Life's Lessons: I Ain't as Good as I'm Gonna Get, But I'm Better Than I Used to Be

I admit it. This refrain was borrowed and comes from Tim McGraw's country song, Better Than I Used To Be, the song that asserts he could finally stand the man in the mirror that he sees. I love that song and realize that now, almost 11 years post stroke, that song could have been written about mostly me. I turned the negatives that were mentioned in the song around to positive ones. 

Please listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO0keYA21oI&list=RDWO0keYA21oI&index=1

He sings:

Hold a grudge

I used to hold grudges--like, forever. But no more. For example, there was my his-way-or-the-highway sibling and his super-controlling wife. I realized, or pretended to imagine, that they liked to have power, but I wasn't going to be a party to that. Or my colleagues that didn't listen to my demands for speaking without confrontation. Or my neighbors who didn't throw the mouse in the rubbish when it came to land in our shared driveway with my two kids playing. Having no grudges means I'm free of all that negativity and that the cliche Life Is Too Short really means something. You must let...it...go! 

The hearts I've broke

Yes, I broke some hearts because, and as my sons say, I liked men with edge because of my sheltered past, not nice guys who would gamble and fight rather than the nice ones who would have been perfect husbands and fathers. I was married to an edgy guy for 18 years who threw food on the floor if he didn't like it, broke furniture in a fit of rage, once inches away from my infant son, and threatened me countless times. The other person was simply a mistake that lasted 16 years when I should have known better. There were signs, yes. But they're both now dead to me, the first literally, the other figuratively. I found a couple of nice ones I'm sort of interested in, but time will tell if those feelings are returned. And I'll be smarter this time around.

People I let down

Sure, I let people down, and I had reasons, albeit faulty and selfish, to do so. But show me people who don't have any regrets in their whole lives, and I'll show you liars. From not agreeing with contentious friends to not cooking what I said I was going to bring to a pot luck supper, I let people down, so down that they stopped speaking with me. But, come on! Over politics or Shepherd's Pie? I enjoy the present now, not dwell upon the past or have apprehension about the future.

There's some dirt on me

Absolutely, there's some but not a whole lot, like the time I used my friend's mascara when I had an eye infection on Saturday and then two days later on Monday she found out after she used that mascara on Sunday the day before (ouch! that was really a bad one) or how about the time I applied for the same position as my colleague, and  gossiped to people I knew would spill the beans about her secret drug addiction,  and she didn't get the job. I did. As Oscar Wilde once said, "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."

But I have one thing that wasn't in the song. Patience! Do you know how I got patience where there wasn't any before? From my stroke. Talk about a silver lining! It took a while to develop it, but now patience is with me all the time. People write to me occasionally to ask how I developed patience instead of constant anger and frustration. I practiced becoming patient because, in truth, it doesn't come naturally, at least to me. You have to want it, and it will come, not right away but eventually.

Maybe, in time, I'll become like that character from the television show My Name is Earl, a f-up who won $100,000 in the lottery and decided to correct all the wrongs from his past. Or maybe, and most likely, I'll begin again in "it's-never-too-late" fashion  to make the right decisions this time around. Whichever I choose, I, too, could finally stand the woman in the mirror that I see.

Kobe Bryant and Me: Thoughts on Life and Death

I never knew Kobe Bryant even though we each lived in Pennsylvania at some point in our lives, less than 30 minutes and years apart --me for 60 years and Kobe for 18 years when, upon graduation, he went to his only team, the Los Angeles Lakers where he had a 20-year career. He was scouted as #1 in the country and played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Among his many accomplishments, as a shooting guard, he won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, and got to be the best shooter ever after Wilt Chamberlain.

Unless you've been sequestered with jury duty or living under a rock, Kobe died Sunday along with his daughter and 7 others in a foggy and then fiery helicopter crash which killed them all. 

I watched the news reports Sunday and, after a while, stopped watching because the reporters occasionally brought up that incident where in 2003, Bryant was accused of sexual assault by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Shortly after, Bryant issued a public apology, with his wife by his side, but that action resulted in several endorsements which were cut off immediately including McDonalds and Nutella.

Then the devil sat on one shoulder and said, "Was that really necessary to bring that up considering all the good things he did, like the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation whose goals were helping young people in need of support, encouraging the development of physical, emotional, and social skills through sports, and assisting the homeless? Didn't the good things eventually overpower the bad? Can't we just move on?" 

But the angel who sat on the opposite shoulder said, "Can you really get over sexual assault?" The angel won.

It was 1 in the morning now on Monday. But I was really into it--the thinking, I mean. I sat on my comfortable sofa, for 3 hours, just hammering out what had happened. The Grammys were on Sunday as well in the Staples Center where the Lakers played. I started feeling overwhelmed.

I said to myself, if Kobe was so famous, and people tend to forget even the famous over time, little by little, what chance do I, a regular person, have to be remembered? I fell asleep somewhere in the middle but didn't lose direction one bit, returning to the internal discussion at hand.

Then around 2 on Monday, I thought of my father who was killed in his North Philadelphia store in 1971, and I didn't even think of him every day after awhile, except right around the holidays which were important to him because, other than working seven days a week to support his family, he liked fun. 

It was about 3:30 on Monday. The only thing was the country by Randy Travis called Three Wooden Crosses that pulled me out of whatever had taken over my mind. The song is  about four people--a farmer, a teacher, a preacher, and a hooker--going down to Mexico in search of various things. He was awarded the Academy of Country Music Award for Song of the Year. Listen to it for a moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT1sNrgnJZc

It's the refrain. 

I guess it’s not what you take when the you leave this world behind you.

It’s what you leave behind you when you go. 

And then I also knew. My father left his incredible work ethic, Kobe left his iconic basketball fame, and I guess people will remember me, too, albeit I don't know for what. 

I asked one of my sons the next day, "Will you miss me when I'm gone?"

He took a long time to answer and then he said, "You have your moments."

That's good enough for me, wiseass.