Act Your Age, Astrid?!

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today’s topic for Sunday Poser is the idea of acting our age. Society expects us to act a certain way depending on our age – not just behave quite responsibly past our mid-twenties or so, but also to wear certain clothes, listen to certain music, enjoy certain activities, etc. depending on our age. Do we generally conform to that expectation? A quick read through the comments on Sadje’s original post gave me the impression that, no, we don’t. And I personally certainly don’t.

With respect to the responsible behavior part, I have to admit, unlike the other participants, that I’m very much a child – no, a toddler – at heart. I still have significant temper outbursts, for instance. In fact, on my thirtieth birthday, I had an intense outburst and was adamant that I could no longer have those in my thirties. Well, my brain wouldn’t listen. It’s said that my emotional developmental level is comparable in many ways to that of an infant or young toddler.

In other ways, I’m still a child at heart too. I love unicorns, going on the swings at the institution playground and stuffed animals. I even talk to my stuffed animals at times.

Then in other areas, I do act my age or even older. I’m not keen on using my phone when doing another activity and get annoyed when my staff get constantly distracted by text messages. I don’t really do social media except for Facebook (which probably makes me appear really old). It isn’t that I haven’t tried, but I was rather late to the party with most platforms.

Of course, the fact that I use the singular pronoun “I” here, is a bit misguided too, since we’re a plural system and there are parts of all ages. This is probably one of the reasons that I can talk to my stuffed animals happily one moment, have a temper tantrum the next and be involved in an “old-fashioned” hobby later. I do sometimes wonder whether my parts are genuine alters or whether something like internal family systems could help them too. Then again, I’m not in therapy, IFS or otherwise, anyway.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (February 15, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again joining the Wednesday HodgePodge today. Here goes.

1. Pantone’s color of the year for 2023 is Viva Magenta. Etsy’s color(s) of the year are indigo and honeycomb. Your thoughts? Would we find any of these three shades in your home or wardrobe? Is there a room in your house that needs painting this year? Will you do it yourself or hire out?
I don’t care for magenta and have no idea what color honeycomb is. I do love indigo. I do have magenta as a polymer clay color, but use it for mixing my own colors. For instance, I’m pretty sure magenta was in the color recipe for creating indigo I once read (although I’ve never tried it yet).

I have no idea whether any room in my and my husband’s house in Lobith needs painting. If it does, I guess my husband will do it.

2. Something you had to do recently that could be described “as exciting as watching paint dry”?
Try to condition my blue agate polymer clay. Though it was Fimo Soft, it was quite hard and crumbly. Doing the conditioning is a very repetitive process, which can be exciting if it yields results, but this time, it hardly did. I eventually gave up and chose another color.

3. Who would you most like to sit beside on a 10-hour flight? Tell us why? Have you ever taken a 10-hour flight?
My husband, of course. If I get bored of him talking about his latest special interest, I can just tell him I’m minding my own business and he won’t be disappointed. Oh wait, you can’t use mobile devices on flights. However, I can sleep on flights. Also, my husband would be the one I’d least easily get bored of sitting next to for ten hours anyway. I’ve never been on that long a flight. My longest (and first) one was 3 1/2 hours from Amsterdam to Moscow in 2000.

4. What’s something you did growing up that would get you into trouble?
Argue with my younger sister, throw temper tantrums, have meltdowns that were perceived as temper tantrums, engage in self-injurious behavior, but also general autistic weirdness. I’d get in trouble almost on a daily basis.

5. According to Google the top searches in 2022 were- Wordle, election results, Betty White, Queen Elizabeth, Bob Saget, Ukraine, Mega Millions, Powerball numbers, Anne Heche, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Hmmm…what does this say about us? How many of these words did you search last year? What would you guess was your most “googled” word/phrase/question?
I think it just says that we search for what’s in the news currently (mostly). I mean, Ukraine and Queen Elizabeth were and I guess the election results refer to some election somewhere (no idea where). I saw the Jeffrey Dahmer thing too and think it relates to a movie about him which came out last year. Never heard of any of the other things.

I didn’t Google any of these things myself but did click through to the Jeffrey Dahmer Wikipedia article when it was trending on there.

My most searched for phrase on Google, no idea. On YouTube, probably something like “polymer clay unicorn”.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
My husband and I went to Apeldoorn on Sunday. At Hema, which my husband claims is his favorite store, we saw alien-style cookie cutters. My husband suggested they may be useful for polymer clay, if a bit large. I said that if they’d come in a unicorn shape, I’d get them.

Then yesterday when we were on the phone, he told me my Valentine’s present hadn’t yet arrived. I didn’t even really expect one, but I told him his Valentine’s present would soon go into the oven, as I had indeed finally managed to craft something. He then went on to guess (jokingly) that I’d baked him unicorn cookies, a particular brand of cookies that aren’t unicorn-shaped at all but that we keep talking about since I got them in my Christmas hamper. He then told me that, if I’d make cookies with my Valentine’s present, they’d automatically turn into unicorn cookies. So my guess is he found me some unicorn-shaped cutters. How cool!

Generosity

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for #JusJoJan is “Generosity”. I don’t tend to think of myself as a particularly generous person. That would not only be arrogant, but it would be incorrect as well. Particularly as a child, I liked receiving more than I liked giving. I was a very jealous child, often envying my sister for what she got and I didn’t.

I remember one day, when my sister and her friends had been participating in the four-day walking event in my city. It was the last day of the event and I was allowed to walk with them for this occasion. At the finish line, a parent of one of my sister’s friends had lots of candy for my sister and her friends, but he had none for me. I had a full-on tantrum in the car home even though my sister and her friends ended up giving me more candy than they kept for themselves. It caused the oldest friend, a girl my age, to cry. I was ten at the time, so far too old for toddler tantrums like this. I feel intense shame about this incident as I look back, seeing that I should have known it wasn’t fair of me to expect candy since I hadn’t walked the entire event. Much less should I have tantrummed about it in the car.

Now that I’m an adult, I am a little less worried about material goods and a lot less jealous of others, but it still doesn’t come natural to me to give material things away. Thankfully, generosity comes in different ways and I do love expressing it in other ways. I love to create my own gifts for people. Yes, of course they are material too, but that feels different.

Still, I am often reminded of the Sesame Street episode in which Bert and Ernie have a cake and Ernie gives Bert the smaller slice. Bert teaches him that he’s supposed to offer Bert the larger slice first. Then Ernie asks: “So what would you do if you were to offer me the cake?” Then he replied he’d take the smaller slice and offer Ernie the larger slice. “But you have the smaller slice now, like you wanted!” Ernie objects. This is child logic and it is incorrect. It is not how we’re supposed to be generous. We are supposed to love others like ourselves. Others before ourselves, even.

I pray God leads me to a life of greater generosity. I know I am supposed to love others as myself and that includes giving generously of myself to others. Like I said yesterday, when I trust that God will provide for my needs, He will. As a follower of Christ, I have no need to worry. In the end, everything will work out okay.