Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Being genuine...

This afternoon I was watching Oprah interview Academy Award Winning actress, author and exercise guru, Jane Fonda, and wow at seventy-two she is still a knock-out!
Interestingly enough she was talking about how she has learned in different segments of her life what is truly important.
I may be wrong with how she cut up the years in our lives into these specific time periods.
I believe she said the first is from 0-30, the next from 31 to 59 and the third from 60 to death.

Now she suggests that each moment in time was a preparation for her learning in the next period of time, I think?
She has two grown children, a boy and a girl and a couple of grandchildren as well.
Ms. Fonda has been married and divorced three times and is now involved once again in a loving relationship.
Geez, in the old days when I was in better health I would have thought that I would have ended up not that dissimilar to her in my desire to look like her in appearance, although she even admits to a bit of enhancement surgery for just her eyes and neck.
She admits to having had arthritis, probably osteoarthritis, since she needed joint replacement of her hips and knees; pounding from Aerobics can cause that.
She is still truly amazing!
And further still she exercises and dances nightly with her new love and even is taking a class at Arthur Murray’s chain of dance studios, unbelievable.
Oprah teased her about being on, “Dancing with The Stars”.
Jane Fonda is truly a woman to admire.

Unfortunately, there was only one thing that I took issue with was that her length of time it took for her to have a truly intimate relationship with someone she loved.
She admitted it is something she had recently acquired.
The fact that she is twelve years my senior it might very well be a generational thing, but she was so out there during the sixties with her liberal concepts and ideas this realization is almost shocking to me!
Someone who was so outspoken in her public life, but couldn’t be the same way in her private one, truly boggled my mind!
I was one of those outspoken people too, but my soapbox was tiny compared to hers.

And I would like to think that I never changed my behavior with my mindset with my loved ones who always knew how they stood with me and I hope they were just as honest with me too!
I carried that behavior into my marital relationship, which at times has created an exciting and never boring one, but I would like to think completely honest.
Consequently, we have been married for nearly forty years!
So either I just was lucky enough to get a guy, Hubby, to put up with all my boloney or as we tease that no one else would want us! And some may agree.

But seriously folks, I had a friend a few years ago who said, would you believe that her daughter and her intended, her boyfriends that she was engaged to never ever argue, and I said well that is really great and she said, now get this… she said it was because I told her NOT to!
And that she should be nice and agreeable and when they get married then she can disagree with him.
I said what?
Who told you that?
She mentioned a woman that we both know and do highly respect, but even so that woman has been married five times before and is single now!
As is my friend who told me all this, divorced for over thirty years!
I do understand why and how people divorce.
My own mother had been before she met and married my father and they had me and my mother-in-law was too, when Hubby was only eleven.
So I get it.

But why ask someone about marriage that hasn’t had a good one, no make that two no make that FIVE, about what her daughter should do?
Gosh, that’s ridiculous in my book!
Any-who, I said that her daughter should be herself from the start with the man she loves and that honesty is the best policy and it begins with knowing what one’s getting, right?
Who wants a PIG in a POKE, huh?
Plus she was acting like she was in Victorian times with that information.
I guess I could be wrong with the honesty factor because I have even heard some, so-called specialists in relationships say not to tell your spouse this or that or whatever everything and to always keep your money separate!
Gosh, maybe that’s why the divorce rate is heading towards more than fifty percent folks!
Dishonesty, perhaps?

My parents were married to each other for over forty years on their second time around the only reason their marriage ended before their forty-first is because my mom passed away. Dad had been a widower for a couple of years when they met and married; and they told me that when you marry everything becomes 'an ours', not 'a mine' thing including your monies.
What happened to, ‘until death do we part’?
Now I would never ever tell anyone married to an abuser, drunk or drug addict or someone who cheated on them to stay in that relationship, unless they had a plan ‘B’, like rehab or counseling, but we all know that’s why some divorce. With others it is sometimes just irreconcilable differences like in that movie circa 1984, but I do believe that may have been helpful in allowing divorce to be OK?
Get over it!
I want marriage to mean something.
And yes, I do have a divorced son who by the way, is the estrange one, his choice not ours, and it was before his wedding and divorce and he never ever asked our opinion at all about either!
Free thinker, there you go…

On that note of hypocrisy I will bid you all a very happy good night and to all count those blessings and share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, OK?

PS I neglected to welcome Bonnie, welcome, whoever you are!
PSS I never said I was a specialist on the topic or tell anyone what THEY should do either, so there.(I just stuck out my adult tongue once again)

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