Filters and family secrets.

 I wrote this awhile ago.  Just after our first cold snap, if that gives you a time frame.  It doesn't me because I can't remember what I had for lunch day before yesterday.  At the time, I don't know, it didn't fit my mood, match my outfit, whatever.  But I reread it and if feels a little like New Year's thinking so I'm going to throw it up there.  And get it out of the draft file.  I dislike the draft file.  No closure there.  Unfinished bidness.  I like to cross things off  my list man!


Have a great, fabulous, wonderful, New Year's Eve!!!!  However you define that.  Go out, stay in or maybe like my family...zigzag your neighborhood street in below freezing weather for a progressive dinner to be followed by one of my favorite things...a white elephant gift exchange!  I love my neighbors!!!!!


xoxo
~S

Replaced your heater's filter lately?  Me neither.  But we should.  It got good and cold last night and this morning I had the pleasure of flipping the thermostat to heat.  Ahhh.  It felt good.  Real good.  Tomorrow's high? 56. 

But that's not really the filter I'm talking about.  I'm talking about your personal filter.  Do you have one?  Should you?  Could you?  Would you?  Last week I was reading a friend of a friend's blog...and she was lamenting the lack of filter on the current generation.  It's one of her big ick's about facebook.  And blogs.  Although she has a blog.  I think she has a point, though.  Of course, I have never had much of a filter.  If you know me, you know.  I wear my life pretty publicly.  I always had up until I hit around 40.  Something about that age made me think I should evaluate, reconsider, shake things up a bit.  I sent my good friend Lisa a list of things not to be done after 40.  Like wearing t-shirts with writing.

I also began to try to be discreet.  That was my code word.  Discreet = elegant, mysterious, reserved, graceful.  Problem with that?  I'm just not.  My husband, however, is the epitome of discreet.  It's in his nature.  He couldn't wear his heart on his sleeve if he tried.  And I can't not wear mine on my sleeve.

You know what I ended up with, in this effort to age gracefully?  A big, fat, compartmentalized life.  Ugh.  I just can't do it.  And I don't want to.  A few months ago, I got out a box cutter and went to town.  All my life I have been blessed with exceptional friends who love me, come what may.  All discreet and compartmentalized?  Not so much.  Sure a couple have emerged.  People who stuck.  But for the most part?...nah.  Once the other parts of me seeped into the box they were comfortable in...they were out.  That's okay.  I've learned.  Maybe they have too.  I don't know.  We don't talk too much anymore.

But I know who I am, and so do you.  If you're still here...wow!  You rock.  If you can't handle the redhead, don't let the door hit ya'.  No malice.  It's just that I don't have the inclination to worry about it.  And so is the friend of a friend right about the lack of filter being a problem?  A threat to civil society as we know it?  I don't think so.  I think that fb and blogs are pretty much about the person writing them.  It's the nature of the beast.  Whether you spend your time in their world - is about you and your own personal filter.  Take some responsibility.  Only invite into your life that which blesses you.  If it doesn't fit, don't wear it.  Should we have filters?  Sure.  Filter what you decide to spend time and energy on.  Don't be so worried about what someone else is doing.

And family secrets?  I'm not a fan.  I grew up with a few doozies.  Let's just say revisiting and re-evaluating your childhood as an adult armed with formerly withheld information...not so much fun.  But because I do have a bit of a filter, there's no need to air all the dirty laundry.

Just don't wear t-shirts with writing on them past 40.

xoxo
~S