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Mind, Body, Soul
A Road Less
Traveled??
By Mona Lease
Greetings, Gals!! A girlfriend of 32 years called to apologize to me.
I'm not really used to being the one to receive the apology. I'm
usually the one doing the apologizing. I accepted the apology. Then we
had a really interesting conversation.
We got to talking about how our home life was in our rearing years. It
probably started in the 1940s. The US declared war on Japan on December
8, 1941. Most of the able-bodied men were overseas.
Women went to work in the factories. "Rosie the Riveter" was born!! She
(a representation of all working women) worked in shipyards as well as
factories producing munitions and war supplies. These women also took
other jobs that replaced the male workers who were in the
military. WW2 ended on September 2, 1945. But the effects lasted far
into the future.
The first recorded divorce was in the American Colonies. Anne Clark's
husband was absent and adulterous. The Quarter Court of Boston,
Massachusetts awarded Anne her divorce on January 5, 1645. This,
however, was not the "norm" and would not be the "norm" for some 350
more years.
Everyone remembers the 1960s and the "make love not war" motto. People
openly kissed, held hands, groped each other and more. Women started
working out of the home as well as the man. Two incomes could buy more
and gain more prestige or power. And...the "Latch-key kiddies" were
born.
Morals started to slide. Women who were not married and pregnant were
no longer ashamed. "No one HAS to do anything" was the reasoning. With
a foot on each side of the line between right and questionable...or
outrightly wrong...decisions were made.
Girls could openly drink and date much older men. The term "jailbait"
arose with a vengeance. The clothing industry capitalized on this.
Shorter skirts, lower necklines, higher platform shoes...and you were
"in style." That's why both parents were working...right??
A few more morals slid away...and the line between right and wrong grew
fainter.
Abortion became a household word. Everyone knew what the word meant.
Most knew someone who had had one. Too many had had the procedure
themselves....problem solved. "The Pill" was born around this time. We
were free!!
Disease made it's appearance...gonorrhea, syphilis, and other
sexually transmitted diseases...seemingly sparing no one. Penicillin
use sky-rocketed. We were still free and life was still good!!
But...something happened. Somehow the mind had trouble reconciling the
two opposing sides.
Open marriages, open cheating, open mistresses, outside families, girls
dating at 14, girls going to school pregnant, children could quit
school at 16 with a parent's signature, and on and on it went. What
happened? Can we fix this? How do we fix this?
It seems there's a "thing" going on here - a "phenomenon" no one
thought of or realized existed - at work here. The sub-conscience
takes in everything and stores it in our brain. We do things for
reasons of which we are unaware.
Now we are realizing some of this stuff. It's hard to "rearrange" our
responses. It'll happen...but it takes conscious and constant
attention. You can not change everything all at once. And you can only
effectively work on one thing at a time. Nothing will ever be 100
percent. We are human - we get sick - we get tired. But - keep trying.
It's a "road less traveled" - but going back to a preventative state
rather than relying on penicillin or surgical procedures might be
worthwhile.
"Sometimes all you need is for someone to just be there, even if they
can't solve your problems. Just knowing there is someone who cares can
make all the difference." - sun.gazing.com
The best is yet to be!! MONA
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