How I Changed My Mind

About Life

I can’t imagine I am any different than anybody else, although, in the first fifty years of my life, I would have been hard-pressed to say so.

For instance, when I was younger and full of life, I could easily tie my shoes and run around the block. I wanted to write. I wanted to dazzle. I wanted to make people cry at the heart-felt stories I would write. And then, somebody said writers write about what they know about.

I didn’t know anything. Yes, I’d lived in a bunch of places. Yes, I’d experienced heart-breaking, poignant romances. I’d even been raped, but I wouldn’t actually know about it until another five years had gone by. I just kept thinking over and over again, “Well, that happened. It was your fault anyway, so okay.”

Yes, I kept trying to write, but what did I know? I doubted I had experienced anything another living, breathing person on this planet wanted to know about.

So, I got a job. It was boring. It was all day. I did learn some things, like how to act in an office. It was way different than acting at home. People were polite to me. They said please. Nobody yelled at me. Nobody made me feel like I was a failure. So, yes, I did enjoy work. But it was boring. I’d rather be reading. But I was an adult by then. Eventually, a good thirty years into the future, I did learn to enjoy my boring time at work. It was good work. Certainly, it was a different job, but I began to understand that I was helping with the work I did. It gradually became satisfying.

I can remember being concerned that I wasn’t like other women my age. I was not fashion-conscious. I dressed like a nun. Lots of navy blue. Lots of skirts that went below my knee. Besides, I’d been raped. I didn’t want to invite that again. I wore sensible shoes. I still do. Otherwise, I can’t walk very well. But that came with old age.

Eventually, I got married when I was 21 years old. I’m still married to the same guy after 47 years. We’re very happy together. We’re both writers. My husband has a lot of education behind him. I have a by-the-seat-of-your-pants education. My school years were strange for me — thirteen schools in twelve years. Sometimes, I feel dumber than dirt.

I can remember a relative on my father’s side I met once. I believe he was probably as bipolar as my father, but that’s neither here nor there. It could be why I don’t know anybody from that side of the family. From the brief interactions my siblings have had with them, they are all mean as snakes. Anyway, I can’t even remember the guy’s name. But I remember him taking up the entire couch as he sat in my mother’s living room. Dad was in Saudi Arabia at the time, so he wasn’t there. But I remember this guy sitting in the middle of the couch with his arms lying on the back of the couch. Taking up all that space. Appearing big, mean, and important. He said to me, “Your marriage will never last. You don’t have enough education.” I had to be polite. I had been married for seven years, and being polite was a part of me. I have no idea if I said anything to him. Perhaps I said, “Thank you”.

Relatives. No, thank you.

So, I started this story thinking of how I began to change my mind about my concept of life. Starting out, I did have advantages. I had a family. A lot of people don’t. There were expectations that I tried to meet, both socially and with education. I did get to hear the story about how my mother changed majors at least seven times in college because my grandfather said he would never pay for her to become an interior decorator, which is what she really wanted to do. Then, of course, there was my father with his story, repeated often, of how women only go to college to get married.

I don’t know if you’ve made it this far, but this is turning into one of those stories that is really hard to write. Real hard. Maybe I didn’t have all the advantages I thought I did.

Once the relatives started dying off, you would have thought the problem would have been solved. I can’t forget what they said. It’s a little more problematic now because I can still talk to them. I’m a psychic channel. I do have to say that they are all a whole lot more polite and understanding than they were as living, breathing human beings. And, of course, everything that happens to a person, whether it is joyous or heartbreaking, is a part of their life lessons. And life lessons are important.

One of the things I’ve started doing is reading the student workbook of A Course in Miracles again. I’m on lesson five today. It’s short. All of the 365 lessons are short. The first time I read through the book, huge changes happened to me. Life-changing changes. It’s time to do it again. I am only 68 years old. It’s never too late.

Lesson five is: “I am never upset for the reasons I think.” Three or four times during the course of the day, keeping in mind the lesson for the day, you say, “I am not angry at _____ for the reason I think.” Or you can say, “I am not afraid of ______ for the reason I think.”

I just realized that the book is also available in an audio form on the website. I need that. Sometimes, I can’t concentrate, and reading and hearing at the same time are helpful to me.

So, in the end, I can only tell you that I’ve changed. I’m different now than I was when I was 27 years old. I think of myself as the new and improved model of Pauline. I can write. I am able to be optimistic more often. I understand bad stuff happens, but I can learn from that. I can forgive people. At least, I can try.

People say when they are young, “Never change. Please, always be the same person you are now.” I didn’t know then what I know now. It’s always changing, and yet, it’s always staying the same.

Thanks for reading. I’ll write another story again about this. It appears I’m not done yet. There is more to talk about.

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