Making the Most of Moments

Low on the horizon, those subtle reds and oranges that fade into the golden glow that would eventually become daylight caught my eye.

Friday morning….

As I dried my hands and glanced again at the beginnings of sunrise, I thought about the times when I would have been out running as day began to break. This time I went back to bed and experienced broken sleep for about an hour.

Most people are excited about Fridays, but as I began to surrender to wakefulness what I thought about was all of the rather dreary work that lie ahead.

The list of things I had wanted to be when I grew up ranged from a person who worked with orcas and other marine life to a designer of greeting cards to a writer who traveled the world to a successful athlete. My list did not include housewife, but housewife was my role for the day.

In addition to my negative thoughts, my nagging injuries were indeed nagging at me as we changed the sheets on our California king water bed after getting out of it. I always need my husband’s help putting on the fitted sheet because I cannot raise that water-filled mattress enough to get its corners to flow into the fitted sheet’s pockets.

My back was already aching by time I had finished making the rest of the huge bed, and it wasn’t even 8 o’clock yet.

I carried the weight of my 40-something body, two laundry baskets, and my negativity down the stairs to the main floor where the dishwasher needed to be emptied, but that would have to wait until I started the laundry.

After the washing machine was set to perform its task, I sat with my husband for a few minutes before he left for work. It was while I was sitting there, not at all at peace, that I realized that I needed to change my course, or the day would be miserable.

I kissed him goodbye and went to the living room to do two short but affective morning yoga sessions from my YouTube playlist. The stretching helped loosen up my sore body, and the breathing helped my anxiety level to decrease.

With the dishwasher needing to be emptied next, I decided to listen to music. I thought about the song “Good Morning” by Christian artist Mandisa. That song though – it’s as saccharine as a warm glazed donut with extra glaze dripping down. It’s just so positive that it’s almost too optimistic to be realistic.

So I found the song and started a playlist that began with it. My thought was that I had started the day in such a negative place that perhaps a musical sugar high like that would be a good next step toward improving the day.

The song that followed was another song by Mandisa called “Unfinished.” Many of her songs are very positive and encouraging, which is a good thing, but I think I may appreciate “Unfinished” most because of the reality-based nature of it. She opens the song with the lyrics, “I used to be the one preaching it to you that you could overcome. I still believe it, but ain’t easy.”

Whatever happened to cause her to realize that “It ain’t easy,” and to start “having doubts” made for a song that acknowledges that things aren’t always awesome, don’t always turn out the way we had hoped, and make us wonder what’s going on with our lives. But her positive message still prevails in the end, because of the ultimate hope we have.

The choice to do yoga and to listen to uplifting music didn’t change the fact that I still had a workout, that unfortunately would not be a sunrise run, and a list of chores ahead of me. But the choice to actually do something to change the trajecterory of my day made a difference in those early moments.

Mandisa is right; it ain’t always easy. But I am beginning to realize that it’s better to try, even if the effort doesn’t give us the results we’d hoped for every time, than to let the moments, the hours, and the days be ruled by the unchecked musings of negativity.

The only place we actually live is in each moment. If we can do something to make the majority of our moments a bit better, and if we can work to more quickly let go of those moments that aren’t so good, then perhaps we can experience more days that are better overall. 

 

Better Choices

The name of this blog site is “The Listener,” and I have been listening to and reading what women are saying about the emotional and controversial topic currently referred to as reproductive rights.

As a woman, I am astounded at some of the statements I have both heard and seen regarding this topic. What was once presented to us as “safe sex,” way back when I grew up, now seems to be a battle solely for the right to have an abortion.

I wonder what happened to the safe sex conversations, to prevention – not only against unwanted pregnancy but also against sexually transmitted diseases.

It seems that the women who are railing against the government for taking away reproductive rights may not be exercising the rights that they do indeed have.

A variety of birth control options are legal, and readily available, in every state as far as I am aware. No, insurance may not cover every single method or the newest items on the market. I once used NuvaRing for a time, and my insurance stopped covering it. My insurance did cover the pill so my GYN and I worked to find one that was a good fit for me.

It also seems to me that the women directing their anger at the men in government who are challenging their reproductive rights are angry at the wrong men.

Why are women not exercising their reproductive rights with their sexual partners? Why are women not telling their partners that they don’t want to make a baby with them, and they don’t want to get an STD from them either, so unless their male partners take appropriate precautions, they won’t be coming over to play.

I know some women who have wanted so very badly to become mothers, but they have not been granted that heartfelt desire to have children of their own. I feel a sincere sadness for them.

For me though, getting pregnant would have been among the worst things that could have happened to me personally, not just because of my ultra conservative upbringing. Even after I was married, I neither wanted to endure a pregnancy nor to raise a child.

Abstinence was of course the primary method presented to us as teens in youth groups and even into adulthood for those of us who were single church members. It has its benefits. I didn’t have distress over late periods, and when I had a positive pap in my mid 20s, my GYN said she would do the required tests for STDs, but knew that they would be negative. While I knew what the physician knew, I was still relieved that my follow-up pap six weeks later was negative.

Abstinence is certainly a reproductive choice that is available to people even in the “progressive” culture of today. So is the choice to become sexually active.

Sexually active women do have the most important right of all, the right to avoid placing themselves in the unenviable position of even considering whether or not to abort a conception that could have been prevented.

That choice appears to be being made a bit more often. As I looked at the CDC’s data on the number of abortions reported in the United States from the 1970s through 2018, the number has declined from over 1.4 million in 1990 (the numbers in the 90s were dreadfully high) to approximately 650,000 in 2018.

The rape and incest argument often arises in conjunction with the topic of abortion rights. Exact data on the percentage of abortions that occur due to violent crimes is difficult to find. The only source-sited data I found was from the Guttmacher Institute that stated that 1% of abortions take place due to rape and .5% occur due to incest. Those numbers do appear to at least be consistent with numbers that I have seen.

With the passing of the “abortion law” in Alabama, concerns for both women’s reproductive rights and for victim’s rights are at an even more escalated level, though the law does not become enforceable for six months. CNN is reporting that legal challenges may prevent the law from ever being put into practice in its current form. Time will tell.

Regarding victims of violent crimes, it has always been my hope that victims will have the courage and the support they need to report the crime, receive medical treatment, and get the help they need through medical advances, commonly referred to as the “morning after pill” or “plan B,” to significantly reduce the chance of a pregnancy from occurring.

Regarding reproductive rights in general, women are successful in nearly every aspect of life today from business to sports to science, and the vast majority of women are successful in the area of managing their own reproductive rights and responsibilities as well. Women still have the power to make choices that can keep lawmakers and the general public from being involved in their personal lives and decisions. If we exercise good judgement, and if we incorporate the same level of forethought and responsibility into our reproductive plans that we incorporate into the plans for all other aspects of our lives, we can live as we choose.

 

*I am aware that some members of specific religious communities are opposed to birth control. Though I do not share your position on that topic, I respect your position. It is a reproductive right that I believe you should be able to exercise, and it comes with its own set of responsibilities as well.