Supermarkets, alopecia and hedgehogs

You know those supermarket magazines that drop on to your door mat every week, do you read them? Or do they make their way straight to the paper recycling bin?

I tend to flick through them most weeks, you never know what you will find. Could be a coupon for half price fishfingers if you are lucky.

Anyway this week I came across a wonderful article on Alopecia.

Anyone who reads German its here:

http://www.migrosmagazin.ch/menschen/portraet/artikel/gluecklich-trotz-haarausfall

Who would have thought. No coupon for fishfingers though !

It was about a little boy whose parents were being interviewed. It was a lovely story, nothing dramatic, just their story. They went on to talk about a book they had written for kids on the subject.

It was a tale about a hedghog loosing his spikes.  "Samus grosse Stolz"  Great idea.

The article also explained that they are establishing an alopecian network across Switzerland. A number of years ago I had searched for soemthing like this, yet had never found it. Thats because it didnt exist. So I contacted them, and now I am a member.

Not sure what or anything will come of it, but its good to at least hear from others and know what is moving in the area of research etc.

In the meantime I am off to buy the book. 

Mental models shifting

Sitting with 7 other women we were chatting away. Supposedly about a book, but we got slightly off track. For whatever reason we ended up talking about parents who had split up and or remarried.

Following a quick round table, we quickly established that all of us had either parents who had split up or within our own marriages, there was a divorce that had happened. 

There was no one round the table who had parents that were still together and who was still married to their partner, for whom both of them it was a first time marriage.

In short, divorce is part of everyones story nowardays. It touches us all.

In fact anything else is unusual, divorce and patchwork families are the norm.

I guess this is what society has been telling us for a while, but I think this was the first time for me to see it right in front of me.

That said, the normality of this seemed perfectly fine. Clearly everyone had their own story of emotion, and difficulties, yet it just seeems part of life now in many ways and part of everyones story. There was no shame and no blame present, hurt and impact for sure, but acceptance and even better futures were described.

Life is about adapting to new norms, connecting the dots and not being hung up in what "should" be or what models were common in the past. I guess this was my moment of societal shift. Divorce is now normal. Staying together is not.

Do you have moments when you realise your mental model has shifted?

Anyone had one recently?

Have I taken too long on this one?

What had taken me so long?

Anyway, back to my abnormal marriage and my unpathchworked children.

Is there a letter in you?

If you were to write a letter, who would you write it to?

What would you say?

Why does it matter?

Somehow there is a letter left in us all to write. Yet something stops us doing it.

I am not suggesting you do it. I am just asking if you are aware of it.