5 minutes/day

Here's a true-life tale about a gal and her digital timer. I was complaining to my shrink that I am forever lazy, lack discipline and can't get out of my own way. That instead of attacking one of the BIG things in my life that needs doing -- sorting and parting with books, cleaning out the closets, exercising -- all I do is fart around on the internet and nap. And my self loathing grows.

She suggested I get a timer and set it for five minutes each day. Just five minutes.  

Five minutes spent on my books. Five minutes spent doing steps on my lateral thigh trainer. Five minutes organizing paperwork that I've let build up. 

In December, I'm supposed to bump it up to 7 minutes a day. Then 10 in January.

It sounded silly when she suggested it. Five minutes? I mean, really!

Maybe I don't know better than everyone about everything. Maybe she did something to earn all those letters after her name.

It works! It makes whatever I'm about to tackle feel manageable, feel doable. It makes me happy. And I'm seeing an improvement in my overstuffed den.

She's sorry

My aunt is a Trumper, and very outspoken about it. Four years ago, it caused a rift between her and her oldest son and grandchildren that still hasn't healed. Her son (my cousin) has a hard time accepting that his mother is "a racist homophobe." I can see why he's disheartened, but I still refuse to believe it. Before he was born, when my aunt was still living at home with my grandparents, she had President Kennedy's photo in a frame in her bedroom. I insist on believing that if she ever watched anything but Fox or read a newspaper, she wouldn't be aggrieved and angry 24/7 and would regain a compassionate, real world perspective. At any rate, I have gotten around this problem by simply refusing to engage with her on politics.

I quit following her on Facebook months ago. I stay in contact with her, via email, but I stopped acknowledging or even looking at her social media feed. I assumed she had stopped looking at mine.

Well, last week I found that wasn't true. After Joe Biden hit 270, I opined that our (current) President is really not interested in a free and fair election. He is only interested in winning. I reasoned that his own election night criteria for questioning PA's results -- that Philadelphia is known for corruption and Pennsylvania is is run by Democrats -- also applies to FL. That state's results were also very close. It's not like corruption is unknown in Miami-Dade, and Ron DeSantis is such a Trump loyalist that Don Jr. gives him regular shout outs on Twitter. Why isn't he insisting on a second look at FL then? Oh, yeah, because Trump won FL. 

My aunt was livid. She thought I was saying that Florida's vote was "rigged." I wasn't. I don't think it was. I don't think Pennsylvania's was, either. My point is that our President is completely self serving and self interested.

She told me I "need to take this down." Um ... no. I really don't. She lectured me. She was unhinged and unreasonable. I didn't delete her comments, but I hid them. I didn't want my friends challenging her. That would not go well.

We went a week without contact. She may be my aunt and godmother, but on some level, we are both just women and she has no right to speak to me that way. I don't speak to her that way. I don't scroll up and down her Facebook feed and dress her down.

Today she reached out to tell me how excited she is about my birthday present. She tagged me on a jokey Facebook post about grammar. 

She is telling me, in her own way, that she's sorry. I accept it. I don't need to hear the words.

I wonder how many other families Trump has divided. 

I hope that, once we have a gentleman back in the Oval Office, we will be able to disagree again without the fury of the Trump years. I think his all-caps Tweets just overheat everything.