famous fridays: sidney poitier

I know it's not Friday, but I got a little busy yesterday and had to put this post off. I'm glad I did, though, because today is one of my favorite actor's birthdays. Sidney Poitier was born today in 1927. I liked him in the movie "To Sir, with Love." He plays a teacher in an inner-city school, trying to motivate seniors to study and learn, when all they know is to survive. He changes his tactics after a few futile weeks, switching from an English curriculum to a course in "life-skills." His goal was to give these troubled seniors a skill-set that they could use - cooking, changing the oil in their cars, cleaning, sewing, etc. His thought was that by teaching his students how to take care of themselves he would give them self-respect, enabling them to take responsibility for themselves and their futures. Brilliant.

I find myself probably at the end of my schooling, and at the beginning of my life in the "real world." I don't have Sidney Poitier to teach me these things, however. Thankfully, I had wonderful parents who raised me and taught me what they could, but you can only teach so much. Poitier couldn't guarantee success for his students. They had to go out and experience life, and learn, and live. And that's what we do. We leave home. We go experience life. We have to fall, and pick ourselves up again. We make mistakes on our own, and we learn to not make them again. We figure out what we have to do to survive, and we learn what it takes to laugh, and smile. And we grow up.

Today I went to the grocery store and bought my groceries for this week. I boiled a whole chicken, made a casserole of chicken spaghetti so I would have something to eat for dinner this week when I get busy, and then used the leftover chicken to make homemade chicken salad so that I could make sandwiches this week for lunch. Recently I've been thinking about what it's going to really mean to "be on my own," to be alone. It's a pretty big idea to wrap my mind around. I have nothing to relate it to. Today I felt for the first time that I was going to be okay. I've known it in my head, but today my heart felt it. It's funny what a good casserole and a couple of good decisions can do for your soul.

By the way, I get all my recipes from the Pioneer Woman, lately. She makes it just a little bit easier to be on your own.