A bit ago my mother tried to visit her sister. I say tried, because my mother’s younger sister is 70 and in a mental care facility. And I was reminded of a statement my mother once made of how she wouldn’t be surprised if her sister had undiagnosed cancer. After all her sister had the same tonsil treatment she did and it gave HER cancer!
See… back in the early 50’s when my mother was a kid instead of going under the knife to remove tonsils, which everyone was doing back then, HER parents had her and her sister do a new treatment which “radiated” the tonsils away. Combine that with the bad thyroid history in my family and its not really surprising my mother got thyroid cancer when she was mid-thirty. She beat it by having it removed and trusting her gut by NOT going on chemo. She’s been cancer free now for 35 years or so.
The point being… same trigger, different outcome. Some could say its genetics. After all my mother and her sister don’t look very much alike so there is an obvious difference in their genes….and they’re very different in personality. So those who point to that could be right. But me….. I think it was all the pot my aunt smoked from the age of 16 on. I mean, hippie level pot smokage here! And with all the studies now about how great marijuana is for medical purposes, well, may she cured her cancer before it started!
Then I was thinking about how the experts say learning music helps with math. I wonder… if Luke had stuck with his free music lessons in violin at school, would he be better at his Algebra? The Algebra he failed in 11th grade and 12th grade and in his first year in college? And that made me laugh. I played piano for 5 years as a child and I barely squeaked by with a D at the Algebra Luke is struggling through. And I took it twice also, with the same grade both times!! With those facts, I might surmise that bad math is genetics that my kids obviously got from me.
And on the note of genetics…..
I remember my mother telling me not to shave my legs as a teen and to just bleach it away with lemon juice in the sun. My leg hair was dark and hers was non-existant! So as a teen, of course, I ignored that…. But these days as I’m showering and doing the usual places for a razor, legs & pits (other parts get a quick waxing by an expert lol), I’ve noticed that my body hair barely grows anymore. I only need to shave now once a week! And then it clicks. This must have happened to my mother and that’s why she thought it was fine to just bleach the few hairs she had! It’s menopause! My metabolism hasn’t slowed. It’s down-right retired! It has given the raspberry & the finger to “the boss”, tossed all its papers and responsibilities in the air and left the building! And THAT is one of the biggest reasons I’ve been gaining weight over the last year! My body is no longer using energy for menstrual cycles, hair growth, hair COLOR, good nail growth, skin moisturizing & elasticity and probably a lot of other functions I’m unaware of. The Guildmen of my metabolism have gone on strike/vacation and all that’s left is me- the Lord ruler and the Surfs of my basic system. Sadly, the greedy Tax Collector of my appetite is still levying taxes across the board and THAT is just packing on the pounds.
It doesn’t help that I work in a retail store which makes candy bars cheap and within easy grasp!