Sunday September 5th 2010
Happy Birthday Tim-Let’s see this makes you 68 – wow – we are getting up there aren’t we! Not so much a question as an exclamation! Where did our youth go? We were just running around and drinking and staying out and partying down and doing all the things that crazy, wild and young people do- and then- BAM! We got here!
The day is sunny and seems to warrant a few hurrahs for it’s sun and cool air – the heat has not returned yet- it’s waiting for kids to have to put on a uniform and attend classes in hot, sticky rooms with no AC and no or little ventilation.
I am not returning and probably will never return to the classroom and it’s a bittersweet affair to which I am saying “good-bye”. I really do like people and I really like kids – they are so full of everything from the best to the worst. They challenge every inch of my core with their no-nonsense and bullish ways.
Now I am in the transitional period of my life – from the active and having every moment filled with something and or doing for someone – I am alone with my thoughts. I look across at the man I married so many years ago and see someone who is struggling to make sense of the day – and to be useful – and not feel discarded and tossed to the side.
When you are busy working you keep thinking – “Oh, if I could just have some time off – some time for myself!” and then when you retire either by choice or necessity – you wonder – “how the hell am I going to fill all the time I have?” So you fill it with inane things which make you feel like you are wasting your time – after all when you were working you were doing important things, things that demanded your attention and kept you from seeing all the things that needed to be done around you with your home, family or immediate friends. But upon reflection, those things to which I devoted so much attention and care are now gone and mean nothing. They were busywork in my life that kept others happy and at bay so they would leave me alone.
But the thing about teaching is that you are constantly around people – and to suddenly have your world become so small- just two – is sometimes the problem. It means a real transition and acceptance of things.
I am only asking of myself what I presumed my husband wanted in his life – and I am now aware of the poor insight I had into any of that.
You think you are being kind by providing people with all that they need to get through a day – someone to make them lunch, take them to water exercises and see that they are safe- you think that – but you have no way of knowing how the mind works –really works, because it has a way of sneaking some pretty amazing information past you without any hint of what it can do to your so-called “plan”. When I though he was OK – and I mean in the sense of physical – I was no taking into consideration his great need to be involved emotionally and spiritually in the world about him. He had become distant – I thought because of the medication and illness – but maybe it was because no one was listening to him. When I tried talking – I was really telling him- telling him how the day would go, who would be here with him and what was expected of him – not asking him, telling him. It was like this was his job and I was his boss and could control him like I felt controlled by my job – the paperwork that needed to be addressed and all the forms and crap that was part of accountability – for what and to whom? Maybe it was a subconscious cry to say, “We all need to have someone to order us around!” And yet, I know in my heart and soul that is WRONG! We don’t need another to tell us what is wrong or right – we know it in our hearts – unless we are part of the 3% of the population who are sociopaths. (no feelings of guilt or remorse -"...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood."[Wikipedia)
But I meander, as I am wont to do! Bud would be telling me to stay with one voice and tell a story- but I think I have several that are attempting to flee from me before I can capture their essence and have it for a later date when I can mull them over and work on the verbiage and make them sing their own song. When you are a part of the everyday – you don’t have the time to consider what it means or how to make it better except in fleeting moments – but once you have the time – time and memory play an important part in making it all seem like a dream or nightmare- depending on the situation and you can either glorify the moment or demean it and make it the worst and most pitiable since the beginning of time. – Again –
He needs help with things that once were his pride and joy – replacing a battery. OMG! How that just about eats my soul like a drip of acid- burning and knowing how he handled and kept all the electronics for many others and us. Now – well – now he has his trusty Sampson tester and can check batteries from here to the end of time. We have a plethora of batteries that are working as opposed to the box within a box within a bag within a box that holds batteries of all shapes and sizes and we have no determination of whether they are meant to be recycled or can be used. It was a pretty pathetic case – and every time we were in a store he wanted to purchase MORE batteries – because he needed more batteries. It became an obsession – or so I thought! He remembers certain things as needing to be done and then others disappear like the clouds – pretty and taking shape for a moment before donning a new dimension and then disappearing totally from view - to become part of a mountain of indistinguishable forms and sizes. So we now have his 2-meter radio operational and all I hear is static. – But he is attempting to get something more from the small box – voices – emergency people chatter- anything to break the static that now competes with the choir singing and the water rushing from the washer as it goes into a spin cycle. All of these noises assail my ears – but maybe not his. We can get him a hearing aid according to the plan I read for our health care – maybe that will actually enhance his experience and allow us to do more.
Wayne Dyer said that people should think in terms wholeness and not disease. I do that when I am lying in bed and we sometimes are talking and it seems like always and nothing is changed – but then suddenly the bed takes on movement and he is struggling with a sheet to get up and out from under it – and all the fantasy disappears and I am back to the reality of where we are at that moment in time.
I just spoke with the birthday boy! He is in good spirits and sounds good on the phone – though his condition is deteriorating as well. His wife would like to attend a class reunion, but because he is not good at travel, even locally, and the cost for both is high and he cannot be left alone – she will not attend. I feel for her! There were many parties this summer I would have loved to been in attendance and because he was not available mentally and emotionally to go – we stayed home. There is a ton of activities each day and weekend – and he prefers to go to the grocery store and stay at the home. So I understand the change in social activity – and because – here we go- I don’t go to work – the change in my personal interaction with people … sometimes just hanging around them or having them hang around me. No time for pity! No time—we are off to get the net round of pills and food for the day and make our new schedule as exciting as we thought the old one was – in retrospect- as opposed to the curses we threw at it while in the middle of living it!
We are a crazy kind of people. Another day – another time – another thought!
Peace, Love and Harmony and Happy Days to the Birthday and Anniversary people in September.
