Advice from a small town girl

We all know that person.

Sometimes we are that person.

He or she is the one who always sees things in the black and white of an old photograph negative.

And usually they see the dark side.

They are the person I frequently try to avoid, as encounters tend to be unpleasant.

I always come away from conversations with this person feeling as though I’m not good enough.

And it tends to be the kind of not good enough that doesn’t inspire me to be better. It tends to be the kind of not good enough that makes me want to eat an entire package of cookies.

Because, of course, that will help.

Some of us were raised, I believe, next to the impossible yardstick. I don’t believe it was a conscious decision on the part of our parents to make us feel that we would never be good enough, it just sort of worked out that way.

It’s easy to slip back into that childhood belief (that’s if you were lucky enough to ever escape its grasp), and give up.

But I’m a grown up. At least I purport to be one.

And its time to buck up, knuckle down (or whatever), and act like one.

Being a grown up is not just holding down a job, raising children, or any of those things that adulthood usually brings.

Being a grown up is when you learn that it’s better to find a solution than to find fault.

And that includes finding fault with yourself, your neighbors, the government, the school system, the pastor at your church or the person in the next pew who sings off key.

Being a grown up means knowing that sometimes the only solution is finding room in your heart for change. And then doing it.

By the time my mother died, she had become a sweet granny who sat in her blue wing chair, smiling and living her mantra that “God is Love.” She believed it and she lived it.

I hope I get there, too.

Of course, I’ll have to be a figurative granny instead of a literal one, since I forgot to reproduce.

At any rate, my mom wasn’t always that sweet granny. In fact, although she was loving, generous and an excellent mother, I don’t know anyone who would have called her sweet.

And, yes, she did tend to see things in a negative way. I’ve always believed that was the result of growing up during the Great Depression.

My point is that, by the end of her life, my mother seemed to have perfected the art of accepting everyone as they are. When I would complain about some perceived fault in another, she would smile beatifically and let me know that she thought they were wonderful.

And they are.