Not Ready for Granny Panties--The 11 Commandments for Avoiding Granny Panties. Mary Fran Bontempo
Читать онлайн книгу.
it loose and Fuhgeddaboudit. As in Tony’s world, it can be good for your health. When you de-clutter your brain, you make room for other stuff. Fun stuff. Interesting stuff. Stuff that might even make life more enjoyable.
None of this means that you abandon your actual responsibilities. If it’s really important, write it down and slap it on the fridge. (You know you’ll end up there at least fourteen times throughout the day; you’re bound to see it.) But if it’s not essential, if you don’t have to take your mother to the gynecologist (Dear God, yes, it’s come to that), then forget it.
Forget old grudges. Forget the fact that you were passed over for a promotion five years ago and you still feel the bile rise every time you remember that the boss’s nephew got the job. (It’s the boss’s nephew; of course he got the job.) Stop replaying the argument with your sister-in-law over and over in your head. (If you didn’t make that witty comeback, it’s too late now anyway.) Forget that the auto mechanic fleeced you and charged you for repairs you didn’t need. (You already paid the bill; just don’t go back there.)
And for heaven’s sake, forget everything that is, or should be, within the realm of your kids’ (we’re talking adult “children,” here) responsibilities. We served as their personal assistants for their entire childhoods. It’s time to let them remember their own stuff from now on. Even if you do remember when their school loan payment is due, tell them you forget. If you don’t, you’ll set a precedent that will have you calling them each month to remind them to pay their mortgage, their electric bill and their internet service bill. (Assuming they ever move out, of course.)
Forget to do the kids’ laundry. Forget to change their sheets and clean their rooms. Forget to pick up whatever it was they asked you to get them at the store. Refuse to serve as their personal calendar, recalling when they have to make the next dentist appointment or renew their gym membership. Occasionally, forget to make dinner. Or just buy bread and lunchmeat. Let the bear cubs forage for themselves.
It’s also okay to forget where your husband put his keys. Or his phone. Or his briefcase. Or his jacket. Or his favorite tie. It’s not that you don’t love him, or care about his or the kids’ happiness. It’s just that you’re not responsible for it. You’re not responsible for keeping track of all the things that keep everyone else on track, even though you’ve set yourself up as the one who steers the ship and all of its minutiae.
While you being the mistress of your domain and its inhabitants is pretty much essential early on, in order to keep your household from bursting into flames, now it’s time to “Fuhgeddaboudit” and force, if necessary, everyone to remember their own stuff. It’s not about being mean-spirited; it’s about independence and self-sufficiency for them, relief for you. And it’s time for everyone to move on, whether they like it or not.
Forgetting, not only your own extra baggage, but everyone else’s as well, is your key to release, a release that will open your mind, and your life, to new possibilities, ones that are infinitely more engaging than replaying old hurts or recalling when your daughter’s car is due for inspection. Forgetting stuff that isn’t yours to remember or things that you shouldn’t bother remembering, will also keep you out of a nasty pair of Granny Panties. Freedom for your head, freedom (figuratively) for your bum.
So pay attention to what Mother Nature and Tony Soprano are trying to tell you. Forgetting can be good for your well being. If you must remember something, again, write it down and put it up on the fridge. If you can remember where you keep the paper and pens, that is.
Try This!
Below, list ten things that you think you “have to” remember to take care of this week. After you’ve completed the list, review it and cross out anything that is really someone else’s responsibility. Then, “Fuhgeddaboudit!” and inform the masses that they’ll have to remember their own “stuff” from now on.
1.________________________________________
2.________________________________________
3.________________________________________
4.________________________________________
5.________________________________________
6.________________________________________
7.________________________________________
8.________________________________________
9.________________________________________
10._______________________________________
Next, write down five things that you’ve been holding on to—old grudges, hurts, perceived failures—anything that makes you feel lousy but is no longer an active part of your life. Then, review the list…and CROSS OUT EVERY ITEM. In other words, “Fuhgeddaboudit!” once and for all.
1.________________________________________
2.________________________________________
3.________________________________________
4.________________________________________
5.________________________________________
Now, while we’re on the subject of forgetting…
The Second Commandment:
Thou Shalt Ignore More
It’s not often that I’ll give our male counterparts the nod in leading the way towards a more peaceful existence, particularly given that, if it weren’t for the men in our lives, peace might not seem like a foreign word to the majority of women. (Sorry, guys, but you do have a way of stirring things up.)
But when it comes to ignorance, I’ll admit, the guys have it. Men are experts at ignoring, and as a result, ignorance, a term which, although maligned, is really quite ingenious.
Before the fellas commence howling at the insult, hear me out. Ignoring more is a clear path to an unperturbed, serene life. Ignoring the majority of life’s bedlam makes for an outlook that remains steady, unaffected by emotional upheaval. Men are masters at tuning out emotional upheaval. Unless it involves a sporting event, you’ll rarely see a man with his Granny Panties in a bunch.
Consider the following scenario, which no doubt played out countless times in your home when your children were young. A kid is on the phone talking to a friend, with dad three feet away at the kitchen table. At some point, the kid says, “Wait a minute; I’ll go ask my mom,” at which time the child proceeds to scream “Mom!” at the top of his/her lungs to ask permission to “go to so-and-so’s house, see a movie, have people over, etc.”
Mom, wherever she is (usually in the bathroom), responds by screaming, “What? What do you want? I can’t hear you! What is it?”
Following ten minutes of shrieking, communication finally ensues, the question is answered, and everyone returns to the order of business as usual. Everyone, except, of course, dad, who has yet to stray from business as usual, or from the newspaper he is reading at the kitchen table. Dad, employing his expertise at ignoring both his screaming child and shrieking wife, has remained dedicated to his own pursuits, unperturbed by the goings-on around him.
Men develop this expertise early on in life, beginning as young boys, when they conveniently “don’t hear” ninety percent of what their mothers tell them. Studies have been done which maintain that men genuinely cannot hear many tones in the female vocal register, a claim to which my husband has clung desperately since we met. This “fact” has allowed men everywhere to regularly employ what my husband has come to refer to as the “Sergeant Schultz rule.”
Sergeant Schultz was the notoriously dense German soldier in charge of policing a wily bunch of World War II prisoners in the 1960’s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes. Colonel Hogan and his crew continually undermined the Germans’ operations by spying, intercepting German plans, and