Everybody hurts. But hold on.

"Abuse is abuse." That's what my shrink said 20 years ago when I was getting panic attacks so bad that I was afraid go to work or leave my house.

I was in my mid-30s. Everything was going great. My life was amazingly wonderful. Great marriage, great job, great friends, travelling and enjoying life. Why did this hit me now? What could possibly make me so afraid that I was unable to function?

Things got so bad that I had no choice but to go to a psychologist. I dreaded telling my story. I had pushed it down into my gut for so long. I feared telling someone about it for fear it would consume me.

And it did for a while. I remember getting into my car and playing REM's Everybody Hurts on the way home from the shrink. Sobbing into my steering wheel, barely able to see through the tears as I drove in rush hour traffic. But when I got to the end of the song where Michael Stipe sings, "Everybody hurts sometimes/So, hold on, hold on...", I felt better. I would hold on and get through this. 

Verbal and emotional abuse, though it doesn't leave a scar that you can point to as proof of your pain, is no less real or painful. That's the first thing I learned from Peggy, my psychologist who listened to my story and held my pain and fear with me for 50 minutes each week. 

I got through this emotionally exhausting three years of my life feeling stronger every day. I was worth more than the words that were spit out at me by the abuser in my life. I deserved to be treated with the respect I earned. 

I learned that love doesn't come with a jagged edge if it truly is love. 

Every year in the high school youth group I facilitate at my church, I spend a Sunday morning exploring the topic of bullying. It usually centers around school-related bullying but I think this year we'll talk about bullying by people who say they care about you.

It happens in families and with those who call themselves friends. People can tell you they love you while still treating you like you are the reason for their own vile souls. 

Abuse is abuse. All it takes to remove its power is for someone to name it.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Ever since search engines were invented, I've searched (now "googled") every question I've ever had. "What does a poison ivy rash look like?" "Why did The Ohio Players break up?" "Who invented meringue?" 

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's not knowing the answer to a question. That kind of stuff used to keep me up at night as I searched the memory banks of my brain. And once I thought I had the answer, there was no way to verify it quickly. 

I used to go to libraries and search books there so I could get a missing factoid out of my head once and for all. Searching a library in the old days meant sifting through little cards, writing down questionable cross-referenced book titles and locations, then searching the stacks for what you hoped was the book that held the magic answer. Oftentimes, it did not. Or it was checked out. Or it was only a step in a long feather-strewn goose chase.

One of the reasons I turned into a decent business systems analyst years ago was this constant quest for answers. And not just the answers, but the quest for relevant, probing questions as well. Search engines, then, became my best cyber friends.

But there are some things that Google cannot answer. 

I'm at the point in my life where things are getting more complicated. Family members' health issues, uncertainty about retirement and my own aging, and complicated relationships are just a few of those things. I thought life would get simpler as I became solidly entrenched in mid-life but that doesn't seem to be happening. The wisdom I gained in the past 50ish years did not prepare me for some of life's current challenges.

There are nights when I can't get myself off the couch and into bed because I want a little space in my head to think things through. Oftentimes, I find myself reaching for the MacBook and turning my gaze to the empty Google search box.

My cursor goes there and blinks at me as if to taunt me. "Go ahead. Try to google that one!" And I try. Entering words and phrases that yield some information. Yet information is not the same as answers.

I want to put my hands and head around a solid, proven approach to whatever personal mess I'm tangled up in. I sometimes get frustrated with my lack of answers on the web, trying even more to find the right words that will yield breadcrumbs leading my way out of the mid-life woods. I found myself getting angry that Google couldn't tell me when the pancreatic cancer would finally take my mother from me.

One of the Kathyisms I've got stored in my repertoire is, "You can't know everything." I've said that to others who have searched in vain for answers to life's elusive spiritual questions. But I have a hard time following my own words of wisdom.

In a world that has turned answers into a billion-dollar product, the priceless answers are nowhere to be found.

Eddie Van Mozart

Music is a fairly common theme on this blog. It was huge to my mother and she passed that down to her kids. Old musicals, piano lessons, guitar lessons, stereo always on while she dusted. It is so huge to me now that no matter how loud it is in whatever venue I'm at or how wonderful the conversation is that I'm involved in, I always hear the music over anything else.

Ron and I have a zillion CDs, tapes and albums. We know all of the songs and most of the words. Music speaks to us in a way it does to countless others but not everyone is as connected to the meaning of music as we are.

This week, I brought up Van Halen to Ron and we reminisced about the band. Ron dug up the Greatest Hits CD for me and I've been listening to it all week in the car.

The first half of the CD is the Diamond Dave days and the second half is mostly Sammy. There's a constant dialogue among Van Halen fans about what version of the band was better. It seems the vast majority likes the cheeky days with David Lee Roth.

Dave was and is a bit of a musical and social clown. He wore the front man costume with great ease. He is very very bright and articulate during interviews but is a complete nut on stage and in the popular videos from the 1984 album that kept them in heavy rotation on MTV (when MTV actually played videos.)

Personally, I like both versions of Van Halen equally. The band changed when Dave left to start a solo career (which didn't last long) and Sammy Hagar came on board. I liked Hagar and thought he'd be a different but great addition to the band.

While listening to the band's greatest hits it became clear just how much better musically the band became when Sammy came on board. Lyrically the songs ditched the girl-chasing themes and started talking more about true love and other important things in life.

Musically Eddie's keyboard work became almost as important as his guitar god status. The melodies were more complex, the harmonies were richer, the mixing became more robust. 

I've always thought the song Right Now was the best song Van Halen ever wrote and produced. In fact, upon listening to it a few times this week, I would like to say it is one of the best songs ever written.

The video won all major awards at the MTV video awards that year. Watch it once because it's great stuff. Then "watch" it again with your eyes close. You cannot adequately hear the musical creation while watching the video.

I found it interesting that Eddie Van Halen and then-wife Valerie Bertinelli named their son Wolfgang. Eddie is a huge Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart fan (as am I) and I often think that Mozart would have been blaring Right Now in 1991 - the year that Wolfgang Van Halen was born, Right Now was released, and the music world marked the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death.

The song's opening is a simple yet fast-moving piano solo that winds its way through the song at different points. My favorite work by Mozart is his piano concertos. They are often very light-hearted pieces with great "hooks" and playful melodies.

There are those who will disagree with me, but I believe that some of my generation's music is on the same level as Mozart's concertos. 

Eddie, in his heydey, was the Mozart of the rock world. I wonder while I'm listening to Van Halen's songs again if 200 years from now another Amadeus will break onto the music scene and name his son Eddie. 

An open letter to Market Basket

Dear Market Basket owners,

I hear that you're opening a new and larger store in Westford soon. I really like your lower prices and friendly employees but must that come at the price of a poor shopping experience? Given that you have the opportunity to have a fresh start, I would like to make some suggestions.

• Can you please tell your grocery managers that the absolute worst time to pull large wooden dollies out into your incredibly narrow aisles is Thursday afternoons and Fridays? These are the busiest shopping times during the work week and shoppers can't get around the dollies and the stock personnel.
• Speaking of aisles, is it possible to have wide enough ones that allow two shopping carriages to pass with more than an inch between them? How about allowing for a couple of feet so that shoppers don't have to move other shoppers' carriages if they happen to leave said carriages in the middle of the aisle as they look for something on the shelf?
• Is there a reason for the orange stickers that you instruct your cashiers to put on everything that isn't in a bag? I've never had anyone stop me on the way out to look for these stickers. It is an incredible waste of everyone's time and energy, and a sad waste of natural resources. How about dropping the practice to gain efficiency and contribute towards a greener planet?
• And while I'm on the subject of bags, if I give your bagger six reusable shopping bags and ask him to keep the bags light, can you tell him not to jam everything into four bags with the heaviest items in one bag and the lightest stuff in the other three? I have to stand at my car in all types of weather and re-bag everything so I can lift my groceries into my trunk and carry them into my house.
• I've heard from several cashiers that they are not allowed to have bottled water at their stations. Really? Why? I'm not liking what that says about your HR policies. Let's keep the "human" in Human Resources, shall we? I'd hate to stop shopping at your store like I did at Walmart because of employee treatment issues.
• Since every other supermarket gives up to $200 for cashback on debits, do you think your $50 limit needs a competitive reality check?
• This is a pet peeve but I still feel compelled to share it: Your in-store music is great but the guy who voices the recorded ads that punctuate it needs a better script. The "Hey, folks" and "Listen to this" lines do not make me feel like I'm being spoken to by something other than a recording. Do you think your customers are fooled by that? 

Thanks for letting me take the time to offer a shopper's perspective. I look forward to your new store and hope that some of these questions can be discussed by your staff at all of your stores.

Oh, and hey, folks! Listen to this! If anyone would like to add their own comments to this blog post, be my guest!

Perfect is overrated

Being perfect is such a lot of work. I've been trying to be perfect all my life and this weekend I learned that perfect's really not all it's cracked up to be.

Take, for example, the definition of perfect. Webster's has a few:

a) being entirely without fault or defect;
b) satisfying all requirements;
c) corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept;
d) faithfully reproducing the original;
e) legally valid

As far as a) goes, I've got a few defects. And I'm rather attached to them. I have a birthmark on my right arm that kids (being kids) tormented me about when I was in grade school. My aunt Muriel told me to tell those kids that a birthmark meant I was kissed by an angel and that pretty much ended that discussion.

When it comes to satisfying requirements (b), I gotta tell ya that John Mellencamp wrote The Authority Song with me in mind. I will meet requirements all day long until I bump up against one that makes no sense. I can only do sense. I'm an ENTJ (Myers-Briggs type) and that's how I'm wired.

If c) could tell me whose ideal I must correspond to, I think I might have something to say about that as well. See b) above.

And d) makes absolutely no sense to me. If it's a reproduction it is therefore not an original and can't possibly be perfect. And who says the original is perfect to begin with?

Legally valid? If it's listed way down at the bottom of the list, I'm thinking it's just asking to be ignored.

Nope. Perfect is not something I want to be. Too restrictive, too dependent on other people's ideas of perfection. 

Now "colorful". That's something I could do.

After Brittany

Brit with one of her many "bunnies"

I believe in an after-life. There, I said it. It's not anything traditional like a heaven in the clouds. It's a feeling more than anything else.

Sitting on my couch today surfing the net, my nose woke up as I sensed a dog in the room. It was unmistakable - the familiar doggie smell of a wet mouth that just lapped up the water in the bowl; a whiff of dog fur that is due for a bath.

My dog Brittany has been gone for a year and a half now. She was the best dog on the planet. And I told her that every day. 

She was my constant companion, even in the shower. She didn't like closed doors between us so I would leave the bathroom door partly open so she could come in when she wanted to as I showered.

I'd be in the shower lost in my to-do list for the day and I'd hear the familiar slamming of the door against the bathroom wall. Within seconds, I would look to the end of the shower and see a brown and white nose poking itself around the shower curtain. That was it. Just a nose.

That nose would disappear in a matter of seconds and I would finish my shower. Brit never needed to see me to know I was there. She connected with me using all of her senses.

It's lonely all day in my house without my forever pal. Sometimes I miss her more than I do my own mother. We had a great run, me and Brit. But like all great things, it ended too soon.

People ask me when Ron and I will get another dog. I often say that I'm not ready. That it's too much money and work and, ultimately, sadness. My life is focused on caring for an elderly parent now and I'm sort of caretaker-ed out.

The truth though, buried deep beneath the credit card statement and protestations, is that the only dog I want is Brit. She's here still and this is her home. 

Like Brit, I don't need to see her to know she is here. And I'd rather live with her spirit, full and strong, than diminish it with another's scent.

Our common experience

Once in a while I splurge on myself and get a spa pedicure. I only do this in the summer since I live in cowboy boots the rest of the year and no one sees my feet in public.

There's a place in nearby Chelmsford where I've been going for the past year. I like the nail technicians there and the owner is very customer-oriented.

Every time I go I get looks from other women who are having their nails done. At first I thought it was because I talk too loud while chatting with the nail tech over running water. Maybe people go there to relax and tune-out and I'm just a major disruption.

But there was something else that became more noticeable in my time there. No one but me (and my friend Jan who came with me once) spoke to the nail techs who were working on their feet and legs.

The nail techs and owner are Cambodian. Some speak better English than others. And although I don't think there is prejudice involved (though I am a bit of a Polyanna in that regard) I think people are uncomfortable communicating with those who don't speak English as their primary language.

The nail techs try to start conversations with their customers but the customers don't seem comfortable carrying on those conversations past the initial answer. 

The tech I had last week was a bright and ambitious young college student named Lin. We talked about school, learning English, her family, her dreams. We laughed a lot even though I had to ask her to repeat a sentence a few times because I wasn't understanding her. She was more than happy to speak again slowly and our conversation continued.

At one point, she spoke to her boss in their native language but immediately told me what they said and stated that she really doesn't like doing that in front of people who don't speak the language. It was incredibly insightful and respectful. I was so impressed with her and her desire to start her own business when she graduates.

The entire time I was there (40 minutes) I did not see one other customer even attempt to have a conversation with the person at the end of their feet. Noses were buried in magazines and cellphones.  

I wondered how you could have another human doing something so personal as nail techs do and not reach out in a human way. It was almost like the woman at the end of their feet was a non-being. 

Was it all about being uncomfortable as I suspected? If so, I hope that someday they make the effort to do the difficult thing and engage in conversation. 

I left Lin a great tip but that shouldn't be the only thing she goes home with. I hope others who were there stretch themselves next time and work through their inhibitions. 

How else are we to create a sense of dignity and commonality in the melting pot that is America?