I've been reading a book called, Through Black Spruce, by Joseph Boyden. I read The Orenda, and liked it so much, that I searched for what other books he'd written. He is an excellent writer, and he tells a story in a way I wish I could write.
Anyway, there's a story about how the main character is in a canoe when he spots a moose. He slowly takes out his rifle to shoot the moose, which he needs to be able to survive the winter.
Strangely, that got me thinking about the moose. Here she is, in the middle of the woods, maybe never having seen a human being in her entire two years of moose life, and with two bullets, her life is ended. I made a connection to the moose with my own life. We don't know how our own lives will end. We may never see the end of our lives coming. And then it happens.
When I was younger, I don't think I had many thoughts about the end of my life. Now that I'm 60, and after having experienced the deaths of so many family members and friends, I can't say I think of it constantly, but I'm aware of it almost every day. We don't get to choose, any more than we get to choose what illnesses afflict our bodies.
In my early teens, I used to think to myself, "I'm never getting cramps." But then in my 20's, I had pretty miserable cramps. In my 20's, I used to say to myself, "I'm never having back problems." Ah, the arrogance and ignorance of youth. I've had back problems galore, especially for the last 30 years.
Last year, I had some blood work done, and it showed that I had metabolic syndrome, which is the precursor to diabetes. I had always thought, "I'm never going to have diabetes," as if it were something I could will away from myself. My doctor told me that I could prevent it from happening if I lost weight and exercised more. That pronouncement was the only thing that made me determined to lose weight, something I hadn't even tried to do seriously since 2008.
I've never enjoyed cooking very much. In fact, for most of my married life, my husband has done the greater part of the cooking in our home. Then I retired, and although I had never been a fan of cooking shows, I started watching The Chew. I'd print out those recipes from their website, go shopping for all the ingredients, and cook up a storm. I wasn't worried about my weight. I figured, "Hey, life is short, and I'm going to enjoy myself!"
My cardiologist had a fit when he saw my cholesterol numbers. I told him I was retired and cooking a lot now, and he said, "I bet you're watching those cooking shows and using butter." I emphatically said, "Yes!"
Even with two surgeries to repair the torn meniscus in each knee, I didn't lose weight. Even when the doctor grabbed at the area above my knee and said, "That's fat!" I wasn't motivated to lose weight.
But when my doctor told me I was pre-diabetic, that did it for me, so in the past three months, I've lost 35 pounds. And yet, I still think about the end of my life.
The point is, I guess, it doesn't do a lot of good to wonder what it will be that takes us out of this life. We live our lives the best we can. I like the saying by John Wesley, "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." That doesn't mean I live my life as a Pollyanna, without any character flaws. I have many flaws, I assure you. And I've grown very cautious in my older age. But I still hope to have adventures.
Yesterday, I spent about five hours weeding the herb garden in my back yard. My knees don't work as well as they used to, and and so I sat on my little rolling garden caddy, to be closer to the ground. I pulled and hacked and cut until I could barely move. I didn't realize how long I'd been at the task until I came inside and saw the clock. I was so enervated, I could hardly make it through my shower without collapsing.
That got me thinking, as it usually does after these marathon gardening sessions, about how long I'd be able to keep up my gardens. Would I still be able to do this in five years, ten years, or even next year? I have no clue, but I will keep on going as long as I'm able, and try not to think about the end of my life too much...
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Reminiscing
I've been going through boxes of old letters, cards, and photographs. Why? Because my husband wants more room in the garage. So I have found myself sitting for hours, looking through all these things, reminiscing about the past.
The boxes were up in the attic, but it was my husband's idea to try to clear out clutter, so he brought some of the boxes down from the attic and put them in the garage. They sat there for several months. Finally, on the Fourth of July, he prodded me to get started going through them.
I don't have any children, and I don't think any of my nieces or nephews would be interested in going through this stuff. I figure, I'm making it easier on Wayne or whoever has the job of cleaning out the house after I die, so I'm throwing stuff out.
I've given away all my work clothes. It's been almost three years since I've retired, and I haven't worn one of my "work outfits" once in all that time, so if I don't need them, I want to give them to someone else who can use them. It's been very cathartic. I've been giving stuff away since my 50's. I gave my niece and nephew so much stuff, they asked me, "Aunt Debbie, are you dying?"
My mom started giving stuff away in her 60's. It's funny. You don't have much when you first start out on your own, and then you accumulate things along the way. Finally, you get to the point that you realize you don't need all this stuff.
I think Hurricane Katrina emphasized that point to me. I had friends who lost everything in the storm. Afterwards, I didn't want to buy anything. "What's the point?" I thought. It's just going to be taken away in the storm.
At this stage of my life, I'm streamlining. If I have something and I'm not using it, I want to give it away to someone who can.
Which brings me back to the boxes of cards, letters, and photographs....I can't just throw out the letters and cards without reading them. So that's what I've been doing for the past few days. I'm touched by all the sentiments expressed in the letters and cards. I cannot bring myself to throw the photographs away. When I die, someone is going to find all these pictures and wonder who these people are, and who are all the babies. I've written on the back of the photos, but still, whoever is going to be looking at these pictures will wonder.....
At times, I've wanted to bust out crying as I'm reading the letters. So many emotions...
My mom was so funny, and it all comes back to me as I read her letters. She loved jokes, and she passed on her sense of humor to me. I used to give my students extra points if they got up in front of the class and told jokes. I did that to give them confidence and to prepare them for having to speak in public. I told them, "The jokes have to be clean - I'm sharing them with my mom." My mom loved all those jokes. She'd enclose cartoons when she wrote to me, along with pictures she thought I'd like.
It was sad reading through the letters, how many of the letter writers have died: my mom, my dad, Wayne's mom, Auntie Lil, my cousin, Richie, Auntie Esther, my friend from work, James Miller, my friend, Cormel, who showed me how to turn on the computer(!), Jimmy McGeehee, the Youth for Christ leader... I've lost touch with some of the people, and I don't even know if some of them are still alive.
I have lots of letter from students I taught at college. They were full of praise and make me think I wasn't as good as they thought I was, but it's nice to read anyway. Some of my students wrote to let me know what jobs they had, when they got married, when they had babies, what graduate schools they were attending. There were letters from fellow professors/colleagues, telling me the latest news in the department and in their lives.
I have thank you letters from nieces and nephews - accompanied by pictures they drew for me. So many of the letters were from my cousins, one in particular with whom I've been corresponding since I was about 7 years old. We used to say that we were cousins who were separated at birth because we were so much on the same wavelength.
There were Christmas letters from friends and family accompanied by pictures, and I could see their children growing before my eyes. I don't know why I've lost touch with so many of them. I even kept the cards marked, "Return to Sender" because they'd moved without leaving a forwarding address. When I opened those cards, I could read the first Christmas letter I'd ever composed.
There were condolence cards from friends who wrote consoling words when my "autistic" cat, Minimax, died. There were thank you notes of all sorts. There were letters from my friends I corresponded with on a regular basis.
And then there were the cards Wayne and I sent each other through the years: Valentine's Day cards, Christmas cards, birthday cards, anniversary cards, just because cards....
All those cards, letters, and photographs mean something to me, but I will not be here forever, so I am keeping the memories, and throwing out the material...except for the pictures. Let whoever comes upon them wonder.....
The boxes were up in the attic, but it was my husband's idea to try to clear out clutter, so he brought some of the boxes down from the attic and put them in the garage. They sat there for several months. Finally, on the Fourth of July, he prodded me to get started going through them.
I don't have any children, and I don't think any of my nieces or nephews would be interested in going through this stuff. I figure, I'm making it easier on Wayne or whoever has the job of cleaning out the house after I die, so I'm throwing stuff out.
I've given away all my work clothes. It's been almost three years since I've retired, and I haven't worn one of my "work outfits" once in all that time, so if I don't need them, I want to give them to someone else who can use them. It's been very cathartic. I've been giving stuff away since my 50's. I gave my niece and nephew so much stuff, they asked me, "Aunt Debbie, are you dying?"
My mom started giving stuff away in her 60's. It's funny. You don't have much when you first start out on your own, and then you accumulate things along the way. Finally, you get to the point that you realize you don't need all this stuff.
I think Hurricane Katrina emphasized that point to me. I had friends who lost everything in the storm. Afterwards, I didn't want to buy anything. "What's the point?" I thought. It's just going to be taken away in the storm.
At this stage of my life, I'm streamlining. If I have something and I'm not using it, I want to give it away to someone who can.
Which brings me back to the boxes of cards, letters, and photographs....I can't just throw out the letters and cards without reading them. So that's what I've been doing for the past few days. I'm touched by all the sentiments expressed in the letters and cards. I cannot bring myself to throw the photographs away. When I die, someone is going to find all these pictures and wonder who these people are, and who are all the babies. I've written on the back of the photos, but still, whoever is going to be looking at these pictures will wonder.....
At times, I've wanted to bust out crying as I'm reading the letters. So many emotions...
My mom was so funny, and it all comes back to me as I read her letters. She loved jokes, and she passed on her sense of humor to me. I used to give my students extra points if they got up in front of the class and told jokes. I did that to give them confidence and to prepare them for having to speak in public. I told them, "The jokes have to be clean - I'm sharing them with my mom." My mom loved all those jokes. She'd enclose cartoons when she wrote to me, along with pictures she thought I'd like.
It was sad reading through the letters, how many of the letter writers have died: my mom, my dad, Wayne's mom, Auntie Lil, my cousin, Richie, Auntie Esther, my friend from work, James Miller, my friend, Cormel, who showed me how to turn on the computer(!), Jimmy McGeehee, the Youth for Christ leader... I've lost touch with some of the people, and I don't even know if some of them are still alive.
I have lots of letter from students I taught at college. They were full of praise and make me think I wasn't as good as they thought I was, but it's nice to read anyway. Some of my students wrote to let me know what jobs they had, when they got married, when they had babies, what graduate schools they were attending. There were letters from fellow professors/colleagues, telling me the latest news in the department and in their lives.
I have thank you letters from nieces and nephews - accompanied by pictures they drew for me. So many of the letters were from my cousins, one in particular with whom I've been corresponding since I was about 7 years old. We used to say that we were cousins who were separated at birth because we were so much on the same wavelength.
There were Christmas letters from friends and family accompanied by pictures, and I could see their children growing before my eyes. I don't know why I've lost touch with so many of them. I even kept the cards marked, "Return to Sender" because they'd moved without leaving a forwarding address. When I opened those cards, I could read the first Christmas letter I'd ever composed.
There were condolence cards from friends who wrote consoling words when my "autistic" cat, Minimax, died. There were thank you notes of all sorts. There were letters from my friends I corresponded with on a regular basis.
And then there were the cards Wayne and I sent each other through the years: Valentine's Day cards, Christmas cards, birthday cards, anniversary cards, just because cards....
All those cards, letters, and photographs mean something to me, but I will not be here forever, so I am keeping the memories, and throwing out the material...except for the pictures. Let whoever comes upon them wonder.....
Friday, May 30, 2014
Skirmishes
When I got out of bed this morning, I noticed a few small streaks of blood on the pillowcase. And then it all came back to me. My head got caught in the middle of a skirmish between two of my cats. I remember getting bonked in the forehead and feeling a quick scratch across my face. I woke up with a start, saying, "Owwwww!" I don't know who threw the first paw, but I must have gone back to sleep immediately because it wasn't until I saw blood on the pillowcase, that I remembered where it came from. Crazy cats....
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
It Isn't Easy Being Menopausal
I have hot flashes. I have been having hot flashes... for the past ten years. Yes, I've heard them called "power surges," or "my private summer," but whenever I'm in the midst of one and I NEED a fan, I just say, "I'm having a hot flash, and I need some paper to make a fan," and no one misinterprets what I mean.
A few years ago, I was in Sears, and I was buying an elliptical machine when I got a hot flash. I know I was turning red and desperately looking for some paper to make into a fan just to have a breeze in my face. The salesman looked panicky, and he asked me, "Is there someone I can call for you?" I told him, "It's just a hot flash." He looked so alarmed. I wonder if he thought I was having a stroke or something.
One of my husband's friends said, "How long have you been having those? It seems like you've had them a long time now." Wayne immediately said, "Ten years!" He knows, I guess, because he lives with me. He goes around the house in a hoodie, so that when we're sitting at the kitchen table and I reach up to turn on the fan, he can flip the hood up over his head. I even put the fan pull on an extra long cord so that I can reach it easier.
Unless you've had hot flashes, you have no idea how they feel. My husband once made the mistake of saying he knows how it feels to have a hot flash because ONCE he got a radioactive dye injection for a CT scan, and he understood how it felt. I looked at him and gaped, "ONCE? Try 20 times a day and night for ten years!!!!" I don't think he ever said that again, at least, not in my presence.
I'm reading an article in this month's AARP magazine. The title is "It's My Menopause, Darn It!" by Sandra Tsing Loh. I loved the statement by one woman who said, "If anyone tells you menopause is easy, punch them in the mouth!"
I have tried hormones, St. John's wort, evening primrose oil, soy, yoga, macrobiotics, low carb, etc. Nothing has alleviated the hot flashes. So now I just carry this nifty fan that my friend gave me. I carry that fan EVERYWHERE. Otherwise, I will be scrambling for a piece of paper to fan myself. Someone offered to fold the paper into a nice, little fan - I grabbed that piece of paper so fast - there just isn't time to wait when you're in the middle of a hot flash. Give me that paper NOW! As I'm sitting at my computer typing this, I have the fan overhead blowing at maximum speed. This fan also has an extra long cord, so I don't even have to stand up to pull the cord. I don't know why I didn't think of that years ago....
A few years ago, I was in Sears, and I was buying an elliptical machine when I got a hot flash. I know I was turning red and desperately looking for some paper to make into a fan just to have a breeze in my face. The salesman looked panicky, and he asked me, "Is there someone I can call for you?" I told him, "It's just a hot flash." He looked so alarmed. I wonder if he thought I was having a stroke or something.
One of my husband's friends said, "How long have you been having those? It seems like you've had them a long time now." Wayne immediately said, "Ten years!" He knows, I guess, because he lives with me. He goes around the house in a hoodie, so that when we're sitting at the kitchen table and I reach up to turn on the fan, he can flip the hood up over his head. I even put the fan pull on an extra long cord so that I can reach it easier.
Unless you've had hot flashes, you have no idea how they feel. My husband once made the mistake of saying he knows how it feels to have a hot flash because ONCE he got a radioactive dye injection for a CT scan, and he understood how it felt. I looked at him and gaped, "ONCE? Try 20 times a day and night for ten years!!!!" I don't think he ever said that again, at least, not in my presence.
I'm reading an article in this month's AARP magazine. The title is "It's My Menopause, Darn It!" by Sandra Tsing Loh. I loved the statement by one woman who said, "If anyone tells you menopause is easy, punch them in the mouth!"
I have tried hormones, St. John's wort, evening primrose oil, soy, yoga, macrobiotics, low carb, etc. Nothing has alleviated the hot flashes. So now I just carry this nifty fan that my friend gave me. I carry that fan EVERYWHERE. Otherwise, I will be scrambling for a piece of paper to fan myself. Someone offered to fold the paper into a nice, little fan - I grabbed that piece of paper so fast - there just isn't time to wait when you're in the middle of a hot flash. Give me that paper NOW! As I'm sitting at my computer typing this, I have the fan overhead blowing at maximum speed. This fan also has an extra long cord, so I don't even have to stand up to pull the cord. I don't know why I didn't think of that years ago....
Post Traumatic Growth
I'd never heard of the term, "post traumatic growth," until this month while I was reading AARP's magazine, and I came across the article, "Surviving the Jolt," written by Mark Miller. According to the author, the term has been around since 1995, when University of North Carolina at Charlotte professor, Lawrence Calhoun, coined the phenomenon of PTG. "Resilience is when you get punched, stagger and then jump right back up. Post-traumatic growth is different - when you stand back up, you are transformed."
I love the idea of growth and transformation stemming from the jolts life gives us. Instead of PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome), there can be PTG. It's a whole new way of looking at trauma. I'm reminded of the the following verses:
I love the idea of growth and transformation stemming from the jolts life gives us. Instead of PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome), there can be PTG. It's a whole new way of looking at trauma. I'm reminded of the the following verses:
Psalm 30:11-12
New Living Translation (NLT)
11 You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
12 that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!
You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
12 that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Oh, It's a Beautiful Morning!
You never know what a day will bring....
This morning, I got up, and three cats were in bed with me. I started making the bed, and when I got to the left side, I saw cat vomit in the bed. How did that happen, and I didn't wake up when one of the cats was upchucking?????
There was a hairball on the floor beside the bed, or as I describe it, a hair log... I found the enzyme cleaner, a must for anyone with pets, and scraped as much of the vomit off the sheets and carpet as I could, and then I sprayed the enzyme cleaner. Oy vey. What a way to wake up!
See? Here's another benefit of being retired: I have time to clean up the cat vomit and wash the sheets instead of having to rush off to work!
This morning, I got up, and three cats were in bed with me. I started making the bed, and when I got to the left side, I saw cat vomit in the bed. How did that happen, and I didn't wake up when one of the cats was upchucking?????
There was a hairball on the floor beside the bed, or as I describe it, a hair log... I found the enzyme cleaner, a must for anyone with pets, and scraped as much of the vomit off the sheets and carpet as I could, and then I sprayed the enzyme cleaner. Oy vey. What a way to wake up!
See? Here's another benefit of being retired: I have time to clean up the cat vomit and wash the sheets instead of having to rush off to work!
Monday, May 19, 2014
Leap of Faith
Yesterday, I thought I saw two doves in the bird feeder. Then I looked again, and I saw it was a big squirrel. My husband said, "How did he get in there?" The bird feeder is hanging from under the eaves.
Well, I saw how he did it: the squirrel was in the gutter, and he leapt into the bird feeder. Score!!! I sat near the window with camera in hand, waiting for him to attempt the leap again, but no luck. Will be on the lookout....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)