Note to Self

Having just celebrated my birthday, July marks the start of a new year for me and with it comes the resolve to lose those 25 pounds that I think only show in the shower and in photographs.  These extra pounds that I have added to my body while doing the only exercise to which I am unfailingly faithful--that of lifting the fork or spoon from the plate to my mouth--and which never, ever show in everyday activities (of course they don't).  Once I "suck it in," while scrutinizing myself in my full-length wardrobe mirror, I am good to go for the entire day.  My wardrobe mirror may be a bit warped, however, because other mirrors--especially in department stores' dressing rooms--seem to show my mid-section in three sections, and my behind to be a bit wider and to segue into my generous thighs.  And this of course would explain the tightness of the outfit I currently have tried on.  And how much longer can I blame the dryer for the problems I have with the clothes already in my closet?!

So, I am doing a total reality check this morning.  I've written a note to myself and as an underscore, I'm posting it:

Self, you are fat.  Yes, you are happy and yes, you deserve to be wined and dined; also, yes, you have worked hard all your life--as a wife, as a mother, as a working woman, as a divorcé trying to make ends

meet, as someone who survived bad times and who has finally emerged financially comfortable with few needs and wants and unlimited gifts that money cannot buy.  However!  Get over the cuisine reward-time!  Over-feeding yourself is not good for you, girlfriend!  And not putting exercise up there with the twice-daily ritual of brushing your teeth is not only foolish, but it will shorten your life!  Get off the couch, step away from the computer--and don't go back there unless you first set a timer to less than 30 minutes.

Today is truly the first day of the rest of your life, so change for a better you!  Give yourself the best reward--looking and feeling good--because you deserve it.  If you can accomplish all that you have these past years, you can certainly do this.  Do it...now.

How's that for a birthday gift?!

Living

How can it get any darker, and it is already nine o’clock in the morning!  The so-called marine layer must be at least a mile high because the sun’s warm beams have not pierced through as they should have by now.  I need the lamp on, next to my morning recliner chair and above my steaming cup of wake-up coffee, as I sit next to a full wall of glass doors that allow the redwood-decked patio to blend seamlessly with my living room.  It is the only room in my small condo with a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall window, giving me the extended space I need but cannot afford.  But this morning it allows the gloom of outside to reach inside—my head.  I succumb to it, rather than finding comfort in knowing this overcast morning in June will not last.

I only have one item on today’s schedule, and that is part of the problem. Not enough to do and too much time to over-think it.

I am in the last quarter of my life—that is safe to say.  I am not ready to break it up into remaining decades because most of the time I am convinced I will be a centenarian, and unrealistically I imagine looking the way I do today for the rest of my life.  Anyway, I allow myself this fantasy, although lately I am less satisfied with photos of myself than I was just a year ago.  But on these dark old days, reality tends to seep in under the front door not unlike the ominous threads of smoke coming from an out-of-control blaze on the other side.  And I don’t have to be anywhere for several hours.  Damn.

His aunt is dying.  And everyone is caught off guard, even though this lovely woman is ten days away from her 95^th birthday.  Riki was moments away from undergoing heart surgery but collapsed into unconsciousness just as she was being prepped.  They were able to restart her ailing, aged heart.  And now she is packed in ice, with her body wrapped from head to toe like a mummy.  I prepared him to let her go yesterday because let us face it, her time has obviously come.  And then she awoke last evening, to the delight and surprise of her niece who was sitting by her side at the time.  She cannot speak, but seems to be aware of who is looking at her—at least this is her niece’s impression.  So, everyone in the family is rejuvenated because she is such a fighter, so strong. 

Well.  All I can think about are two members of my own family, my aunt and my mother, who, in their mid-eighties, saw the writing on the wall and wanted no one to resuscitate them at the brink of eternity.  So, separately but identically, they both slipped away without tubes and beeps and teams of medical personnel pounding away on their aged bodies.  I realize now that they each could have been “saved” to live a few more years.  When I heard that his aunt had rallied, I had pangs of regret about what both my mother and aunt had decided.  I pictured Riki, looking smart and fashionable even in her hospital gown, suddenly stirring in her bed; her red hair, which just the other day been coifed to perfection, framing flushed cheeks, as she opens her eyes and smiles up at her niece.  Oh, Mom, why couldn’t you have done that?  But this is fantasy.  Cruelly, Riki is now in a holding room for who knows how long.  She cannot go, and she will never be the same.

He sits in the other room adjacent to me, almost silent except for occasional sniffling; planning a long drive to her hospital bedside this afternoon so that hopefully she can see how much he cares—even though the two of them had a wonderful telephone conversation two evenings ago.  He wants me to go with him, for support, he says.  How can I explain to him why I absolutely do not want to?  But of course I will go with him and I will reach out and take her hand, even though my heart and soul beg me to refuse. 

Oh, how I wish the sun would break through this morning gloom.

Whisperers Aren’t Necessarily Deaf

When I awoke yesterday, I had no voice. “Good morning,” did not sound the way I had intended and I was shocked. Of course, the head cold and cough were red flags-but in the past my vocal cords had always escaped even the broadest scope of my sinus infections.

Yet there it was, no sound-or, more accurately, there was no recognizably human sound-coming from my open mouth.

So, of course, I began to tick off my week’s “to do” list involving any sort of gathering with my peers and friends. And right off the bat, some four hours into the future of the day was a board meeting with a report by me on the agenda.

I felt fairly good, so I really saw no reason to skip it just because I would have to whisper my brief report. We were meeting in a nearby house, just about twelve women and me, so the meeting would be on the casual side. I decided to go forward and attend.

The room was noisy as I entered, so smiling my hello went unnoticed and I found my seat. The meeting was soon called to order, with little chatter in my corner of the room. All too soon it was my turn, and I immediately stated that I was sorry to have lost my voice and asked everyone to bear with me.

“Oh, my God!” “You’ve lost your voice?” “Are you alright?” “She can’t talk!” Everyone commented on my dilemma at once. But I was able to whisper, and I felt my three sentences wouldn’t suffer too much from my decision to address them anyway.

It was later that I witnessed a phenomenon that I had seen only once before. Those sitting close to me were talking to me very loudly and slowly, while I gave them a puzzled look and tried to deal with this behavior. “Why are they doing this?” I asked myself—I can hear them, and I certainly can comprehend what they are saying; although they are taking too long to get to the point!

I was transported back to a time nearly twenty years ago in the local drug store where I stood next to my mother, who was suffering from the advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease (which, among many other things, ultimately robs you of your voice), as the local pharmacist attempted to answer her rather simple question by practically shouting in her ear words that a five year old would understand. My mother’s faculties were probably sharper than his, and I stood there amazed and surprised by what he was doing.

And now, I get it. Somehow, when another displays a weakness (such as whispering implies), human nature connects all sorts of other abnormalities to it and makes an immediate and incorrect conclusion that other things aren’t working right as well. So when you whisper, people incredibly assume you cannot hear—and, worse, that you cannot make sense of what is being said to you!

Try whispering your conversation sometime. And then understand what a person feels like who has permanently lost his ability to speak in a regular fashion, as others go out of their way to enunciate and volumize their own speech to “compensate.”

My regular voice is slowly returning, but I won’t soon forget the little life lesson I’ve learned in the process.

Getting Rid of My Stuff

I’ve got to get rid of a lot of my stuff. I am a far cry from those hoarders you see on television, where family members and caring neighbors have to crawl over trash and clothing from the 1970s to get through the living room to the cockroach-infested, garbage-filled kitchen, but whenever I do my weekly “straightening up” it seems there’s more of it to move out of sight in order for the place to look good.

I get rid of unwanted mail right away, no problem. And magazines and newspapers go to the recycle bin on a regular basis. I’ve greatly improved on my closets, using the rule that if I buy a new outfit/pair of shoes/purse, etc., the older version must be donated to charity. What I do not yet have under my control are the things I collect from club meetings ~ notebooks containing meeting minutes, reports and attachments to agendas that have been generated from elsewhere (hence the hard copies); general memorabilia that I pull out while I’m working on my genealogy (three large binders contain my ancestors’ stories); and the constant regurgitation of my computer printer which produces hard copies of emails or web site articles that I absolutely must have at hand should I need to prove that I indeed do have total recall. But all of this can no longer be hidden away for lack of room and my questionable memory of where I put them. Things are getting ‘way out of control.

When my dear mother came to live with me at the age 80, everything she possessed was condensed down to several pieces of furniture, her clothes, and personal mementos. As I was newly divorced at the time and without a dining room table, chairs, her bedroom set and a few knickknacks, the furniture was immediately put to good use. Her clothes fit right into the closet in her new bedroom down the hall from mine. Her memorabilia fit neatly above her clothes in several boxes on a shelf in the same closet. Oh, and she brought me some of my stuff that I had left behind when I got married years before. At the time, I didn’t appreciate that at some point she got rid of her stuff before the movers transported her possessions to her new home and me. In just a little more than 10 years from now, I will be approaching the age my mother was when she tackled her stuff, and I fear there is not enough time for me to reach that same point of perfection ~ definitely, the clock is loudly ticking and I’m getting a bit nervous.

I recently spent the morning in the home of a fellow club member during a board meeting. All of us sat with our three-inch thick binders precariously balanced on our laps. I could not see that she had any stuff, other than about three pages of papers in her hand as she conducted the meeting. Surely somewhere in her home has got to be a room sequestered behind closed doors at all times for fear that the stuff within will spill out into the house that looks like a model home ~ because my spare bedroom would have to be the depository in my home should I hold a meeting with 15 clubwomen in my living room. But then, when I toss my stuff into that bedroom to prepare for guests, it takes me several days to sort everything back into order once again. It’s a problem, and of course after every meeting I attend I get more stuff to bring home ~ and I usually receive a certain email that I must command my printer to do its magic and produce for me in order for me to place it in one of my many important “To-Do” folders on my desk (because out of sight for me is out of mind). If I collected all the pages I’ve printed in the last two months, I’d have back an entire ream of paper ~ this time covered with thousands of little black letters of the alphabet that help keep me on top of things.

Then there is the all-important genealogy information that my children ~ actually, more than likely my grandchildren ~ will treasure for years to come just knowing that I was able to go back a couple of hundred years, or in some cases four centuries, to discover their ancestors. There are three large binders, as I said earlier, containing hundreds of pages each ~ which I believe multiply like rabbits when I’m not watching and some of their offspring are identical twins and even triplets. Whenever I break through a brick wall (a common genealogy term meaning finally finding a new or heretofore missing link in the family chain of events that leads to even more ancestors), more pages are generated by the Old Faithful printer and get placed in one of the binders.

The high school reunion I attended this past year had me going to the boxes in the attic where my four high school yearbooks and a multitude of memories had been slumbering. The reunion committee thoughtfully provided each of us a very thick and very valuable memory book that shows pictures of nearly everyone I ever knew from childhood as they once were and as they are now, along with their (sometimes extensive) biographies. There are now five books that barely need a narrative from me to explain my life in the late 1950s. They have yet to make their way back to the box in the attic. Perhaps one reason is that when I get up there I’ll find more of my stuff.

All the slides I took in the 50s through the 70s along with about 10 photo albums I consider my memorabilia and I think they are expected to survive me ~ certainly they are of some interest to my descendants? Agreed, the club stuff can go one day. But as far as the contents of my computer ~ oh, I do not want to go there! It takes me a whole morning, every few weeks, just to delete old emails. Please do not ask me about all those computer files that are each packed with a burgeoning number of documents that were at least once upon a time so very important to me. Did I mention the 2000 photos also lodged in My Pictures file that include documentation of many wonderful trips as well as my five grandchildren and how they grew?

I like to think that some of this stuff is worthy of saving. But it’s probably not. My grandparents didn’t leave much in the way of documentation of their lives, save the family bibles, and definitely never gave a thought to saving anything of their parents either (if they had, I wouldn’t have to spend untold hours unearthing so very little that barely suggests what their lives were like). Those people came in and left this world, barely documented. Why can’t I do the same?

I start to look around at friends and acquaintences and I see that I am not alone with this dilemma, which is misleadingly comforting.

Safe to say, in a mere 20 years I will be nearly 90 years old and ready for “the home.” At the very least, “What To Do About Mom?” will be a topic of conversation in my daughters’ households. What they are not aware of now ~ and perhaps, if I get going with my resolution, they won’t ever need to know ~ is that they may have to additionally wonder about “What To Do With Mom’s Stuff?” and the moving van they might be required to hire to come and cart it all away.

The Spirit of Christmas

There are seven more days until Christmas morning, and for the first time in years my shopping is done! I am still writing cards, but otherwise I am just going about my normal routine while everyone else seems to be frantic (as I used to be in years gone by). At this point in my life I’ve had enough Christmases to know how to find my way through the craziness that seems to always come with the first carole you hear on the radio ~ the day after Thanksgiving.

It’s all about buying just the right gifts for everyone on your list and, whether you can afford it or not, don’t forget yourself ~ something really hot, like the latest (this week) in technology or maybe even that new car you’ve been thinking about. Go on, charge it ~ the bill will come next month, next year! Everyone is in debt ~ it’s no longer a shame, but part of life. Eventually everything will get better, but now there’s nothing like something new and snappy to make you ~ and your loved ones ~ feel good!

I don’t decorate as much as I used to ~ my children are grown and have families and homes of their own. I do have outdoor lights, but once inside there is only a small artificial tree and an occasional holiday garland creatively wrapped around a battery-operated candle.

Here in California, the weather doesn’t exactly put me in a holiday mood so it is easy to go about my normal routine amidst the crowds and not once feel like it is Christmas. This was how I felt this morning as I drove to my neighborhood Costco to purchase just three items I had forgotten to get last weekend. There’s a radio station I listen to that plays a variety of my favorite songs, and during December they throw in a Christmas song or two. Didn’t hear anything special as I guided my car cautiously through the Costco parking lot, finally finding a spot quite a ways from the store. Oh, well, the walk will do me good ~ I need the exercise ~ I said to myself as I parked and headed toward the front door. I was not prepared for what was inside.

I think everyone had the same schedule this morning ~ head for Costco! I had to slow down at the entrance because of all the people walking in. I wasn’t looking forward to the aisle traffic ~ people carelessly pushing their carts into other people or stopping dead in their tracks right in the middle of the aisle, oblivious to others. But today was different. Today, rudeness took the day off. So did thoughtlessness. Hard to believe that in Costco on the last weekend before Christmas! It was, however, almost magical ~ considering the fact that the place was packed and carts were overflowing ~ that there were smiles and manners and such friendliness that was until now practically unknown within those walls.

People were saying “Excuse me!” Strangers were chatting with strangers! I stepped over to pick up a 36-pack of green tea bottles and a man from out of nowhere rushed over and lifted it out of my hands into my cart. I smiled and thanked him; he smiled back. I got through the store in no time, and even sampled some goodies as I guided my cart through the crowd. Arriving at the front check-out counters, I noticed that every one of them was open, and employees were helping customers load their items onto the belts that carried them toward the checkout clerks. The man who helped me was friendly and chatty, as though I was the only one there. He didn’t seem to mind that hundreds of other customers were heading toward the counters, and without rushing he was efficient and I breezed through in no time. Everyone was happy!

This just never happens. Costco is a great place to shop, but usually when customers get inside they forget others. They usually don’t smile. And they certainly don’t pay attention to others needing help!

As I left the store, the last person I encountered was a gentleman checking my receipt against what I had in my cart. He looked up and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “Merry Christmas,” I replied. “Oh! Yes! Merry Christmas to you too!” he answered. All the way to the car I noticed how nice everyone was being to one another. And when I finally backed my car out of my parking place and headed toward the lot exit, an oncoming car stopped and motioned me to go ahead.

A Christmas song suddenly came on the radio as I pulled my car onto the busy street. Maybe I never paid such attention to my trips to buy groceries before; what caused me to notice this nice experience? And then it occurred to me. The spirit of Christmas had just paid me a visit!

Golden Years? Not Always!

I got a call from an old friend the other day who is retiring from her job. Actually, she is apparently being dragged, kicking and screaming, from a job she enjoys and which fills her life as she knows it. She is of the age to retire, so fortunately she has a pension on which to exist. However ~ and that’s a big however ~ it seems the pension, which her other support staff co-workers in our local city offices also have, will be barely enough to pay all her bills each month, and will not leave her enough after that to have the life style she has enjoyed over the past few years. Her Social Security benefits, she found out at her recent meeting down at the local Social Security office, will be under $500 a month because for over 25 years she did not contribute to it (as a city employee she could not, but frankly at the time she enjoyed having that extra amount to spend or salt away as she chose). And withdrawn out of that amount will be her costs for Medicare and supplemental insurance.

My friend doesn’t look old enough to retire. On top of having had a very well-done eye-lift about 10 years ago, she has kept in shape through exercise and good diet. She is attractive, fun to be around, and is generally still capable of performing her duties in the office with people who like and respect her work and personality. The fact that these are hard times in the work force is salt in her wound ~ it doesn’t change things. She cannot argue that they could no longer afford her. But the icing came when she learned her replacement is a 20-something who, while she will earn much less, is technologically much more savvy. Training her was a joke, she says.

Her situation, and our conversation about it, really affected me because my view of retirement is so vastly different from hers ~ and, I realize, everyone’s view is skewed by personal circumstances. In her case, she is seriously depressed over it. She and I used to work together and in fact we lived next door to one another when our children were growing up. Both of us have been single quite a few years, so I thought she had adjusted to being responsible for her own welfare and therefore her own happiness. I know her well, and so I assumed she would be as happy as I was over the prospect of not having to produce for others, not having to jump out of bed at an ungodly hour and figure out what to wear and how to face the workday, rain or shine. To her, this was reason alone for getting out of bed at all. She feels she has no prospects for volunteer work that will enhance her value of self and feels that she will quickly run out of “things to do” on a daily basis. Not one to watch television during the day, she fears this will be her only option to pass the time. She will not have money to travel, nor even shop for unnecessary items. She will be available 24/7 to spend time with her grandchildren ~ whom she adores, but at an arm’s distance (she often says she put in her time as chief cook and bottle washer, Brownie leader, team mom, and so on, and she had no regrets about ending that chapter when her children left for college). She loves to bake cookies with her granddaughters, and then wave goodbye so she can clean up her kitchen.

What do you do when a dear friend is so sad? When there really is nothing you can say to cheer her? I guess I did not realize how fortunate I am ~ to have planned wisely, with a lot of luck, to have a carefree life at a time when I would no longer have the ability to change my situation. I have learned that life doesn’t just “happen” to us, and I had to go through a hellish time in my late 40s and early 50s to allow myself the privilege to “see” the possibilities, and the potholes, that lay ahead. I was the ant; my friend was the grasshopper.

Fortunately, my friend’s future is not as cut and dried as she perceives. In thinking this through, she does have options, and I was able to give her a couple of pieces of solicited advice: First, get it fixed in your head that your life has changed ~ accept it. Next, be open ~ eyes and heart ~ to the possibilities that exist to improve it. Just like we now need a good jar opener just to get into products off the shelf, we need to find ways to cope with this new life ~ because it is what it is and we have to learn to live with it. But I have great respect for her and I realize we each have to find our way in our own time and on our own terms. I hope she can do it ~ she is much too valuable a person and friend to give up and be so unhappy.

Some Things I Have Learned

My Feelings Belong To Me
On its face, this is of course a no-brainer. Taking a closer look, these feelings are my property. I have them due to a variety of reasons: (1) the way I was brought up (family values); (2) my experiences; (3) the comfortable way they fit. When someone doesn’t like them and, in whatever way, lets me know, I am under no obligation to change them. What I’ve decided is to consider all input. But I will only change my feelings if I choose to; pressure from outside influences is not a message to adapt to others’ feelings (attitudes, values, opinions).


Laugh And The World Laughs With You; Cry And You Cry Alone
My mother told me this is what her mother always told her. Nothing prompts the feeling of aloneness like it does when you are hurting—and it’s true. We all commiserate with another, but after we do that we go back to ourselves. Reality is harsh, but facing it is healthy. It is also a good lesson: If you always act in a positive way (put a limit to your complaining), people will enjoy being with you. I knew someone once who, every time she was greeted with “How are you?” she launched a lengthy, detailed discourse about how bad things were for her. It didn’t take long for the rest of us to get the message—don’t ask her how she is; in fact, don’t engage in conversation with her at all! She needed to complain to a professional so she could resolve her issues—instead, she was getting “therapy” for free, at the cost of everyone around her!


A Diplomat Tells Someone To Go To Hell In Such A Way He Looks Forward To The Trip
My mother would quote her father when she would give me this tidbit, and it is a favorite of mine. As I’ve been able to identify diplomats throughout my life, witnessed their special talent, and pulled off a few zingers of my own, my only footnote is: …Unless that person is an idiot and then you just tell him outright to go to hell.


Our Values Become Entrenched In Us
And, this being a fact, our personal values are not easily modified. There are movements today to change my current values. I try to be open, and often I discover that I can be comfortable with a new way of looking at things. But other times, I just cannot—it’s like trying to keep a baby from crying, the wind from blowing, the tide from rising, etc., etc. So then, I say to myself that I tried but I just don’t go along with it—period—no shame, no excuse. After a lifetime of attempting what is for me impossible change, I no longer apologize for not adapting. It’s the way I am, and that’s that. However, I never say that without trying first—that is only fair, to myself and others.



Sometimes I Just Don’t Want To
This is another version of feeling free to just say no (thank you). People ask you to head up a committee; they ask you to be friends on Facebook; they want you to contribute to their charity; and so on. You don’t want to, but you don’t know how to say no without “hurting their feelings”—or more likely, rocking their boat. Well, you just say it! No, thank you. You do not have to explain. You do need to be nice. If they keep at you after you have said “No, thank you,” you no longer need to be nice. (See my footnote regarding diplomacy.)


Examine Your Need To Please
I was born a pleaser, which, in my opinion, is a handicap. I used to laughingly explain that I was a product of Catholic school. Now my mature self realizes that being a pleaser stems from a deep need to be liked. Well, I AM liked. What I am not is a doormat. However, losing “the pleaser” hasn’t been easy. Especially when I always hear, “You are the nicest person!” “It is such a pleasure knowing you!” And the ultimate, “We want someone in our organization who is NICE to everyone!” I was extremely successful throughout my working years—I know for a fact that I moved up because I “got along” with everyone. Now I have a nice pension, which I owe in part to my going with the flow. What I do not know is, how many people along the way whispered to one another behind my back, “Give her anything—she’s easy!” or “She is TOO nice—a pushover!” and I always wonder if I would have gained more respect by being a bit difficult. Well, actually, the answer is a definite “Yes.” You have to be true to yourself and you should not be a hypocrite. But you have to learn to walk that fine line.


You Will Never Remember How Tired/Sick You Were; Only How Much You Enjoyed It
I discovered this when I was sick with a horrible cold (but no fever!) the morning of my 8th grade graduation trip, a one-day event where, just prior to splitting up to several high schools the following fall, my class would have a last chance to be together. When I went to school, you pretty much had the same kids in 8th grade you had when you were in Kindergarten—very few moved in or out over the years. Anyway, my mother was concerned that I wasn’t well enough to go—but I appreciated the importance of the day and talked her into letting me. I probably passed my germs on to everyone—my parting gift—but I will never forget how much fun that day was.

I use this piece of wisdom whenever I weigh whether I will opt to do something that I basically think is good but I have concerns about it due to fatigue or having too many other things to do, etc. I have never been sorry. The last time I used it to decide was when we were in Florence and I was exhausted from walking everywhere with my tour group. A couple of people wanted to know if I’d come with them to see the original David at the Accademia Art Gallery about five blocks from where we had gathered. Interestingly, seeing the original David was not part of the tour (we had, however, spent an hour and a half in the Uffizi—after walking all around Florence). I was sitting down when I was approached. No one else seemed interested. My feet hurt and my legs ached. Hey, I’ve seen the photo in a book, I reasoned, and I’ve seen the copy in the square. And then the wisdom I learned when I was 13 kicked in and I went—three others and I left the rest of the group and walked for about 20 minutes, and then stood in line for about 20 more minutes. Once inside, we headed straight for where David was—finally, we turned a corner and down at the end of the long corridor filled with Michelangelo’s unfinished marble statues, there was David in silent, almost indescribable magnificence. And the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and a thrill shot up and down my spine—I still feel it as I write this. And once again, I do not remember how tired I was—but I will always remember how I enjoyed it.


You Have To Learn To Take Control
There’s a difference between being a control-freak and just plain taking control when necessary. What I’m talking about here is what to do when someone is talking your arm off. It’s incredible that I’ve encountered that rare personality who engages in a one-way conversation ad nauseum, but I actually know three such people. When I get ambushed, I purposely say absolutely nothing and they still talk on and on. Once, I was on my cell phone and we got disconnected—the person on the other end didn’t know this and kept on talking anyway (giveaway: She finally called me back and said, “I had no idea [for an abnormal length of time] we got disconnected!”). You cannot just interrupt them and say you have to get going. You cannot just slowly walk ahead while nodding your head. They do not pick up any of those vibes. They continue on, even changing the subject without a prompt or a lead from you. What works for me is just to say “Oh my GOD! I have to be somewhere right now!” and then just run off. At work, I’d pre-plan a co-worker to call me as I sat at my desk doing my work while this person droned on and on—the “call” was always an emergency and I would stand up and usually say, again, “Oh, my GOD!” A former co-worker used to call these people thieves because they steal your time—but then of course you are an accessory because you let them.

We Act In Certain Ways Because We Are Getting Something Out Of It
I learned this priceless one from Dr. Phil. The first time I heard him say it in his Texas twang, I knew it was a keeper. We can reduce our behaviors to salivating dogs—they are mostly learned. And when we get something good out of it (someone’s attention, a feeling of acceptance, etc.) we keep on doing it. We even do it to ourselves. We eat or drink more than we need to in order to give ourselves comfort. We become couch potatoes because we prefer it over the alternative, or we become the best whatever in order to be recognized. So now, when someone says to me, “Gosh, why does she act that way?” All together now: “Because she’s getting something out of it!”