Thankfulness Challenge – Growing Up When I did

I am forever grateful to have been able to grow up in the time frame that I did. I won’t tell you my age dear reader but I do remember when Saturday mornings were for cartoons. On nearly every channel. I also remember when you had to use a dial up connection and lord help you if you tried to connect while dad was waiting on an important call or worse already on that call. I remember the time before cell phones when we had to use payphones and when you told someone you would be there at 2 and you did cause there was no easy way to tell the other that you were gonna be late. That’s the timeframe I’m talking about. The time before cell phones and the internet and yes I’m only talking some 20-30 years ago in reality. Which is sad and scary at the same time.

Mostly I’m talking about that timeframe where a 300 pound girl didn’t try out for cheerleading and wasn’t praised for “showing people that the world doesn’t dictate beauty”. Or the special needs kid didn’t get to “make a touchdown” while all the other players just stood there so little Johnny could have his moment in the sun. Yes those are two fantastic things. Very admirable of the teams to let them have that moment and of the girl to have the confidence she needs to put that outfit on. Don’t get me wrong. What I’m talking about is that time when it was ok to look at Steve and say “you can’t be the lead in the play but we would love for you to help out with the scenery” and it had nothing to do with anything other than Steve not really being talented enough to be on the stage and it was ok to tell him that and Steve's mom didn't get the local news involved or start a campaign to get a teacher fired. 

When I was in middle school I didn’t make the Volleyball team for 3 years in a row. One of my friends did. She was taller and able to block better than I could. I went to every game. When we got into High School I tried out again after spending a summer working on my serve. I still couldn’t block, I’m a short bitch after all, but I had the best serve on the team. One of the other players could block but couldn’t serve to save her life. So she’d come in and play the front row and when it was time for her to serve I’d come in and play back row. Then we’d swap out. It was a fantastic system really and I played Volleyball for 3 years until I hurt my knee my sr. year during a game and had to sit out. My point was not making the team forced me to find my nitch. Forced me to figure out where I best fit in and how I could help my team. I would have either figured it out or found another area to focus on. Kids today don’t really get that. Most school teams are now set up to everyone that tries out makes the team.

It’s not just sports however. Not everyone can be the jock, or the brain, and some kids are just there. That’s how life was back then and now everyone feels like they have to be special. My heart breaks for these kids that spend their days being video taped by mom and dad in the hopes they do something that “goes viral.” That little 3 or 4 year old who sits in those videos talking about grown folk business like a grown up makes me cringe. I wonder how many takes they made her do before she got it right. I also wonder how long it took mom to create that spontaneous cute rant that the little girls is giving cause I’m sorry but no she didn’t come up with that alone on the top of her head. She just didn’t. You know who I’m talking about ….. this kid. 

What I’m saying is that these kids don’t get to be kids. They don’t get to run around the playground and make noise they don’t get to say something cute and walk away. No they are practicing and instead of running around to make noise they are running around to get that shot they need to get. Over the weekend I watched a video of a young boy on the potty (for the first time) and he was cracking his dad up. So mom comes in with the camera to recreate the moment. At this point the dad’s setting the little boy up to recreate the incident and is now at the point of laughing so hard he’s crying. The little boy immediately becomes concerned cause his dad is sad. He doesn’t understand the concept of happy tears. This was a great moment and frankly a funny video but the moment this young man and his father was having before he pulled out a camera was likely a priceless one. I wish the dad had stayed in the moment and just let it have been a moment.

However it was cute so ….. here ……….

Have a great Sunday ….

Marcy
@beaslma

Peter Pan might have been right all along…

I have spent the entire day packing for our trip to Dragon Con. Literally. Well ok…there was a break where Golden and I got on the phone and talked about logistics of this trip. There wasn’t a lot of packing done during that time. Mental packing…yes, list making..yes, actual putting things in bags…well that came later. I know once my work week starts packing will be impossible so I tried to get the bulk of the packing done today. I think I was successful.

I have condensed my stuff into 2 bags, which is good cause I think Golden might need a minivan. One I intend to take out at Golden’s and the other that will stay in the car and head to the Con. I will need a bag for my bathroom stuff and my electronic stuff but that will get packed the night before I leave (or the morning of).

One thing I’ve learned during this process is that I apparently need to grow up. I have packed most of my “geekish” shirts for this trip, sadly not all made the cut. I have two Voltron shirts (the Defender of the Universe), a Transformers T sporting “Soundwave” (Note: not the crappy soundwave that is apparently an airplane now, but the old school boom box as he should be.), some Marvel T-shirts, and of course a Smurf shirt, to name a few.

 

The bottom line is that my suitcase looks like the suitcase of a 10 year old boy. It’s really kind of ridiculous, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Usually when I wear these shirts in my every day world I get looks from people to have to explain what the shirts are. It almost kills my soul when a young kid walks up to me and says I don’t know that Transformer and I have to explain that it’s Voltron he’s not a Transformer. Then someone has to restrain me as they walk away talking about a knock off t-shirt so that I don’t go beat them to death. Someone has to teach these kids about respect. If not me … who!?

For example several years ago, I walked into Disney world and as most people do stood there for a second to take in all the wonderfulness that was in front of me, PRAISE WALT AND THE VISON HE HAD FOR THE WORLD! It was election time at Disney World and both Winnie the Pooh and Captain Hook were running for Mayor of Disney World. Can you imagine how cool that would be … To be Mayor of the most wonderful place on earth!? If nothing else I’m sure you get to ride without waiting in line. That would totally be worth it!

Anyway I digress…. I walked into Disney World, as stated, and there right in front of me is Winnie The Pooh (one of my all time favorite Disney characters) and I’m just kind of in awe that my first sight is him. I’d imagine it’s like when one walks off a plane in Atlanta and runs into Joss Whedon you are just kind of dumbfounded for a minute then you recover and ask him to bring back Firefly. In the middle of my Pooh coma this kid, who couldn’t have been more than 10, walks up and taps me on the shoulder… “you know he’s not real right?!” Now for full discloser I didn’t know this kid, he wasn’t like some distant relative, or one of my nephews he was just some random kid who just ruined my moment. I’m not overly proud of the obscenities that I yelled in his direction, ok yeah I kind of am, and I’m not proud of the look his momma gave me as she dragged him away, but I am proud of the fact that the kid looked stunned. Like I had literally bitch slapped him across the face, I didn’t but I should have. I like to think that this “confrontation” might make him think next time before he burst the next persons bubble.

Yes I knew it wasn’t the “real” Winnie the Pooh; he lives in England. However did it really hurt anyone that for one brief moment I was super excited by the sight in front of me?! Why did he have to interject his 2 cents?! Then after I calmed down, got my Winnie The Pooh hug, (second best hug I’ve ever gotten from a “character” -- the first will ALWAYS belong to Aubie from the Auburn Tigers), and an ice cream in the shape of Mickey, I realized that kid just flat out sucked. He had lost all the joy in his life in short 10 years. We all have those years where we think we are too grown up for this or that but long to do this or that. Take Halloween for example. At some point we deem ourselves “too old” to participate when in all honesty we all want to go out and get free candy.

So at Dragon Con I’m going to get ALL THE CANDY!!!!!

As Peter Pan says … “All children, except one, grow up.” – I strive to be that one!