Women  have been sharing with each other for centuries, well that may be a stretch, but truthfully it feels like it.

We share our life stories from the happiest moments, to our souls deepest pain. Through compassion we are able to empathize with our fellow sisters and I believe grow stronger, wiser and closer. 

Our first article is from one of my favorite women 

 Hilary Ormsby.  Hil at 63

So I’m on Facebook and I click on a status that has a video of some guy giving a lecture on his Four Secrets for Happiness.

Number One secret for Happiness is you focus on things you can do rather than things you can’t do. Well, I have an auto immune disease and how can I not focus on the fact that I can’t exercise or wear pants?

Number two secret for Happiness is you surround yourself with people you want to be with.  Well, I have to surround myself with people whose sons are on house arrest or who are in a permanent loop of sado-masochistic behavior because if I’m with people who are better than I am I hate myself for not being as good as they are. I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.

Number three secret for happiness is keep moving forward and have something to look forward to. Well, my dear, my problem is I am 64 and I am looking forward to a box in the ground. What has an old woman with an auto immune disease have to look forward to, dinner? And do you really think that this one woman show I’m doing will be anything more than two dismal nights in an exorbitantly priced dark depressing theater for probably only three of my so-called friends?

Number four secret for happiness is, “Never miss a party if you can help it.” Oh, God! I hate parties! I go into total anxiety mode when a group of people are presented to me. I’m sure I’m going to be standing all alone looking like a fool who nobody wants to talk to and  if I do talk to someone I’ll have to kill myself after hearing about their job at the unemployment office or their sister’s  trip to Fiji.

Anyhow after hearing this “list” of secrets for happiness I start listening to this guy just for fun. When I look closely at him I realize he looks kind of funny. His name is Sam Berns and I learn he has a disease called Progeria which makes him age very quickly. This is a picture of Sam. He’s seventeen years old.

Sam can’t run or play sports. He can’t have girlfriends. He can hardly walk. But rather than focusing on things he can’t do he focuses on things he can do like marching in the school band playing a drum he had specially made so he would be able to carry it. He loves marching with the school band.

Sam always has people staring and pointing at him so he surrounds himself with people he wants to be with like his family that adores him and a group of pals at school who he laughs with and plays music with in the band.

Sam can’t look forward to a lot of things so when he was in the hospital with a chest cold last year he looked forward to when he would be well again.

Sam said at the end of his lecture “My school’s homecoming dance is tomorrow night and I will be there!” He never misses a party if he can help it.

Sam died three months after this lecture.

Maybe I’ll rethink his four secrets for happiness.

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For those of you who don’t know my life story, a quick synopsis. Was raised in a hell hole, diverted myself with musical comedies through school, got lucky and became a Hollywood actress and made my living with it for 20 years. Got out of acting and began serious work on my broken self – went to Alcoholics Anonymous and did therapy. Realized I had a sick relationship with my insane alcoholic father and got out of that relationship. Got lucky again and married a fantastic man named Alan Ormsby who was a successful screen writer. Became the step Mom of his two sons, Adam and Ethan, and got lucky again when at the age of 42 I had my own biological son, Austen. Got unlucky five years ago when my step son, Ethan, died of cancer at the age of 40. Been with my miraculously perfect husband for 25 years and I still love him dearly. Adam and Austen are doing fine. I count myself a lucky woman.