Life Lesson #3 - If You are Going to Leave Your Mark, Make it a Good One.

In this episode you will:

• Be welcomed into a growing community of women and men that support, love and accept you for who you are.
• Hear a funny excerpt from a retro-historical memoir written by the host, Kim Farnes, that highlights the importance of leaving a positive mark on the world, your community and those you love.
• Be encouraged to interact with the host by sending in emails that share how you, or someone you know has impacted the world in a positive way.
• Be insipired, uplifted and laugh a little as you listen to ways that the host tried to navigate her life growing up in the 1980's.  
• Be reminded of living through the years that brought us parachute pants, spiked hair and break dancing.
•  Be asked to like, follow and share this weekly podcast; to continue growing this community of people who want to start their day or week off with a little positivity. 

email: lifelessons.ordinarywoman@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning this morning, my ordinarily beautiful, kind, captivating, self-assured, naturally charming, beautiful friends. You are beautiful to me, and I am so glad you're joining me today. Welcome to podcast number three. Thanks so much for tuning in and becoming part of this supportive and loving community of women and men if you'd like to join us. I'm super excited to share that these podcasts have increased our community to over a hundred people across America and in two other countries. I hope this number continues to grow and appreciate any shares in my podcast that you may give to other people you know, people that you think would be new, amazing members to our growing community. I've also recently figured out how to make a QR code. That took an embarrassingly long amount of time for this old lady to figure out, but I linked it to my Facebook page, Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman Podcast, to hopefully help make it easier for people to share and to get to my episodes. Please let me know if it works for you. In the last podcast, Appreciate the Little Things, I received a lot of feedback and I love that. Please keep them coming. Many of you mentioned that the lesson tugged at your heartstrings, gave you chills or made you cry. Some shared that they felt my dad let me down and failed me as a parent. I want to share that I really appreciate that you had strong feelings as you listened, that you trust me with your feelings and feel safe here to share them, and that you care enough about me to share that you felt that my dad's actions were unfair and hurtful to me. I do want to share that my dad and I did have a good relationship overall. Yes, he was hard on me at times, but he came from a place of very harsh upbringing himself, and did not have the luxury ever of fair parenting in his life. So he did the best he could, and overall I appreciate very much the lessons he taught me. He did continue to buy us little just because gifts. In fact, the very next one was a Snoopy watch. The face of the watch was Snoopy holding a tennis racket. The tennis ball rotated inside, ticking away the seconds, and the Snoopy swung his racket with minutes and hours as they passed every day. I loved that watch. It was yellow, but that was my second favorite color. He would ask me what time it was often, and we would both smile as I looked at my watch and proudly told him the time. The responses from my last episode got me thinking though, what really is a life lesson? Not all life lessons are easy ones. Mostly we have to hit a rock bottom, suffer a loss, or have a consequence that seems harsh or unfair. But it's often that very thing that teaches us the most about who we want to be, how we want to live, and what we will and will not do moving forward. I took many things that I've lived through in life and decided, yes, I'm going to continue doing that. Or nope, not doing that again. And that's what this podcast in my book, Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman, is all about. It's meant to share openly and honestly my experiences gifted to me by those ordinary people in my life that gave me strength and hope, not only for my daily life as I grew up, but what I hoped for for my future. I'm so appreciative of you joining with me as I share my journey with you. The next life lesson is about what I thought leaving my mark means, and how it a teacher took the time to explain that it wasn't what I thought it was at all. Life lesson number three. If you're gonna leave your mark, make it a good one. I was bored with a capital B. I was twelve and was spending the last day of my spring break from school walking around with a friend when it happened. We were walking through an under construction subdivision of a new housing development when she pointed it out. At first I didn't see it, but when I did it had the glimmer of trouble shining on the words Rustolium on it, and the drippings of red paint on the side. We both looked at it and then at each other, with matching grins on our faces. Do you see what I see? she asked, in almost a whisper. Yes, I believe I do, I said, and I started to run towards it. I wasn't sure why I was running, as a gallon of paint wasn't going anywhere. Clearly it had been discarded next to the newly built red house with the white trim. I bent over and picked up the can and heard the glug of the leftover paint inside. Oh man, I said, it still has paint in it. For two preteen girls who primarily laid low and stayed out of the way to avoid trouble, this was a special gift. Other kids in our neighborhood were known for pranks, fights, drinking and drugs, and one neighborhood girl was even expecting a child before she reached graduation. All I had been known for at this point was my lisp, my epilepsy, and my friend was only known for being the older sister of one of the highly sought after popular girls in school. We looked at each other again. Neither of us had a particular idea in mind, but both of our minds were filled with ideas and our hearts were pounding. We picked up the can and ran into the woods behind the houses. What do you want to do with it? I asked breathlessly. I'm not sure, she said, but it's gotta be good. She started rotating the can around to stir the paint, and I bent over and picked up a stick. She handed the can to me. Open it, she said, wide eyed. I used a stick to pry open the can. It was freshly used as the lid popped open easily. We gotta make it good, I said. We have to leave our mark. It has to be something everyone will remember. She nodded in agreement. Leaving your mark was something that mattered to our neighborhood. Kids that made an impact in some way were labeled cool, and that got them invited to parties and asked out on dates. Kids started hairstyles, clothing trends, and special dances. The spiked hair, the parachute pants, breakdancing. All of the kids who were the first to bring those things into the neighborhood were legends. We wanted to be legends. It's got to be at the park, she said, at the top of the hill where everyone can see. Yes, I agreed. Our neighborhood was split into two very different social divides. You either lived up the hill or down the hill, and that meant something. It defined who your friends were, what music you listened to, and what kind of car you drove. When you sit said you lived in the neighborhood, people asked up the hill or down, and you didn't need to say anything more after you answered. They knew who you were and whether or not you could be friends. It wasn't as divided as it was in the fifties, but it was close. Some of us were allowed to be friends with both groups, and my sister and I were lucky enough to get to have that acceptance from others. The park was where people went to socialize, hang out, and more often than not, fight each other. We took the can to the park and stood on the top of the hill. The road below wasn't that far down, but the hill was steep. It was great for both snow tubing in the winter and when skateboards came out, gliding down the hill solo or in tandem. The most popular activity was going down the hill holding hands with your friends in a chain and daring cars out loud to come, but inwardly praying that they wouldn't. We sat in silence for a while watching cars go up and down the hill. Kids started coming to the park for the next open swim session at the community pool. We would hear their laughter and splashes as we sat there. Just then my friend stood up excitedly. I know, she said. I've got it. She took the paint can and started running towards the line of furs that lined the park. I followed her, not knowing what she was planning on doing or where she was going. She finally stopped and dropped the can. Let's paint our butt cheeks and hang BAs at the top of the hill. What? I screamed, are you crazy? Although those words came out of my mouth, I had already decided that that was an awesome idea. Kids hung BAs all the time, and their legacies from doing it had lasted for years. I had only heard of the kids doing it in cars, dropping their pants to show others their naked behinds as they passed other cars on the freeways. I had never heard of anyone dropping their drawers and hanging a BA standing still somewhere. I knew that would be epic if we did it on the top of the hill, and that we had to be the first ones to do it, and I was excited. We took the can to the nearest tree to us on the hill and dropped our pants. She painted mine and I painted hers with leaves and fir tree limbs as our makeshift paintbrushes. We laughed the whole time with excitement and nerves, and we walked to the top of the hill and waited for the first car to come up. Here we go, she said, when she saw the blue Ford escort coming up the hill. We both turned around and dropped our pants and wiggled as much as we could before pulling them back up and turning around. The driver of the car, clearly having seen us, yelled out her open window, Kim, is that you? The morning had started out as any other ordinary humdrum boring with the capital B, nothing special kind of day, so I had just thrown on what wasn't too dirty off my bedroom floor before I headed out to see what my friend was up to. Due to pure laziness, I had inadvertently grabbed my recreational softball t-shirt, the one I had worn last year when I played. The shirt had both my last name, Lowry, and my number fourteen printed in bold fabric on the back of it. That was clearly an oversight on my part. I stood there, frozen. Run, said my friend, as she took off running. Although she had played softball with me, she was not wearing her clearly identifiable team t-shirt. She ran straight home. I stood there knowing that I'd been caught. My English teacher, who I did not know lived in my neighborhood, drove her car the rest of the way up the hill and was waiting in the parking lot for me. I slowly shuffle stepped toward her. What do you think you're doing? she said angrily. I had no idea what to say. Visions of my dad and my impending punishment from him closed my throat and made my eyes fill with tears. They were tears of fear but also of guilt and shame. I hadn't thought of who might see my BA, just that it would be fun. I told her when I was able to talk that I was sorry and that I started to cry. I don't remember what all she said, and she did a lot of talking, mostly angry, then a little softer. When she stopped talking, I stammered out that I thought it might be funny, that I was trying to do something that might help me be popular, to leave my mark, so kids would like me. She took a while to respond. She knew that I was bullied at school for my lisp and epileptic seizures, and everyone knew that things could be pretty rough for me at home sometimes. Oh, Kim, she said softly. She put her hands on my shoulders. I hadn't lifted my head the whole time we were talking. I had wiped a lot of tears on the quarter sleeved team t-shirt with the double stripes that had betrayed me and given away my identity. You know, she continued, leaving your mark doesn't have to be about bad things, she said. You can leave your mark by doing good things too. Those good ones last even longer and mean more. I nodded my head in agreement. She brought me in close to give me a hug. I generally pulled away quickly from those, but I let that one linger. It felt good. That teacher never did tell on me. It took me weeks to get the red paint off my butt cheeks. My friend apologized for running off. I pretended to be mad at her, but I wasn't. I figured if she hadn't run off, that the conversation I had with my teacher might not have happened, and I liked what she said and the hug she had given me. No one ever knew about our BA experience except the three of us. But I still have that shirt. Red paint along the hem, my last name Lowry, and the number 14 on the back had so faded with age. When I see it, I smile and think of the woman who had given me some of her time that day and some really good advice. I think of it too, whenever I try and do things, it will leave a positive mark on my community, the world, and on the people that I love. In preparing for this podcast, I wanted to really dig into what it means to leave your mark. I found all kinds of examples of what determines whether you leave a good one or a bad one. It centers on how you decide to create something that outlasts you. It's your influence on the world. It can be something big like building a business or inventing something new, or it can be how you mentor others, how you make them feel, what they'll remember about you long after you're gone. Its actual definition is to have an effect that changes someone or something. So it wasn't my BA that left the mark I was hoping for. It was the teacher instead that caught me doing it that left her mark on how to live my life in a better way. Another word that's heavily associated with leaving your mark is the word legacy. Most people think of legacy in financial terms, like leaving a house or a financial gift, that kind of thing. But a legacy isn't about what you leave for people, but what you leave in them. It's about planting seeds of kindness, integrity, and love in a garden that you may never get to see bloom. I heard a fable once about the importance of planting a seed for a tree and taking care of it for years, knowing that you will never benefit from it yourself, but knowing that the future generations will appreciate its shade and fruit long after you're gone. It's really kind of funny and a little strange that when I was researching things for this podcast, that I came across a quote about leaving a legacy written by a man named David Lowry, L-O-W-E-R-Y, and he had a good one. The funny part is that that's my dad's name, David Lowry. It's unusual to find that same spelling of our last name, so I clicked on him to read his quote and learn more about him. His quote goes, We build our legacies piece by piece, and maybe the world will remember you, or perhaps just a few people, but you do anything you can to make sure you're still around long after you leave. I was thinking about my dad a lot after my last episode, and seeing his name during research for this gave me a smile. I love his quote. He also wrote a memoir where he too talks about living a life with a family member who has a disability. For me it was my mom. For him, it was his sister. He's a musician who has some songs about how his differently abled sister lived her life to the fullest. Pretty cool parallels. I've come to believe in life that little things that I see or hear often seem to be little messages from the other side, and I believe this was one. I call them God winks. God just kind of winking at us sometimes, like, I got you, girl. Anyway, I think this was one about David Lowry, L-O-W-E-R-Y, and it made me smile. Thanks so much to all the people who shared their thoughts with me following last week's podcast. Thanks to Mary, Raquel, Beth, Carol Ann, Sonia, and the rest of you who took the time to share with me what little things you have given and received that meant a lot to you and to them. I'm so grateful and happy that our community continues to grow, and I appreciate every one of you for tuning in, liking, and sharing this podcast. If you'd like to share how you or someone you know has left their mark, I'd love to hear your stories. Please email me at lifelessons.ordinarywoman at gmail.com or click on the fan mail button on these sites. Those come directly to me. Please continue to like, share, and follow this podcast. Let's continue to build this community of ordinarily beautiful women together. Until next Monday, remember that I love you and your presence is a present to those around you.