When I go to a doctor for an annual checkup, even on a first visit to a new doctor, the doctor has his clothes on. I don’t. It’s a very awkward situation but I don’t say anything to him about it.

If the doctor looks young enough to still be paying back his student loans, I want to ask him what was his rank in med school. But I don’t.

If he looks closer to my age, I want to ask him when he was planning on retiring. But I don’t.

Am I the only one who too often doesn’t say what I’m thinking?

A long time ago, I went to a therapist. He had a Dr. before his name. He was a Freudian so he had a beard and a brown leather chaise longue.

He hardly ever said anything. Neither did I.
Neither of us knew anything about the other even after the four years. Nevertheless, he sent me a bill every month and I paid it. I should have had my head examined. Come to think of it, that’s why I was seeing him.

I always wanted to tell him I thought he was a crackpot and I was nuts to pay him but since I never said anything, I didn’t.

How often do people say what they’re really thinking?

Why do I say, “Oh, I’m so happy to have met you” to someone I think is a moron?

Why do I tell my friend who just had her eyebrows threaded that she looks great when I want to say she looks like Gloria Swanson losing her mind in Sunset Boulevard?

When the older woman trying on a dress at Marshall’s asks me if it looks good on her, I want to say, “Are you kidding. It would look great on your granddaughter.”
But I don’t.

Never would I tell the new mother that her infant looks like Rosemary’s baby, or the dentist that he has halitosis, or the man who has to eat part of a cow with every meal that he is responsible for greenhouse gas pollution caused by farting cows, or that the guy who drives that outrageous SUV is the cause of global warming, or that the woman who enthusiastically roots for the other political party is causing the downfall of the Western Hemisphere.

I wouldn’t want to ruin anyone’s day by telling them what I’m really thinking. Especially since everybody tells everybody else “to have a nice day.”

Actually, I’m not sure what “have a nice day” really means. What’s nice? Wearing beige?

Ask someone “How are you?” Heaven forbid they tell you how they really feel. You’d have to pull up a chair.

Words have so much power. They have helped me. They have inspired me. They have hurt me.

I don’t remember the pain of giving birth six times years ago, but I vividly remember almost every word that has ever hurt and caused me pain.

I have my annual physical checkup in three months. I don’t know what the doctor will say about my internal plumbing, but when he asks me how I feel, I’ll probably say “fine.” And when I leave, I’ll probably wish him “a nice day.”

 

You’re just a button click away and I’d love
to hear from you.

About your world, your family, your joys and frustrations, growing up, growing older, even recipes– even though I stopped cooking–by request–years ago.

Goodbye until next time…

Hope your day turns out
as well as I hope
(but doubt) mine will,

Gingy (Ilene)

 

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