sullen mood to that day's class participation and no more was discussed on the subject.
But that question has stood with me, even now, 15 years later.
It was not the question per se that was offensive, but his ideology that women should still be subjugated to the whims of a patriarchal system. How dare he suggest that men know what is best for women, in any aspect of her life? That reduces more than half of the human population to the status of nothing more than children, who need to be monitored and looked after. At least, here, in our country, great strides have been made to make women equal in every way, from the Suffrage and Civil Rights Movements, to Roe vs Wade. But yes, ladies and gentlemen, there are people out there that believe that a woman's place is still in the kitchen and/or barefoot and pregnant. I am proud that I put a stop to his nonsense before it had a chance to poison the minds of the young people that were in attendance that day. Women have worked too hard to earn the respect we now enjoy, we have come too far from being nothing but baby factories, chattel and disposable income.
The professor's question is still out there, I am certain, perhaps Mr. Blum is still trying to infuse his opinion on another classroom full of impressionable students, perhaps it's still resonating in someone's memory, as it is in mine; yet it's a question that every woman needs to answer for herself "What is my value?" "My presence and efforts are appreciated by whom?" More important than the question itself is realizing that every woman has the right and obligation to work towards and establish her own worth; apart from anyone else.
Ever wonder why it's so hard to get a man to see a doctor or keep a medical appointment? I have always pondered this question and, of course, I have come to my own conclusions, which have mostly to do with the physical and mental differences between the sexes.
Women, although wrongly categorized as the weaker sex, are the ones which must go through the excruciatingly painful and emotionally wrecking experience of child labor. I truly believe women are physically better equipped to deal with pain and to prove my point, show any man a syringe and watch him squirm. Women's awesome capacity to deal with pain and adversity, is not limited just the act of giving birth but also, for the most part, to the physical job of rearing their offspring. For let's face it, whether a man is in the picture or not, women are the ones in charge of the kids.
Women are also uncannily aware and actively seek unconventional remedies to effectively deal with pain, more so than men, perhaps because as females we are exposed to it on a regular basis, more accurately on a monthly basis. It was this innately natural attraction to herbal medicine and the chore of midwifery which catapulted the jealous medical profession of the early 17th century, exclusively composed of men, to accuse women of witchcraft. But that my dear readers is for another blog.
Which brings me to the title of this blog; Mind Over Pain. It does take a certain mental fortitude to deal with pain on a constant basis and I for one, do not wish pain, no matter how slight, on anyone. But if life has dealt you the blow of dealing with daily pain, my only wish for you is that you don't be a baby about it. Deal with it head on and look for solutions to the problem. Do not become a slave to your pain. Do not make your friends or family hostage to it.
It is still possible to live a worthwhile life even if your shoulder, back, knee, neck, abdomen or any other extremity is in pain. Staying in bed and dwelling on the pain will not make it go away. Take something for the pain, get out of bed, get some exercise, listen to your favorite music; get your mind away from the pain. In time you will see that the pain is not all consuming. The human body is a wonderful healing machine, regardless of your gender, it's in how you deal with the pain that makes all the difference. Mind over pain; the mind wins out every single time.
