Express Yourself

I often wondered, when I was little, would I always be an introvert.  I did not have the confidence to speak up. Conformity was important because I did not want to stand out. I

appreciated diversity as well as I could, considering I didn’t even know the word back then. I knew many friends were different and were picked on for those differences. I was upset by that and knew that was an injustice. But I desperately wanted to be accepted and to be so, you had to be like everyone else, or relatively close. So I tried to keep my mouth shut and fit in.

In reality, I never really was even close. I was tall, skinny and just plain different. In retrospect, so was everyone else. All kids were unusual in their own ways. With some, it was obvious, but perhaps overlooked. In others, it was extremely clear.  There were those with a lisp, a birth defect, ragged clothes, unattractive, lower IQ, etc..

How they dealt with their ‘uniqueness’ was something never discussed in youth too much. Feelings were something kept inside, at bay. The exposure made everyone feel more vulnerable and vulnerability in youth is a sensitive emotion that can destroy a life easily. So we went about lives ignoring each other’s short comings, those of us that were picked on because of ours and having to ignore the popular kids’ defects.

I am not really sure, looking back, if every imperfection was noticed by others. I just think, as a youth, we are focused heavily on each and every one. By staying quiet, I drew less attention to me and felt less of a target of ridicule. But eventually, as I aged into adulthood, I came out of my shell.  It was out of necessity.

Being a mother turned me into a mouthpiece for my children. As a single mom, if not me, who would have spoken up? When coaches were needed for my kids teams,  my hand went up. And with that involvement came confidence and growing up for me, as well as my kids. This led to me converting to an extrovert more by necessity.

There are advantages of being extroverted, I have found. I am comfortable talking to strangers and asking others about their story. Learning from others is a great way to grow. I have no problem debating, standing up for what I believe in and I quit avoiding confrontation. I enjoy public speaking which was something I use to dread.

The disadvantages are numerous also. I set myself up to be a target also for hostility. Expressing my view, when it is not the norm, makes others upset with me and wishing I would shut up.   Confronting others is often seen as being mean or argumentative because many expect everyone to conform. Conformity is over-rated. That has led to far too many problems in society today though.  Each individual should have an innate right to disagree and express it without being judged. 

One style is not better or worse between introversion or extroversion.  And some people fluctuate between the two, depending on the situation. In fact current research is now indicating most people are a combination of both.  Regardless of how you decide to categorize yourself, find a way to share your ideas and thoughts. The more everyone does, the more enriched we are as a society. Don’t wait for someone else to say what you want said.  It may never be expressed and always lay dormant.  At the very least, write it down. Expression can come from spoken word or from the written. 

Expression is a blending of your imagination and the artwork of the mind.

Dabble with a Drabble

I recently learned about drabbles, a term I had never heard before. Drabbles are short fiction stories that are exactly 100 words. It is a great test, as a writer, of the ability to use brevity of word choice and be concise. Not always is this necessary but when needed, having this skill set is advantageous. I decided to test my ability to write a drabble.

As I sat down and attempted to come up with a subject matter, no fictional ideas came to me. So much of what I write about is non-fiction. I found myself continually coming back to a story I wanted to tell. It was about another writer that has been reaching out and helping me quite a bit in becoming a better writer and more astute. I realized, it may not be categorically a ‘drabble’ but it would give me the experience and practice of writing one. Beyond that, if the story moves me, perhaps it might be more likely to move the reader. So I wrote my piece, confining myself to exactly 100 words with a beginning, a middle and an end per the requirements of a drabble.   I share it with you, my followers. 

The background story is the talented writer friend has suffered with a short coming for over a year now.  This has directly affected her ability to write. She has focused her energy instead on another gift she has which still shows her God given talent to touch others.  

Commercializing Love, My Valentine

I have always found it funny that kids give out Valentine’s Day cards. The commercial holiday about saying I love you to your significant other quickly became a marketing tool for selling cards and candy to even kids.  And parents fell for it, whole-heartedly!  What we do in the name of LOVE.

Valentine’s greetings in written form started in the 1400’s. Valentine’s Day is not just celebrated in the United States but also in Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, France and Australia.  All Valentine’s wishes were hand-written until the 1900’s when printing technology had developed. From then on, cards were printed.  Valentine’s Day sends the second largest volume of cards of any holiday, right behind Christmas.

One of the most amazing facts around the holiday in the USA is that 58 million pounds of chocolate candy are sold every Valentine’s Day week. That's a great volume of sugar making for one hyper nation!  145 million Valentine’s Day cards are bought, exchanged and mailed each year.  As of 2018, sales for jewelry are $4.7 Billion and $2 Billion on flowers. Total spend for Valentine’s Day holiday is $19.6 Billion per the National Retail Federation.  What a great deal of expense to express an emotion of LOVE. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to simply say “I love you?”

I worked in a Lingerie department years ago. Leading up to Valentine’s Day, men flocked to the department.  They all were looking for something red or an intimate sexy item.  None of them seemed to have a clue of what size their wives wore.  The cell phone images some had of their wives revealed a bad estimate on their parts.  And head shots guys are not helpful in estimating sizes for women's clothing!   We were routinely asked, based on OUR body type, what size they should buy.

This is a hard call for anyone in sales, especially when it is a gift from a husband to his wife. None of us wanted to start a World War in a home.  Hence, we usually took the same approach, suggest they estimate with a teeny bit of direction and go with the smaller of the two sizes so as to make certain all is kosher on the home front!

It was rather amusing how many of the gifts seemed to be purchased for themselves. Many men are bold shoppers and made no secret of it either. We really did not need to hear this or ANY particulars!  I am certain their significant others did not want us to as well as many were frequent shoppers with us which is why they were told to come there.

Some men brought their children in shopping with them into the lingerie department. Valentine's shopping for the sole purpose of buying pajamas or a nightgown is one thing but sexy items is another. And thong undies all lace is not something kids want to see!  Some purchases and fathers checking out items for their mommies seemed abit much for the kiddies!  To make it even more uncomfortable, some men would ask their children to help pick out item choices and it was real clear the children were not happy-campers picking out mommy’s sexy outfits or undies!

Regarding children, I still find it comical that children in grade school have to buy cute paper cards and hand them out to all their classmates. Well actually, if their parents work, which most do these days, their parents have to go pick out and buy Valentine’s cards for the kids to take to school. Many of the cards taken to school don’t even have the names of the kids in the class on the envelopes anymore, if they are placed in there. The kids find it as much of a hassle as the parents. It has become the "Total No Name Game", their first experience at "Speed Dating" and "Flash Friends." What happened to giving the cutest ones in the box to your best friends? At least keep that tradition, poor kids.

Can you believe that the kids at school are giving cards with hearts on them to the classmates they ignore, the ones they taunt and tease, and even worse yet, the ones they bully?  Wouldn’t a card saying I am sorry or I will stop be more loving and appropriate?

What’s more, the child that is harassed by other students is made to give an I LOVE you Valentine’s Day card to other kids that make his life a living hell.   What’s normal about that?  Doesn’t that give a bully another chance to knock him in the head as he walks by? How about a card that says Good luck finding true LOVE with an attitude like yours? That seems like a better card to the bullies in the class. And the mean girls, why can't the card's back say "Get out of the Dark Side."

One year I went through some of my grand-kids cards post-Valentine’s Day. Wow, you can deduct a few things looking through them. First, it’s easy to see which parents bought them last year on clearance, the characters are passé!  You have the cards with the children who write sweet little words on the back with their signature, so darling, so few.  There is that other group that at least write their name so you know who it’s from. The other group is  the lazy group, nothing there, just a blank back. No name, no shame. Parents are AOL and the kid doesn’t care about the dang cards either.  They probably feel like me about the whole card thing and are only interested in the candy at the Valentine’s Day party.

The cards manufactured for children say some real stupid things. Why can't they come up with original material after all these years? It is bad when the kids tell you that too!  The lines are right up there with the Conversation Hearts but the cards aren’t edible, unfortunately. You would be real popular in class if they were.  They’d hold that box of hearts while eating them a whole lot longer than they are ever going to hold that paper card. It’ll be pitched inside of 24 hours. But they will feel loved by all their classmates for having gotten them, right?

This tradition with passing out cards in schools for Valentine’s began in the 1930’s when cards became Mass produced. It is a waste of money for the children living in poverty and feel they have to conform. Cut back on eating to buy Valentine's, somewhere to somebody that makes sense.   Do kids in school really care about reading a whole bunch of cards? It’s hard enough to get them to read their text books.

Perhaps this is why some areas are banning the celebration of Valentine's in schools. They feel the time spent is unnecessary, in states like Florida.  If it is deemed essential and American because of the message, even to children, let’s start insisting employers give employees time off of work to celebrate too. At least adults are old enough to know what love is.

And so it goes, the money we spend for Valentine's Day, for LOVE.

How Marketing 101 dictates our actions. If you look up the definition of LOVE anywhere, in the dictionary, encyclopedia or just google it, nowhere does it mention buying candy, flowers, jewelry, or sending cards. It’s just possible Valentine’s Day is sending the wrong message and that it isn’t even about the color red or a heart shape. It is entirely possible showing

LOVE is as simple as the little things you do for those that are the most important in your life even more so than what you buy and what you say. Real LOVE doesn’t have a price tag but is sweet and priceless!

I don’t despise Valentine’s Day, I have confectionery hearts in my home too!  Happy Valentine's Day to you & yours!