Dear Anita,

Sorry for the delay in reply.

I re-read your post, the concept of being strong, but not unrealistically strong.  Better yet, not unwisely strong.

Unwise.

What a term, I don’t think I have ever used the word.  I have used words such as foolish, stupid, silly, dumb, and most recently, petty and immature.  But unwise – that surely encompasses so much of it.  Unwise: foolish, immature, and not beneficial

Unwise, thank you for providing me this term.  I think of the way I have been trained to act – it is unwise.  I think of my expectations of myself – they are unwise.  Lastly, I think of my often negative treatment of my husband – very unwise.

So where do people learn to be wise from then? From experience.  Yes. But also from appropriate guidance.  By modeling wise behavior.  Something really random comes to mind, very random – but I’ll share it.  Years ago, N (the friend I mentioned that was all glitter) were at a wedding (of course!).  This was one of the first friends of mine getting married, I was perhaps 24.  I was enthused and ecstatic, and ready to be a great participant in it all.  I was getting ready in a hotel room with N and her parents (who were family friends with the bride).  The procession was starting (In Indian weddings it is a huge procession when the groom arrives, live band, music, dancing, and he arrives on a horse or something of the sort).  I was getting ready very fast as not to miss any part of it! I look over at N who is taking her sweet time.  I said, let’s go we will miss it..  She replies, oh its okay its only the beginning lets take our time.  I felt bad about this, wanting to be there for the whole thing.  But N took her sweet time, not getting worked up or out of her element for even one second.  And this is when we were young…

I have never thought about that inconsequential moment, until now again.  It came to mind because I see N was taught to do whatever the heck she wanted.  She wanted to go, she should – didn’t want to all of a sudden, go ahead cancel.  No worries, no nothing.  The world of N, revolved around well – N.  And I know this.  In the hotel room, her parents too weren’t rushing or rushing us – no one seemed to be stressed.  If it was my parents in the room they would be rushing us out the door, let’s go let’s go! We can’t miss this!

Point of my flashback – I don’t want to be N.  I don’t want to be someone who seems to act without repercussion, or someone who does simply whatever she wants (there’s more to that as you know on her end).  But what I do see – is that I was quite the opposite.

N had no repercussion, well CC had too many!!

CC had to make sure to do everything right!! And more.  And she didn’t even bat an eye, as of course she should do this! Oh I remember myself looking back, zipping around, this way and that.  Oh the abundance of energy, the always wanting to be involved, the never sitting, the always escaping as well.

Anyway – wanted to write that.. Next will be my list.