Ready for me to confess another deep, dark secret? Of course you are. But ... I'm warning you, you might want to grab a glass of wine or a beer before you continue reading because this confession is a biggie ... huge ... enormous ... gigantic even. Ready? Settled in with your beverage of choice in your nice comfy recliner? Alrighty then ... here it is ... wait ... I'm not sure I can reveal something so personal to the entire world. What if people hate me? What if I get a deluge of emails and messages bashing me? What if some of you stop reading if I admit the truth? Oh, yeah ... been there, done that already and lived to wear the t-shirt and tell the story, too. And we all know that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? I know that some of you will never again view me in the same way ... that my confession may well cause you to question my sanity or doubt my intelligence ... that I am opening myself up to judgment and criticism. But if I haven't learned anything over the last year and a half, I've learned this ... there are times in life when I just have to pull up my big girl panties and be brave and courageous. So here goes ... I totally and completely love the old television animated series The Flintstones. Wow ... I guess confession really is good for the soul because I feel like I've had a weight lifted from my shoulders ... wow, wow, wow.
For many years, I could quite literally quote entire episodes of The Flintstones show ... not so much now, but for way more years than I will ever admit, I had memorized the lines of not one, not two, but every single character in the show. And ... okay, this is really going out on a limb ... I went through a phase when I constantly uttered the words "Yabba Dabba Do!" I said, "Yabba Dabba Do!" with a lilt in my voice when everything was going well or something great happened, and I said, "No Yabba, no Dabba, no Do," when life sucked or something lousy occurred. Yep ... I managed to work the words into almost every conversation I had and to express every emotion you can possible imagine. The words "Yabba Dabba Do!" just spoke to me for some reason, not the least of which is that they sound so stinking cool as they roll off my tongue. I even dressed up as a Flintstones character for Halloween a couple of years ... okay, okay, maybe it was more than just a couple of years. I have nothing to offer up in defense of my deeply rooted affinity for the odd cartoon series ... not one single, solitary piece of legitimate evidence ... except to say that I flipping love all things Flintstone.
I'm sure you're wondering why I feel the need this evening to fess up about my obviously unrequited love for Fred and Wilma and Barney and Betty, so please allow me to explain. It was a recent conversation with my life-saving head doctor that brought my old pals back to mind ... a conversation about right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, acceptance vs. condemnation, truth vs. falsehood. In answering a question the good doctor posed to me concerning her belief that I have some ... ahem ... unresolved anger toward God, I told her I often feel like Fred Flintstone. Again ... please allow me to explain. Fred was generally a pretty good guy, but sometimes he, like me and quite possibly you as well, had an internal battle going on within his heart and mind. To portray Fred's internal struggle, the writers of the show created scenes in which an angel would appear on one of Fred's shoulders while a devil appeared on the other. And as Fred's heart and mind battle raged within him, both the angel and the devil chattered in his ears as they each tried to convince him they were correct in their assessment of the matter at hand.
The truth is I feel like my old buddy Fred most of the time ... like I've got an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. And maybe the truth is that we all feel that way at certain times in our lives. Times when we are torn between believing or not believing, trusting or not trusting, listening or not listening, accepting or not accepting, speaking or not speaking, loving or not loving ... yep, that list could go on and on and on and on and on and on. If indeed we all feel as though we have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, it seems to reason that means that we ... in the ways that matter anyway ... are all the same. If we all have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, we are all equal in our struggles, equal in our triumphs, equal in our attempts to understand who we are and why we are here.
The good doctor left me with something to ponder and try to comprehend ... she told me that perhaps I need to consider that instead of having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, I have only angels. Angels ... to help me on my journey, to encourage me to accomplish the task that has been set before me and to make me a better person through the process. I decided today that If ever a thought deserves a "Yabba Dabba Do!" friends, it's that one ... it is that one indeed.
Come on and say it with me ... you know you want to ..."Yabba flipping Dabba flipping Do!"
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