I decided which men to give my number and which ones to give my heart.
I can’t say I decided whom to fall in love with, that part remains uncontrollable and magic.
But I did decide what to do after I fell in love, how to treat the men I loved so that they felt it in their bones, and how to treat them when the love wasn’t enough to keep us together.
And with years of practice, I got comfortable with the business of making choices. I learned to value my own judgment as much if not more than someone else’s. Of course it’s important to be open to outside perspectives, but I don’t think that’s most young women’s problem. We learn early how to view ourselves and our choices through other people’s eyes.
In my twenties, I unlearned how to please everyone. I made peace with disagreement. I didn’t always know for sure that I was right, but I decided to trust myself anyway.
So it was far from some careless period—I took all of these decisions seriously. Even when I made them badly, it wasn’t for lack of trying. And when I got it really right or really wrong, I took note, all the while improving my personal algorithm for happiness, compassion, and success. I was building my own life’s parameters for the first time.
My twenties were filled with the heavy work of deciding the person I want to be.
My thirties will be for becoming her.
This is not to say the choices are over. I still have plenty of big ones, maybe the biggest, left to make. But I have a decade of trial and error behind me to help me decide. Now this new, wide-open decade doesn’t feel so scary, it feels exciting. I know who I am, I know where I’m going, I’m ready.
So when I blow out my candles for thirty tonight, I won’t be making wishes.
I’ll be making plans.
Mother Mary and the Eyebrow
Lisa
Let me tell you something about Mother Mary, my late mother who is nevertheless with us in spirit, her feistiness in our hearts and her voice in our ears.
Probably like your mother’s voice, except after two packs of More 100s a day.
The fact is, as feisty as Mother Mary was, she never yelled.
That may surprise you, but it’s true.
My mother ruled our house and she never once raised her voice.
It was Teddy Roosevelt who said, speak softly and carry a big stick, and I’m betting he knew my mother.
She spoke softly and carried a wooden spoon.
Her spoon was like a scepter, only used for stirring gravy.
Instead of yelling, she had a series of Meaningful Facial Expressions that conveyed her will.
Chief among these was The Eyebrow.
Mother Mary used to lift, arch, and flex her right eyebrow when she didn’t like something I was doing, though she used it only when necessary, like a handgun.
The Eyebrow was meant to convey:
Cut that out.
Put that down.
Don’t be fresh.
That’s not funny.
Mind your own business.
Don’t have so much to say.
Mother Mary also had a Major Glare that she could fire at me from the stove, which made it more potent than The Eyebrow, like a long-distance missile.
The Major Glare meant:
Don’t talk that way to your brother.
Don’t be so fresh.
Who are you kidding with that (action or comment)?
Where do you get off?
This last is impossible to translate. If you’re from South Philly, you get it immediately. If you’re not, please don’t sweat it. If you can’t figure it out, let it ride. No one is meant to know everything in the world.
To stay on point, the atomic bomb in Mother Mary’s arsenal was The Frown.
You prayed The Frown did not come your way.
They say Italians talk with their hands, but they’re wrong.
They talk with their faces.
The Frown was Mother Mary’s ultimate warning sign, and The Frown meant that she was going to Point Away, and if she Pointed Away, that meant that whatever you had done was so bad, you had to leave the room. She didn’t care where you went, only that it was Out.
In fact, if Mother Mary said anything when she Pointed Away, it was, “Get out of my sight.”
Spoken, not yelled.
My mother was not alone in believing that quiet can be more powerful than noise. The Godfather rarely spoke a whisper through three movies, except when he got to Johnny Fontane, who would try anybody’s patience.
Really.
What a whiner.
Act like a man.
I bet your mother had an array of meaningful expressions, scary frowns, and lifted eyebrows, and they would come in handy in this election season.
Because every candidate is yelling.
Now listen, I’m no Pollyanna.
I know that people get angry and I’m generally a fan of emotion. And to be real, it makes great television. A debate where everybody is yelling at each other is totally fun to watch.
Until you realize that’s how we choose a president.
In a country we love.
Nobody in the debates is listening to each other because they’re too busy yelling. And they don’t listen to the question, either. They just wait until the question is over and take it as their signal to start yelling. Then other candidates on the stage interrupt them and start yelling. Nobody listens to anybody else and nobody answers the question, and when it’s over, the surrogates say it was a great debate.
The problem with yelling is that it’s the same thing as bullying.
And it seems like every week there’s a new debate, where we can watch candidates bully each other. And then we start to talk to each other about our views, and our voices get louder, and we start bullying each other.
It’s not our fault, it’s theirs.
But maybe we can stop it.
Because the last thing we want to do is act like politicians.
By the way, this is the week when we lost Antonin Scalia, who may have been the most conservative Supreme Court Justice ever, and his best friend was Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who may be the most liberal Supreme Court Justice ever.
They adored each other, though their views were very different.
The Happy Eyebrows!
It’s not coincidental that neither of these people was the type to raise their voice. I have seen arguments before the Supreme Court, and although Justice Scalia’s questions were pointed, he did not yell. I also heard Justice Ginsberg ask questions from the bench, and you could barely hear her.
Don’t think this is because they’re judges, because I’ve seen and heard judges yelling in court.
At me.
So what I’m saying is that true power lies in a soft voice and a listening ear.
It’s okay to disagree with someone.
It’s not okay to yell at them, bully them, or call them names.
And it’s not okay to rejoice in anybody’s death, nor is it okay to exploit that death for political gain.
I know that because I was raised right.
By The Eyebrow.
Moo
Lisa
Thank God.
Help is here.
I know, you’ve been worried.
You thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
You thought nobody cared about the serious problems we face, women in particular.
But you needn’t have worried.
Because now there is a neck and chest cream.
Thank God, right?