She's Turning 50...

...it's getting closer. My quest to somehow mark these final days of my forties continues. Well, not so much that I care about marking my forties; more about the fact that I'll be fifty. Soon.

It's been a few days since you've had the benefit of my forty-nine, pushing fifty, year old wisdom. Tonight, I bring you this little nugget:

Sometimes the most charitable thing you can say is "No."

That's a big revelation from the woman who's spent close to 50 years trying to please as many of the people as much of the time as she possibly could. And increasingly resenting the hell out of it.
Father Dan presented the idea one day at Mass. Since I rarely agree with anything Father Dan has to say, the idea stuck with me so I could pick it apart later and prove him wrong and I spent some serious time thinking about it.

Father George clinched the deal a few weeks later with this treasure. "Make your 'yes' mean 'yes' and your 'no' mean 'no.' Then shut up and eat your soup." And there I was with two indicators that it might be ok to say "no" sometimes. More than ok. It might be the more right, the more honest thing to do.

This was a concept I could really get behind.

I'll admit I was an extreme yesser. No connection was far enough flung for me to be able to say "I just can't get that done..." I mean, I always knew I could get it done, I didn't want to get it done. But I could. So therefore, I should. Right?

No. There. I just said it. Say it with me. "No."

Don't want to handsew tiny glass beads on the neighbor's cousin's ex-husband's sister's daughter's prom dress? You can say "no." In fact, it's probably better to say "no" than to mutter under your breath that drawing attention to that butt with thousands of glittering beads is a fashion faux paus.

Don't want to bake 20 dozen cookies for the club bake sale? You can say "no" knowing that your 'no' is much more charitable than your freudian slip of adding salt in place of half the sugar in those freakin' cookies you didn't want to bake in the first place resentful 'yes.'

In honor of my recently found no-ability and my upcoming birthday, I've ordered this shirt for myself. Since I'm still not too confident with my "NOs" I'm thinking of buying the shirts by the case and just handing them in appropriate moments.

"I need you to volunteer to design a 20 x 40 print to illustrate my new business concept and I don't really have any idea what it should be but I like the color red and I need it by tonight....ok, then I can give you until tomorrow morning...and I'll need a logo and some business cards while you're at it..."

"Here's your shirt....."