happiness
I can’t count the number of times I have written a post about loneliness. I think it is one of the most important factors in the lives of single women over fifty, and it is the main culprit in diminishing the quality of our lives if we let it. Some loneliness we just have to accept as part of life and growing older, but if you pay attention to the signs of loneliness and what is causing it for you there is a way to manage it.
Webster’s Dictionary defines loneliness as being without company. That’s alone in my book, not loneliness. Or sad from being alone. Nope, that’s not it either. Then it goes on to extend the definition as producing sadness and bleakness. Now that is closer. But I think I have come up with an explanation for my own lonely times that is helping me learn to better cope.
You need to know this, I love being alone. I always have. It might stem from my being an only child, a child who probably had more privacy than my friends who had three or four or five children in the family. As soon as I graduated from college, I got my own apartment. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like people, I do. As a matter of fact, I am super social. I love to be around lots of people. At the same time, I love reading and knitting and watching television alone. I can entertain myself for hours and days and weeks. Having time alone is awesome.
I am happy to be alone until it hits me that my children and friends are having fun without me! I am talking about holidays or long weekends traveling: when I think everyone is out having fun and I am not I get lonely. I feel left out and I feel sad. So I believe loneliness is not just being alone, it is being alone and missing something. Missing out. Missing something that you used to have or do. I was talking with a woman yesterday who told me that since her partner died she is so lonely. I get that: she had one life that she enjoyed and now that is gone and she misses it. Loneliness is in the missing.
One of the loneliest feelings for me is when my adult children are with their dad, now that I am divorced. It is not that I think they are having more fun with him than they are with me (don’t worry, they are not). It is the feeling that my time with them is cut in half, that I don’t get the whole holiday or visit. Just my part of it. Hate it hate it hate it and that is probably the loneliest feeling in the world.
So what can I do to combat the lonely times in my life? What can you do? First, plan ahead. Thanksgiving comes around every year and this year will be no exception. Get ready for it. I have been planning my holiday, well probably since last year. You don’t have to go that far, but make sure you have a plan in place, whether that is a movie or a Turkey Trot or dinner with friends. Never ever think that you can just ride it out with a good book and a bottle (did I say bottle? I meant glass) of something. You will end up more depressed and feel more alone than you did before. I have three holiday weekends that make me come unglued: Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day and Labor Day. Two are freezing and dark and one signals the end of summer. I know myself and I know I need to plan for those. If I don’t I will be miserable. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just something that keeps me occupied and happy and busy.
So prepare yourself. Don’t let that monster eat you, you eat that loneliness monster!
Read MoreI was in my doctor’s office waiting room last week and picked up O Magazine to flip through. The issue was all about happiness and Oprah talked about the places where she feels happy: in the yard playing with her dogs, with the girls from her school, traveling with best friends. I started thinking about what pictures in my mind make me feel happy. I surprised myself when the first thing that came to mind was an old memory: I thought of my marital home, in the summer, on a Friday morning. I could hear the sprinklers on the golf course behind us and I could see that the green grass that rolls on forever on the course. The pool in the backyard was shiny in the sun and I had beautiful planters around the pool with lots of purple flowers and greenery. I always liked Friday morning because I was looking forward to the weekend. Maybe the kids were coming home, maybe not. Most likely my husband would be playing golf on Friday afternoon and we would have plans to meet up afterward. That was my happy place, full of anticipation for the weekend and hanging out at the pool with family and friends. That was everything to me.
Oh no! The first thing that came to mind was a picture of a family that no longer exists? A picture of a family that never was? That is not allowed! So I set my mind to thinking about where and what makes me happiest where I am now and guess what, my happiness is still focused on my family. What is surprising to me, however, is that I have not replaced the old mental picture with a new one. All my happy places in my brain are still stuck in a life that I no longer live and honestly, that never was, and that just makes me mad at myself! I thought I was killing this single thing and to think that the only memories that come to mind when I want to think of happy scenes in my life are ones in which I am married. That ends today!
So I have to make a conscious change at once! It can be very easy to look at the past and see it in rose-colored glasses. But it wasn’t rosy. That’s why it isn’t my current life. Now that I know that my subconscious mind romanticizes my married life, I am going to smash those thoughts right out. I’m not sure how, but it will happen. I have to replace those memories but I am not sure I have any replacements right now as go-to happy place memories. So I have to look to the future.
Replacing those memories are new thoughts of what my life will look like in the next year or two or three. So many great opportunities are coming my way and I think making room for them by clearing out the dead weight of my marriage memories is a great way to start. The happiness on the horizon now that I am out of a bad marriage is limitless.
What is the moral of this story? It might be time to clear out some old, romanticized memories to make room for new, exciting ones that are coming your way, or already have. You still have plenty of time to create what one day will be your happy places. If you are romanticizing your former life, stop it! Look at where you are going and imagine how happy you will be. So happy that what lies ahead makes your former life look like chopped liver. You may not be able to see it clearly right now but just getting started on creating a new vision for your life will take over your thinking and help you make new memories.
Thank you, Oprah! You’ve done it again.
Read MoreI was walking into an office building several weeks ago and a woman walking toward me said, “That shade of red is beautiful on you.” I thanked her and immediately had a smile on my face. It made me happy. It put me in a good mood and I started thinking about how much a small gesture can make a difference. So, I decided to start my own “Compliment Campaign” to see if handing out compliments felt as good as receiving them.
It not only felt as good, it felt better than good. It felt great. And, it takes no time or talent. I just started giving people genuine compliments. I tried to make sure to do five a day. I usually drive through McDonald’s in the morning for a smoothy and so I told the lady who takes my order how much I like her new hair color. One. The woman who handed me my smoothy had a new scarf wrapped around her hair. Love it. Two. I picked up a friend for a volunteer project and told her how pretty she looked in a dress. I had never seen her in a dress and I told her she has great legs! Three down, two to go. And that was all before 8 a.m.
There are a few points to consider here. First, it isn’t hard to find something nice to say to almost anyone. You can find a positive and it doesn’t have to be about looks. “You are my favorite ice cream scooper,” has come out of my mouth more than once (surprise, surprise). “You always do such a great job for me,” works. “I want you to be my server every time I come in.” You don’t have to lie, just think of something someone else does well and tell them about it.
It is amazing how the smallest gesture can make such a difference. I know how great I felt when I was told I looked good in the red top. It just puffed me up a little. But the benefits of complimenting others far outweigh being on the receiving end.
First, I get good service from those people. Others love to help the customers who appreciate what they do and how they do it. Second, it feels good to make someone else feel special and it costs nothing. Most important though, is that you never know what someone is going through on the inside. Someone crossing your path might be having a rough day and a kind word could make a world of difference.
There is a woman who lives on my block downtown, and by living on my block I mean outside. She is rough looking, there is no other way to put it. She often doesn’t seem to be coherent. She wears slippers and her hair is wrapped up high on her head. She always carries plastic bags. Not only is this a woman who is often ignored, she is a woman who could make one decide to cross the street out of fear. I’m sure you get the picture. I was afraid of her, I am not going to lie. So, I just started saying hello to her and sometimes she would answer and sometimes she would not. No problem. Then one day I told her that I liked her bright blue pants. She smiled: that was new. She said she was going to get more pairs in other colors, but I doubt that. It doesn’t matter. Someone who does not get noticed got noticed and I think it made her happy for a minute.
So, my challenge to you is to pay five compliments every day for a while and take in all the joy that it can bring. Make it a habit. It has been a game changer for me. My “Compliment Campaign” has made a difference in my life and I hope it will do the same for you.
Read MoreSeems like a no-brainer, right. As the song goes, “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.” While I am not clapping my hands I have become aware of my happiness. Guess what: I am happy. That doesn’t mean I am trouble free and it doesn’t mean that my life is one big ball of cotton candy, but I am happy and I am just now becoming aware of my happiness. Two years ago I moved out of my house, with my husband still in it, and started my life over. I hated every minute of it and I honestly thought my life had all but ended. Everything that defined me, wife and mother, was no longer there. My children were grown and gone and my role as wife had “expired”. I wasn’t sure I had the capacity to start over and I didn’t want that part of my life to change. I wanted to be a wife and a mother in an intact family and giving up on that dream nearly did me in. But now, now I’m happy. I willed myself to be happy, even at times when that was the farthest thing from the truth.
Here are some of the ways that I can tell I am happy and I am guessing that if you are experiencing any or all of these you are, too.
I am awake, I sleep, I wake up
Sounds very simple, doesn’t it. It’s not. And, it was anything but simple for me for the last few decades. I have known so many women over the years who just couldn’t sleep, and it was no wonder with babies and children who turned into teenagers. And, by nature, a mother never sleeps soundly for the rest of her life. But I have been chronically awake for many years. I tried medication and meditation and still very little sleep. With happiness came sleep. Happy sleep. The kind of sleep that allows me to wake up in the middle of the night and go back to sleep rather than ruminate over my bad married life.
When I moved into an apartment, it took a long time for me to adjust and for me to feel comfortable sleeping alone in my own bed. Want to know how I like it now? It is the bomb! I go to bed, I fall asleep, there is no one there to wake me up so I stay asleep, then, when morning hits, I wake up. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
I am Happy with my Downtime and I am Just Busy Enough
Everyone needs to feel needed. Everyone needs to feel necessary. And everyone needs to feel like part of the world. It isn’t healthy for anyone to continually be on vacation, but filling every hour of the day is worse.
In my younger years, I felt that if I wasn’t super busy I wasn’t relevant. I had no value. Now, I don’t want to have any value! I want to be the least valuable person in the room! I have nothing to prove so I don’t keep adding more to my plate. I say no to requests for my time. I am happy not being super busy: it made me grouchy. I am active physically and still active in the community, but I just don’t care about being so busy that I have no time to myself. As a matter of fact, I say no invitations when I need a little break. I know that I am happier when I am not so overbooked.
I Look Forward to the Weekend
I have to admit that when I was first single and living in my little one room loft, I hated to see the weekend come. I was lonely, even though I had lots of friends who included me in their plans. Sooner or later I had to go home, and home was just me. For more than 30 years home had been me and my husband and while he was not the great communicator, he was a living, breathing body on the other side of the bed. He was there to have breakfast with and to watch a game with or go to a movie with. Now single, it was not unusual for me to be sitting in my apartment on Friday night and have no plans until workout class Monday morning. That was tough.
Maybe I am just used to my new normal, but as long as I have one activity to look forward to on the weekend, I am a happy camper. Now when I go home I am not lonely, I am just alone, and that is OK.
I Don’t Miss my Children Every Second
When my marriage ended, I felt at loose ends. I had been so used to being the go-to person for everything. Our family revolved around me: I was the connector to all travel, holidays, birthdays, scheduling, etc. So, when the marriage came to an end, so did that “job.” I missed my children every second, maybe because they were now my entire family, my safe haven. They were my everything. It isn’t that fun for them to be my everything! I knew that at the time but I had to hold on to them for a while until I got my footing. Until I became stable again. But let me tell you, I hung on their every word, every movement, every for a long time. And now, I am able to let them catch their breath. I love any little bone they throw my way, but they are not 100% of my life, nor should they be. They were my lifeboat for a while and I am so lucky to have had them there to hold me up for a while.
I Smile for No Reason
Embarrassing but true, I find myself smiling while I am walking the dog. I think people think I am on earbuds listening to someone on the phone, but I am not. I am just smiling. I might be thinking about something or someone and I realize I have a smile on my face. In my marriage, there weren’t many smiles to be had. I was having to fake it. And now, I am smiling for nothing? I’ve come a long way baby!
I Throw my Hat in the Air Each Time I Walk Out of my Apartment
OK, I do not do this, but sometimes I feel just like Mary Tyler Moore when I am walking out of my apartment. I might just throw my hat in the air for effect. I am happy to be healthy and alive and vital. I have just enough free time. I exercise and work and go to movies and listen to music and do all the things that make me happy. Mary Richards has nothing on me.
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As the new year turns into plain old winter, it is no wonder that we get a little blue, a little draggy. For most of us around the country, the skies are gray, it is chilly at best, or worse, and we have about twenty minutes of daylight each day. But there is one factor in my life that has changed dramatically over the past year and that is this: I now have hope.
For probably most of the last 15 years I told myself I had hope and I tried to manufacture hope and I pretended to have hope. But pretending to have hope is more pitiful than having no hope. Even after I had been dragging myself through the muck that was my marriage, I still clung to an atom of hope for some miracle: maybe my husband would get it, that he was tearing apart his children’s family, and make real change. But, I know now that it wouldn’t have worked out. I was done. I was pretending that our family could still have life. But all the King’s horses and all the King’s men…you get it.
I don’t know exactly when I let the hope go, but the letting go didn’t make me hopeless. The hopelessness was in having false hope. And, once I knew in my heart that I was never going back to that life, I freed myself up for hope. I made room for it. Now, I couldn’t be more hopeful. I actually have a smile on my face most of the time and believe me, that was not the case a year ago. I smile for no reason, just walking down the street. Sometimes, I catch myself smiling while I am walking the dog, for no reason. I am watching TV and smiling, crazy. At the grocery store, smiling. Driving and singing with the radio, smiling. Knitting, smiling. Cooking, smiling.
And, I really have nothing to be hopeful about. It doesn’t matter. That hope comes from within. I don’t know where I am going, but I know it can’t be as bad as where I have been. I am so optimistic about the future that I feel excited every day when I wake up.
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