I was standing in the kitchen of a friend and fellow football mom, we were putting together gift bags for the football player banquet and cleaning up from the homecoming party the night before, we were reminiscing about football and all the senior year activities of the prior week. Our boys have played together since 4th grade, it had been a busy, emotionally taxing week, senior player/parent dinner, last football game (EVER) for both our boys, senior acknowledgment before the game, homecoming dance, football awards banquet … and all the while they had been in the throes of college applications. It was A LOT. Right then she got a phone call, that one of her four children had just gotten in a car accident. She was okay, thankfully. My friend looked up after hanging up and said … “Well, as my mom used to say … ‘A lot goes on’”. I said, “please say that again”, she replied “a lot goes on …” in her best southern drawl 😘. I interpreted it as kind of the southern bell* equivalent of “shit happens”, I loved it so much, because YES sometimes, whether neutral or all bad or all good or a little bit of both … A LOT GOES ON!
“In those windows was everything—hope, sadness, loss, triumph, sex, betrayal. Everywhere was love and everywhere was death.”
“He breathed in, and he breathed out. It was happy, and it was sad. It was good, and it was bad.”**
Life happens. Shit happens.
And it happens a lot.
To a lot of people.
― Colleen Hoover
“A LOT GOES ON“ … it’s such a great response, perhaps even a “mantra” to have that as as your thought or remark vs. “this sucks”, “this is the best”, “this is the worst”, “this is too much” … simply put “a lot goes on” and you can take it for what it is, frankly most of the time life is what it is … the name of my blog is “this is how it always is” because I find myself saying those words a lot. Even the things that you think are terrible or fantastic, “how can this be happening?”, “seriously!? not this again?”, “that’s fabulous!” whether good or bad … chances are if you look back in history, even just the history of your own life or those you know, people have always gone through similar life events, the details may be different and some experiences are worse and some better, but at the end of the day “this is how it always is” … “A LOT GOES ON”. Personally I am grateful for all of it! (at least most of it, most of the time😘).
*“Southern belle’s are a true God givin gift to the world, and if your a northern transplant, well just bless your heart, fake it! We all know that you got here as fast as you could!”
**”Fleishman Is in Trouble: A Novel” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
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Published by shannbenn50
First a little bit about me ... I'm going to be 50 in about 5 minutes, I've been married for 20 years and have two incredibly great teenagers, (albeit incredibly moody). I am a Capricorn and I'd say 99% Capricorn. I do yoga everyday and my husband says "for someone who does ("practices" is the correct term FYI ; yoga everyday you're awfully high strung", my response is "can you imagine me if I didn't do yoga everyday"? and his response is "I'd be scared"! I've been told by a number of people that I need to lower my expectations of people because then I won't constantly be disappointed. My husband says he tries to have zero expectations and then sometimes he's pleasantly surprised. :) Which is really great advice and may work for him but I'm having a hard time with it, and I don't want to lower my expectations, I want people to rise to my expectations (someone said to me the other day "who died and made you God")? So I've been "practicing" this mantra "lower your expectations, be more forgiving and compassionate & understanding" it has maybe worked a tiny bit. And then I came across this quote while in the throes of being disappointed by others "There is no good way or bad way. And the sooner we let go of expectations about how things are supposed to go, the happier we get to be." Which I wrote down and put in my nightstand from a book I read called "The Divorce Party" by Laura Dave. So I texted my friend that quote, who also has high expectations of people and who is also constantly let down and I said "perhaps my mother is right, she told me I have really high expectations of myself and so I think everyone else should be the same and they're not, so the sooner I accept that the better". And my friend's response was? "Lies, all lies! Of course there is a good way and a bad way, the GOOD way is OUR way"! For better or for worse I have to say I agree! "What is wrong with people?" was going to be the title of my blog because I constantly find those words coming out of my mouth ... but this "blog" has morphed into something else because it turned out I actually have a lot of positive good things to say and share about people, I shocked myself, so therefore I changed the title and the direction of my "blog/website" ... my initial emoji I was going to use was
😩
But now the one I want to use is
❤️
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This is how it always is, or at least how I think it should be ... by shannon bennett 