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Falling Hard
I’m 57, going to be 58 soon. I don’t bounce back like I did in my 20s 0r 30s. Recently I had a REALLY bad fall, due to a seizure in the wee hours of the morning. Just in case you ever wondered, if you decide to fight with a sturdy barn table, the barn table is guaranteed to win. I ended up with a couple of cracked ribs and some weeks of hobbling around. And one of those “help I’ve fallen and can’t get up buttons” from my insurance company, b/c I live alone and my whippet doesn’t have the capacity to dial 911. (My NEXT dog will, however, as I am going to go through the American Epilepsy Foundation and apply for a service animal-not an “emotional support dog-ugh”-a dog who is certified as a seizure dog and who has been though extensive training.)
I’m going through a rough patch right now. I’m struggling with my old nemesis the black dog. Funny, I do better emotionally in the winter and fall. Spring starts to appear and depression rears it ugly head with me. All the coming sunshine just makes me want to cry. Been that way ever since I was a kid, even back in Mississippi. Dad used to tease me about it, then he gave me a boat so I could get away by myself.
Everyone I know is having a time right now, though. I’ve had two friends die in the past winter. A friend lost her father. Three other friends, my own age, have been diagnosed with life-changing diagnoses. I know others who are emigrating or are considering such. And I’ve friends just vanish from my life for no reason I can discern. I’m learning again to tread lightly with (new) people. Unfortunately, my prevailing sense is that, by and large, folks are just not to be depended upon these days. ALWAYS have a back-up plan and a book in your bag.
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Unsteadiness
I have a sense of …unsteadiness these days, regarding the world around me in all sorts of ways. Physically, in that I’m getting older and more easily apt to fall or be knocked down by some mishap; politically, for sure, as I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia where I’ve seen a three-ring circus starring our top three elected officials lately (and may I say, Mark Herring in particular broke my heart); but what I especially want to address is INTERPERSONAL transience. I’m not talking about the change that occurs when a loved one moves, falls ill, or even dies; these are life-events that are normal in the course of a friendship and something that I take into account. What I am referring to is relationship instability and unreliability.
Two examples: I had a friend (NOT a millennial) who was supposed to pick me up from the grocery. He had sent me a text offering to do so. I replied saying I would take him up on his offer and told him I was waiting outside the grocery. I waited and waited AND WAITED. He didn’t show. Finally, luckily some other friends came along to offer me a ride, otherwise I would had to wait another hour, b/c I had missed transit. He never replied to a text I sent telling him I was going home. I’m unsure now if he’s getting my texts or what, and calling is no good historically with this particular person. But okay, whatever. Maybe he had an emergency or we had a failure to communicate somehow. But I’m left with having to process this. Ugh. Today I sent him a text asking what he was doing for lunch. No answer again.
I had a friend tell me yesterday that SHE had a good long-term friend IRL just drop her and not tell her why. She said she has no idea WHY the friend did this-they had had no argument, fight, disagreement or anything resembling anything that should cause such a move. I told her that I think it most likely had nothing to do with HER. But something these days is causing people to lose their ability to make friends, keep friends, or just to plain BE friends. The simple things that I was taught: Communicate (listen; talk); show up when you say you will; let someone know if you CAN’T; keep in touch (preferably via some human method) regularly; BE THERE…..I just don’t think people can do these that much anymore. They’re either forgetting how, if they were taught (like people of my gen-and I gotta say, I’m picking up some BAD HABITS from some of my younger friends) or they’ve never learned in the first place. It’s like DEEP READING…it’s something I try to keep doing and sadly fear I fail to do very well any more.
So, for those of you out there reading this. I hope YOU are faring better than I these days! Maybe if you have a family or a partner, you are not experiencing such a sense of precariousness and impermanence. And I’m not saying that most of my friends have exhibited such behavior. But I’m saying that in general people are less reliable than PUBLIC TRANSIT……and that’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs.
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Religious Holidays/Non-religious Folx
This was written over the Xmas season on another site. By me.
It’s Xmas season. Everywhere you turn, you are besieged with messages wishing you “Merry Xmas!” B/c as our POTUS has said, MERRY XMAS is now BACK…with a vengeance! But, as more and more folx ID as atheist, agnostic, non-religious, or even just some other religion other than Xian, where does than leave US? We grin and bear it, give our Xian friends appropriate gifts, try to enjoy the good things about the season….but
Really. I find this all very difficult. After a while, the red and green everywhere, the tinsel and the unending Xmas carols become maddening. I dislike Xmas even more than pumpkin spice lattes…and I HATE those with a passion. I find myself on the verge of informing random strangers that Jesus was most likely born in the spring (if he existed at all, which I doubt). OR maybe the autumn or the summer. We don’t REALLY know. The whole Dec. 25th thing was set by the R. C. Church back in the day to co-opt Saturnalia. And Bethlehem? Another guess. Wise men? Total fabrication.
But I don’t do this. I attend parties and even church services with good grace. I wish everyone MERRY XMAS. I sing along. But inside I’m madly plotting to blow up the whole Xmas thing….even though I know it will tick on year after dreary year after year. Rant over.
