Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Category: Inspirational Stuff

  • Are You Comfortable Being Deaf/Hard of Hearing?

    “My son has some issues with being hard of hearing,” a mom recently shared with me. I glanced at her son. He seemed ill at ease.

    I nodded.

    And I understood.

    Because you see, I was in that kid’s shoes many years ago. I grew up hard of hearing and when I received a hearing aid at the age of nine, I rebelled. I didn’t want anything to do with it. Frankly, I didn’t need it. I was fine, thankyouverymuch.

    I wore it during school hours, partly because I was told that I had to and partly because it made things louder, not necessarily clearer–but louder. I was embarassed about that hearing aid. I hated it. I hid it. That piece of plastic reminded me that I was different from my peers. That I stood out. So I did my best to blend in. I wore my hair down. I smiled and nodded and laughed along with jokes and conversations that I either caught snippets of or had no clue at all what was being said. When confronted with the idea that I was hard of hearing, I responded with, “Oh, sometimes I can’t hear what you say.” Never mind that I was lipreading to comprehend conversation, as I had little ability to understand words via auditory means alone.

    So I understood where that mom was coming from, and I understood that feeling of being uncomfortable. I wrote about Embracing the Identity of Being Deaf or Hard of Hearing previously. Ironically, just this weekend, I came across two articles that talk about learning to accept being hard of hearing:

    From Mail Online/Disability Alert, Liz Jones shares her experience of finally labeling her hearing loss and coming to terms with it:

    I received some bad news two weeks ago. After years of refusing to accept I had a problem with my hearing, I finally decided to go to a clinic and find out the worst, which is that I have, at best, 30 per cent hearing in each ear.

    It was weird, hearing (if that’s the right word) that I am officially disabled or impaired.

    But I suppose I can at last tell people I am hard of hearing – which hopefully they will understand and make allowances for – rather than doing what I have been doing up until now, which is to try to appear normal.

    This has only made people – friends, colleagues on the phone, shop assistants and so on – think I am merely mad, rude or eccentric.

    I first noticed I had a problem at school. I could barely follow what the teachers were saying, although they never seemed to notice.

    I avoided parties and school discos because I could never join in the conversation. I would just stand there looking awkward.

    Over at the Dallas News, Jeanna Mead shares her experience of “coming out of the closet” about being hard of hearing:

    This is a hard column to write – I have to let go of years, decades, of hiding my hearing loss, and now I am about to “come out of the closet,” so to speak. I am hearing-impaired, practically deaf – but that is only part of the story.

    That is not who I am; I define myself by so many other things, and way, way, way down on the bottom of the list is “hearing impaired.”

    I lost my hearing when I was 4, which explains why my speech is so good, but I have to give credit where credit is due; my Mema worked tirelessly to coach me to speak correctly, holding my hand to her throat while repeating words over and over until I could say them the right way.

    It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized there were hearing people in this world who could not pronounce Mexia, Rowlett, Louisiana, Tawakoni or even “congratulations.”

    Getting comfortable being deaf and hard of hearing is often a journey and over at Tania Says, Tania Karas shares a life-changing day that occured when she stepped into a deaf classroom for the first time:

    Hale has a pretty big deaf program, spanning from preschool until 8th grade. The students have a wide range of hearing loss. All use sign, but all use their voices as well. The classrooms are unbelievably deaf-friendly; there is one teacher for every 3-4 students, a combination of sign and speech, resource and speech pathology teachers, and a whole bunch of kids who just understood each other. I had never seen a deaf classroom before, so this was all like a dream world to me. Communication just flowed so seamlessly, much unlike the constant confusion I have encountered all my life in mainstream/”hearing” classrooms.

    But what got me the most was that these kids were happy. They had crazy-colored ear molds and bright cochlear implants on display for the whole world to see. The philosophy behind the instruction at Hale was to take pride in one’s deafness. The students’ hearing loss was just a small part of their vibrant personalities – when I saw them in class, I didn’t think “deaf kids,” I thought “happy kids.” And I kinda wanted to be like them.

    And that’s what I wish for every deaf and hard of hearing child or adult– to become so comfortable with being deaf or hard of hearing that you’re happy as well.

  • What I Learned from my Homebirth

    On Sunday, we celebrated my youngest’s son’s birthday. Eleven years. How time zips by.  Every year on his birthday, I always think back to his birth.

    I didn’t plan a homebirth at first.  I had my two other kids via cesarean.  Lauren’s birth was especially hard, because I had hoped to birth her naturally, but ended up consenting to be induced.  Post-partum depression reared its ugly head and I was fortunate to find a support group to help me through it.

    While attending the support group, I learned that several other moms had given birth at home.  One mom had two cesareans like me. 

    Homebirth?  Nah.  That was far too radical for me.  I was a good follower.  I dutifully took my kids to the pediatrician and followed the schedule for vaccinations.  I read the books on what to expect when pregnant.  I went for the epidural and the pitocin hook-ups each time.

    Then a little surprise–the lines turned pink on the plastic stick, the result of a New Year’s Eve party that we had at our house.  A welcome surprise though, as we had planned to have a third child down the road.

    While attending the support group, I began to dive into books about birth.  My friend Beth had briefly contemplated a homebirth and she handed over Sheila Kitzinger’s Homebirth for me to read.  The more I read, the more people that I talked to about homebirth, the stronger the feeling began to grow inside of me that I wanted to have a homebirth.

    And I did.  It was an amazing time, in more ways than one.  But I also ended up being induced at home, consenting to something that I didn’t really know I was consenting to.  Steven’s homebirth turned into a story that was published in Don’t Cut Me Again. 

    Birthing at home wasn’t so much the life changing event as making the decision to have a homebirth.  I was torn between doing what society perceived as safe (birthing in the hospital) and doing what my instinct was leading me toward.  Did I have the courage to break the status quo?  Did I have the courage to look within and make a decision that that felt right to me (and my husband), despite others telling me I shouldn’t? 

    Making the decision was a liberating moment for me. 

    When decisions come from within us and are not influenced by outside factors, we hold ourselves responsible for the outcomes.  We own the decisions with more rights than we could have if we allowed someone else to influence us. 

    So tell me, have you faced a moment in your life that shaped the way you make decisions?


  • In a Funk? Grab Some Friends

    I had been in a funk for the last two weeks. A gawd-awful funk. Last week, I whined about writer’s block over on Twitter. At a family gathering recently, even a relative mentioned how boring my recent posts had become. My reaction was simply to shrug.

    The house had been slipping over the summer. I couldn’t remember the last time I mopped the floor. (Mom, cover your eyes.) In the last two weeks, I struggled to maintain some sense of order as the kids went back to school. I woke up each morning with a horrible attitude of, who cares? Friends didn’t really know, or notice, because they assumed that I was busy at the desk, hammering away at blog posts and articles.

    The only time I found some joy was barreling down the lake at full throttle on the jet ski. Speed, glorious speed took the edge off and set my heart beating with excitement. Ah yes, the jet ski– the midlife solution to a crisis.

    I sent out an email to my BookHands club. How’s everyone doing, I wondered. Anything to start up some conversation– to connect during a time when I wasn’t really connecting with anyone. One by one, they chimed in with updates. I didn’t realize it, but my replies didn’t really reveal anything that was going on with me. The funk had me too buried to notice. One of the BookHands gals dragged it right out of me. “Karen, I don’t know if u’re aware of this. But lately in most of your emails you pepper people with questions, but don’t volunteer any information about yourself or day to day experiences. We sincerely care about you and want to know what u’re up to.”

    So I unloaded. ” I’ve been in a gawd-awful funk for the last two weeks. It isn’t depression, it’s what I call ‘in the rut’ feeling. Seth Godin calls it ‘The Dip.’ I call it a “I don’t give a rotten crap” feeling. It’s where you let everything go and then feel overwhelmed and have no idea what to tackle and at the same time, you don’t care about tackling anything. Ack.”

    And as it turned out, others were struggling too. The Life Plateau. Emails shot back and forth. Suggestions. Tips. Support.

    And I began to feel better. Things began to shift and change.

    I woke up and recited five things that I was grateful for. I started the day with some light yoga. One of the BookHands gals chided me for not having some heart pumping exercise in my routine. So this week, that’s on my agenda.

    Other things happened– I reconnected with the Loopies– a group of online friends that began eight years ago. We met through AOL’s Home VS Hospital Birth Forum. Some of them are grandmas now. It was a wonderful blast through the past to reconnect and see how everyone is doing. It made me aware that time is marching on–much faster than I’d like it to.

    There’s a lesson here– for all of us to reach out to one another, most especially during the low times when we feel most alone.

    After all, that’s what friends are for.

  • Dave Freeman–A Man Halfway to His Goal

    Dave Freeman.

    Does the name ring a bell?

    It didn’t for me.  But yesterday, while reading the Chicago Tribune before dinner, I saw an article titled “Author of Quirky ‘100 Things’ Guide.”

    Dave Freeman co-authored the book, 100 Things to Do Before You Die with Neil Teplica.  In the book, the two of them listed exciting travel events; and together, they had done about half of them. 

    But yesterday, I wasn’t just reading an article– I was reading his obituary.  Dave had slipped and hit his head on a glass ledge in his home.  He was only 47 years old.

    The New York Daily News reported that Freeman “really did live a full life.”

    Freeman had run with the bulls in Spain. He’d hung his boots in an ice hotel in Finland. He stood beside the 400 stainless steel poles that make up the Lightning Field in New Mexico. And he made sure not to miss India‘s Maha Kumbh Mela in 2001, a Hindu pilgrimage that happens only once every 12 years.

    Considering that the book was written in 1999 and that Freeman completed half of the 100 things– I would say that he did indeed, lead a pretty full life.

    US Magazine has a quote shared by Freeman’s father:

    According to his father, Freeman was famous for saying, “‘We’re going to the future. Do you want to come along?’ It always made everybody laugh.”

    How about you?  Are you going to the future?

  • The Power of Visualization and the Power of a Number

    People are always asking me why the number “22” is so special to me.  Before I explain why, let me ask you this: have you ever had a goal that was so burning bright that you just HAD to accomplish it?

    I started waterskiing when I was nine years old.  My father came home with an old, yellow boat.  Just like that.  Out of the blue.  He didn’t even discuss boat ownership with my mom.  Included with the boat were a pair of wooden water skis and a ski belt.  A belt, mind you.  None of those fancy molded water ski jackets.  Just a floatation belt.

    My father took my mom, sis and me out to a local lake in Indiana one evening.  None of us knew anything about waterskiing.  I don’t think my father even knew much about running a boat, much less pulling a skier.  I strapped on the skis and I was hooked.  I liked waterskiing.

    I was eleven when my parents bought the place on Christie Lake.   Dad got rid of the yellow boat and bought a cute little red boat.  After a few years of waterskiing and learning to slalom, I had a burning desire to learn to barefoot.  I kept watching the guys (including my  brother) zip around the lake on their bare feet.  There weren’t any other girls barefooting on the lake.  I picked up an issue of Waterskiingand discovered that there was a book by John Gillette called Barefooting.  I used my allowance and sent away for the book.

    I read the book from cover to cover.  I also set a goal: that I was going to barefoot by the end of that summer.  I had just turned sixteen that August.

    The first time I tried it, I planted my foot in the water and kicked off the ski.  Wham!  I tried again and again over several days.  I kept slamming into the water.  I decided to try a different method with a kneeboard.  I dragged my Mom to the local boat shop and begged her to buy a kneeboard.  It was $109– a lot of money back then.  I came home and tried out the kneeboard. The first several tries didn’t work.  I was really frustrated.  I went home and felt really discouraged.

    That night, I lay awake trying to figure out why I couldn’t do it.  I closed my eyes and suddenly visualized myself completing each step in the book.  I imagined how great it would feel to have the board drop away and the water beneath my feet.

    The next day was August 22.  The day that I finally learned to barefoot.

    So the number 22 has stayed with me since then.  Not so much because of the accomplishment, but because of the lesson behind it–the power of visualization.  If you can see yourself accomplishing something, you can do it.  I use the number 22 to remind me to stay on track, to visualize what I want to accomplish.

    How about you?  Have you ever used visualization and had it lead to success?  Do you have a special number that reminds you to accomplish something?

  • Are You Living Your Dream Life?

    I asked a simple question:

    “Are you living your dream life?”

    The question just came to me one day and I was curious how other people would answer such a simple, yet loaded question. So I started asking around. Just that question, “Are you living your dream life?”

    When I asked it face-to-face, I got some startled looks. When I asked it via email, Twitter or IM, I sometimes had people asking me more questions.

    “What do you mean, dream life?”

    “Why are you asking this kind of question?”

     “Why do you want to know?”

    “Dream life, who has a dream life?”

    Whoa, baby.

    But others got right down to it.

    Ben Lachman, a friend from the Chicago area, was pretty open with his answer. “Nope,” was his answer. “Well, my dream life is basically pretty selfish,” he explained. “It has to do with massive financial success so that I can use that to support my hobbies and my family, as well as contributing money to causes that I support. Also, my dream life contains a loving wife and children, and those are yet to be attained.”

    Ben has encountered some stumbling blocks along the way to financial success, but he has no doubt that he’ll be able to achieve his dream life.

    Phyllis from Ima On (and Off) the Bima says that while her life may not seem interesting, she’s definitely living her dream life. “I have a wonderful family — husband, children, parents — we are all blessed with good health, I live in a nice home, with access to almost anything I could possibly want,” she said.  “I work in what is truly my dream job: I decided that I wanted to be a rabbi when I was 12 years old and here I am. And to be honest, very few obstacles stood in my path.  It all seems very charmed and I know it — and I can only appreciate it and be thankful for it, and know that blessings are here for us to accept and live and love and cherish…so even when things don’t seem quite right or I am annoyed with someone, or the kids wake me up all night or the laundry doesn’t get done, in the moment I might get cranky or annoyed (trust me, I do) but in the grand scheme of things I know how lucky I am.”

    Over at Crunchy Carpets (whose motto is, “Clean socks are a privilege, not a right”–my kind of Mom!) Kerry says she isn’t quite living her dream life, but she knows what it looks like: No hassles from the in-laws, no pain for her husband, his website taking off, a home big enough for them all–and money to enjoy it. 

    But she’s not done.  There’s also another baby and another home somewhere near the ocean or perhaps out in the country.  And to top it all off, her dream life includes having her blog take off and bring in the big bucks.

    Oooo, nice dream life.  I like it.

    If there’s anyone who I think is living a dream life, that would be Peter Shankman.   The guy skydives for fun.  I stumbled across his blog just a few weeks ago.  Peter is the CEO of the PR firm, Geek Factory, and he recently launched Help a Reporter, which is growing so fast (11,000 and counting) that he is connecting reporters with sources at lightning speed.  So when I asked Peter that dream question, he simply said, “I’m trying to!”  But he also had more to share: “I think anyone can [live a dream life]–it simply comes down to not being afraid.  If it doesn’t end with ‘time of death was…’ or ‘international incident,’ or ‘bail is set at…’ then why the hell not try it?  You can always get a job somewhere and make money if it doesn’t work.”

    Joanna Young, from Confident Writing, tells me that her dream life is in the process.  “I’m creating it, building it, writing it down to make it happen and grateful for the good bits I’ve got.”  Joanne recommends the book, Write it Down, Make it Happen to take steps towards a dream life.

    Some people shared emails and asked me not to include their answers in the blog.  No, they said, they weren’t living their dream life.  Life was hard, money was scarce, they were in jobs they didn’t like, some had no goals, and some were in the middle of life changes that could possibly lead them to their dream lives, but they weren’t ready to make those decisions public.

    If there’s anyone living a dream life, I knew it had to be my brother.  So I fired off the question to him.  “Yup!” he responded.  “Airplanes, islands and gas to get there, it doesn’t get any better.”  My brother and his wife are on Kelly’s Island up at Lake Erie and they’re heading over to New Jersey in his plane to visit her family tomorrow.  Ah yes, dream life, indeed.

    So I turned to my friend Sue.  Sue and I have known each other since college and we’ve shared a lot together.  Sue went through a divorce, went back to school to get another degree, and met her current husband at a Halloween party.  She’s happily married to a great guy, so of course, I emailed the question to her. 

    “As for the husband and kids, everything’s great!” she said.  “But I want a job where I can be mentally stimulated, use my mind and make tons of money!”  Her other desire for the dream life is to have someone come and clean her house on a regular basis.  Oh yeah, I have that dream too.

    And then Sue shot an email back to me: 

    “Are you living your dream life?” she asked me.

    So I had to sit back and think about that for a second.  And I came to the realization that,  yes I am living a dream life.  I’ve got a hubby and three great kids, my extended family,  a roof over my head, food in the fridge, and chocolate stashed in the desk drawer.  Toss in a great circle of friends,  a well-behaved dog (most of the time) and a place to escape to on the weekends.  I do have dreams yet to be lived, for that’s what makes the dream life so good– one can create more and more dreams to experience as life is lived.

    So tell me, are you living your dream life?

     

     

  • Passing on some Success Secrets


    I’ve been tagged by Stephen at Adversity University to share some daily success habits. The Daily Success Secrets started over at Today Is The Day. The idea is to list five or ten “success” habits that you follow on a frequent basis.

    Wake up grateful.This is a relatively new habit of mine. On most days, I tend to wake up with a mental list of things to do for the day. I am learning to replace this with thoughts of gratitude.

    Do something nice for someone else. My mom taught me this one– she often helped neighbors, baked something for someone or lent an ear when someone needed to talk. Spread some good stuff, and the good stuff will come back to you.

    Maintain a balance. Life gets crazy at times. It becomes tough to maintain a balance in all areas of life. However, when things are out of balance, then the success of other habits begins to shift. I’ve learned to let go of some things or create new habits to maintain balance.

    Enjoy life. If you’re not having fun, laughing, loving someone or enjoying life– then what is it all for? Every day, every moment, is a gift.

    And the ultimate recipe for success:

    Follow the Happiness motto. Back in high school, an itinerant teacher gave me a small plaque that said: “The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”

    I’m tagging my friend Groovy next!

    Goovy’s Ruminations