The right time

 

It seems that there are some things that should be obvious after such long times.

One is that things happen best when it is time for them to happen.

Trying to force things, to make them happen when others deem it necessary, or when time indicates it would a good idea, or when duty niggles at my conscience, makes believing in all this difficult.

Just because the so called norm is one thing, or one way, does not mean that way is for me. Truthfully, nothing else is usually that way for me either. My body, my mind, my well-being come with a time table and tolerance level all their own.

Other people rush into surgery with an injured rotator cuff, but mine took care of itself and is perfect now. I just needed to give it time and do the movement it indicated it needed. That is a physical manifestation of who I am. Homesickness when I went away to college, was another one of those things that worked itself out in its own time. Finding joy in my life is another and the list goes on and on.

If I just find the energy to do the things that are absolutely necessary and hang in there, almost everything else takes care of itself in the right place and the right time.

I will try the clothes on when the time is right. Go back to grocery shopping when I am really ready. Get out of the house, go walk in the woods, paint that picture -- everything has a time and a place and works so much better in the right time and place.

It is the difference between existing and excelling.

The right direction

 

It's been a while since I last posted a blog. Lots of things have happened.

My best friend in all the world came to visit. It was more than wonderful.

I finally got in to see the kidney specialist. It was not wonderful but it was necessary.

New doctors always seem to think they know everything. Mine started me on four new prescriptions at once.

How do you figure out which one is causing you problems when that happens? There are 24 possible combinations for creating problems! And that is before you add in the prescriptions I already take.

Seventeen days, many hours of incredible and frightening pain later, I am starting to feel almost as good as I did before I went to the new doctor. In the end, this was still a good decision.

I was right. I cannot take statins. Evidently I cannot take as much of other drugs as he thought, but today, for the first time, my blood glucose was 127, my blood pressure was 135/74 and I am fifteen pounds lighter. I finally got a night's sleep and I can breathe when I walk, so we are headed in the right direction.

Confirmation?

 

It is a strange feeling to realize that I am the second oldest female in our entire family.

It means I have said good-bye to so many people I loved and knew.

If I say it happened. It happened.

Of course it also means that most of the people who were around while I was growing up are no longer here and that is the strangest feeling.

There is a part of me that wonders how that happens? How can someone who gave me life, who was living and breathing, talking and playing no longer be?

Death is incomprehensible. 

Religious people say they go to heaven. Nonreligious say they simply cease to exist. I think it is possible that they become part of the world around me, the wind, the earth, the rain.

One thing I do know is that none of them have come back to confirm any of this.

Imprinting

 

I have read about baby animals imprinting on their mothers, or whoever they first see at birth and that makes sense to me, but I have a similar trait.

My ex-husband once told our counselor that I always bounced back from any problems. I thought that meant I was resilient. But now that I can binge watch programs on Netflix, or Prime I am beginning to wonder if I am just not one of those people who adapts relatively quickly to whatever is in front of me.

It is sort of like imprinting on whoever I see the most.

You might think of it like a juvenile crush teenagers get on movie idols. If I am watching a series that lasted four or more seasons I find myself waking up already thinking of watching the next episode, or even dreaming about the characters in the series.

It's not the same as having a Patrick Swayze crush, because that person will not attract me outside of the show they are on in the series!

It's a little bit sad. 

But it is also rather interesting.

The human brain is so facile.

What's it all about

 

I have said it before, but I'll repeat it here. This past year of quarantine has aged me much more than one year. I feel old. The emphasis is on the word, feel, because that is what filters the way I experience life.

Feelings.

I say this now because the filter is starting to erode. It actually began a few days ago while I was driving my car. Nothing changed. The sun did not peep out of the clouds. The landscape did not look more beautiful. The story on the radio was not more compelling.

But I felt suddenly moved. For an instant I remembered a different feeling in this same place. As though I had breached a time warp and tasted a slightly happier carefree moment from past.

I have noticed this type of thing several more times since then. Walking into a store, or across the parking lot, even sitting in my apartment when the sun got low enough to burst through my windows and heat up the room with its bright yellow orange rays.

Small glimpses of the Before Times. Times that seemed sadly normal back then, but vaguely euphoric now.

Life! What's it all about? 

I'm starting to remember.

It's more than warm chairs and coziness. More than ordering groceries on line and finding them delivered outside the door. More than good programs over the internet and good books read in bed. 

It is the freedom to be all those things that seemed more like dreams than reality.  It is about reclaiming the joy of living.

Those good ole days

 

I am constantly reading about how simple life was when people were children. 

People seem to assume that childhood should be simple, but when you are a child nothing is as simple, or chaotic, or complicated, as it will be when you look back at it with adult eyes.

Some people will be so traumatized they will remember only the darkness and horror.

Some will be so short sighted they will only remember the good times.

And most will forget that children see the world through different eyes than adults.

The world they know is their only world. And whether that is baseball, jacks, and jumping rope, or soccer, skateboards, hackey sacks  and video games they will all respond to it differently depending on the adults around them. If mom and dad are awfulizers their kids will tend to follow suite. If mom and dad take things in stride, their kids are more likely to do the same.

Childhood is for learning how to live in the adult world you are inheriting, not some idealized storybook written by people looking backwards.