Blog Jam

I haven't moved to New Blogger as the reports I'm hearing from the kind keyboards of other bloggers are not favourable. If more steps are added to the process I don't see where the advantage would lie. Your comments are very welcome with either yays or nays for the new platform.

I did something major for me, which will probably be petty for others. But I ordered, on line, a seat for my shower. This is part of the journey of my acceptance of disability. It arrived ready to be assembled with very clear instructions and nuts and bolts and warnings about making it secure. Well, I sat down and assembled it. And installed it in my shower/bath. I mentioned to Daughter what I had done and she said: It's really hard to wash long hair like yours, you had a choice, cut all your hair off or make washing it more comfortable. I'm the only old woman I know with long hair. We all have our oddities and peculiarities.

After a long sojourn from him, I picked up a Michael Connolly Bosch from our community library and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy his writing and plot and character development. I see that they have made a streaming series out of his books on Amazon, but I'm not sure I want to see it. I have a visual image in my head of how he is and don't want that destroyed. Sometimes we need books that are fairly frivolous and utterly distracting. I will try and sort out the problem with my page reading lists as they're not working on here for some reason.

I am 34 years sober today which is really nearly half my life without the "divil drink". I think I would be long dead if I had continued my love affair with booze. I am so very grateful that all those years ago I found a better way of living my life without the self-destruct button.

Photograph is of Woody, a pink elephant, whom I treasure, given to me by Younger Daughter 33 years ago.

Because

An old photo from the old house, lovely lilacs that always bloomed late June, early July.

I said I'd write about this process here. I just checked the web and I see nothing formally written on it which surprises me. Because, like, everything's on the web now, right?

So basically this is what I would do before, when I was deep in therapy for childhood issues and resolution, forgiveness, understanding and attempts to reinvent myself as a worthwhile person.

This is an actual example from an old journal:

I dread having my father coming to stay with me every year.
Because?
I am always tense and afraid around him.
Because?
I am angry at the way he treats me.
Because?
I could never stand up for myself when he abused me.
Because?
I am afraid he will hit me and shout more abuse at me.
Because?
He is an angry and abusive man
Because?
He doesn't know how to be loving and kind towards me.
Because?
He never learned when he was growing up
Because?
He was born
Because?
There was love.

So then a decision had to be made. I return to self-love. I could show him love but I made the decision not to have him for extended stays in my home anymore as he continued his modus operandi which was to strongly favour one of my children over the other and abuse me verbally if I did not give him enough attention when we holidayed together. He was unable to show me love.

So applying it to today and my physical challenges:

I hate not being able to run and hike and walk anywhere.
Because?
My legs and back and now my neck hurt.
Because?
I smoked like a savage for 25 years
Because?
I had an addiction to nicotine
Because?
Nicotine is the only known antidote to anger
Because?
I had unexpressed rage
Because?
I was abused as a child
Because?
I was born.
Because?
There was love.

Decision time: I was born. There was love. I return to love. I deserve a good life. I am disabled. Say the word again. I am disabled. I dealt with my past life in the only way I knew how. I was strong: I chose addiction over suicide. I now choose to say I was born out of love and I am now disabled. I will ask for help. I will treat myself with love and care. And not anger. I will put systems and items and people in place to support me in my disability. And embrace my limitations.

It's like coming out of a closet full of mangled emotions and disagreeable resistance and an inability to express what's really going on beneath a pile-on of inarticulation.

This aging business is a journey, and has endless possibilities once I face my own limitations head on and return to love, of self, others and this wonderful experience called life.

Stone and rocks and sea and sky. June 2016

Acceptance

I must have written about this before. Acceptance.

One thing I know for sure. It is not a constant. It waffles and wavers and falls down and gets up in a different form. It can leave the room slowly or gallop off like a horse.

I'm still not 100% of where I was even a few weeks ago. I have Grandgirl staying with me and it really puts my health into a floodlit situation being around her. The energy my dears, the energy is just not there. And I have had many a private cry and an appalling one in front of her this morning after a miserable night of it.

Don't get me wrong. She is amazing and kind and lovely. Just this pity pot seems very handy for me to stick my head in now and again when I am alone.

I feel the Black Dog lurking patiently, panting in eagerness. And I know I am struggling one more time with the acceptance of my failing body.

I had to get another chest X-ray this week and I hauled myself off but I couldn't get parking and so I circled the hospital for about an hour, just about whimpering. Acceptance I kept saying to myself. Ask for help. Stop feeling like such a burden. One friend could use any money I offer her to assist me as she is impoverished at the moment. Rise up. Count the blessings. Accept where you are and carry on.

As I type Grandgirl is making supper. Kale and tortellini and goat cheese, etc. There is an odd shifting of balance between us. Inevitable. I am so grateful I live long enough to see her grow into this lovely, brilliant young woman who has a wonderful future ahead of her. She's a happy person. Content with her life and her partner and her large circle of friends.

I am reminded of my own beloved granny who didn't do so well in her latter years. One of her daughters insisted on her leaving her home and moving in with her and her rambunctious household that also included her mother-in-law and that was not a good move. Granny missed her village and her friends and her chickens and dog. Independence is truly all important in our senior years as long we it is even remotely manageable. Closing our own doors on the world when we need to. I imagine as I fall into some decrepitude Granny is haunting me a little. But she also had the huge burden of a dead daughter (my mother) which was devastating for her.

I need to accept life as it is today and move away from the "not any mores" and the "neverness" of things I won't be able for again.

Just writing all this turbulence down has really helped me today.

Acceptance.

I need to work on it some more.

Update

Strong coffee, a good book, fresh design on the needles....what more, seriously?


My friend T had his surgery on Thursday, a quadruple bypass, and is astonishing everyone with his speedy recovery, even his surgeon. He's sitting around for a few hours, all the tubes are out and he wants to go home. So next Wednesday is his release into the real world.

The Living with Chronic Disease series of workshops is marvellous. I was resistant to getting a handicap sticker for my car (only really, really challenged people get those!)and was encouraged to bite the bullet. Often I have to park a distance away from my destination and my legs seize after a few minutes walking and the pain, m'dears. So yeah, I agreed to taking my walking pole when out walking, requesting the handicap registration from my doctor (done and mailed) and checking out a folding walking stick from a local shop which another participant recommends. You just never know, she says, when you might need it.

One of the important things I noted in this workshop is that participants with hobbies are the happiest. Those with no passion or have retirement thrust upon them with nothing to fill the time apart from chores and TV are the most anxious. Gardeners, knitters, fishers, quilters, wood-workers are the most fulfilled.


We commit to certain things each week (this week mine is 1,000 steps a day and finishing a shawl and continue to toss excess from my house)plus some exercises we are all attempting, even finger exercises which can be painful. My knitting keeps my hands fairly flexible but my legs and back seem to be worsening so I am attempting more.

New York and Quebec tourists are arriving tomorrow, both holiday rooms in my house are booked which is good news.

A New Pair of Glasses

It’s the little things, tiny things really, that tell me I’ve been accepted as a native rather than a CFA (come from away) in my community here in Newfoundland.

Today, a couple and I had been invited to another couple’s home for dinner - which is the midday meal here.

They tell me to drive to their place which is about halfway and they will drive the rest of the distance.

When I get into the back of their SUV, I find it is blanketed.

“Oh, they say, that’s for your dog, we thought you’d bring Ansa, we wanted her to feel at home in our car”.

We’re all on coffee and tea after we finish this fabulous meal of cod, potatoes, coleslaw and homemade carrot relish when the two women start teasing me about the china cups I’d used at my recent Nollaig na Mban and maybe I’d be getting too fancy now to use mugs. To much laughter, I gave as good as I got, saying I’d never be back again if I wasn’t served on the very best china.

All of this I observe through my new spectacles.

And I get a lump in my throat.

My Rules of Life---Part Seven

ACCEPTANCE

I used to struggle with just about everything and anyone given a small difference in basic philosophy or principle or possession. There was a lot of fear around the unknown, around perceived differences between you and me. The worst inner battle would come around circumstances. Why did you seem to have it so easy and I would be demented from trying to make ends meet. Life was always so unfair.


I was in the habit of always comparing my insides with your outsides. I'd see you so lovely and confident and think, I could be so much more given your looks and your brains and your relationship and your career and even your car. Life was tinged with an air of dissatisfaction. I'd bring an air of judgement and condemnation to any place, person or event I didn't quite approve of. For whatever reason.



There was never enough of this world for me. If I could have slightly more, then life would be a whole lot better.

I little realized that there would never be enough. Happiness, for me, I learned, was a completely inside job. I could never find it out there. It was in that indefinable space within.

And how did I find it? Through a long process of tearing down every faulty tenet of belief I had held so dear and letting go of all the preconceived notions of how I thought the world, with me in it, functioned.

I had to start with accepting myself exactly as I was in the very moment of now. It was never about the money or the wardrobe or the stuff. It was about who I was. I needed to find that. And I think I did. I had to accept the changes that happened to me. It was okay to change. Nothing was written in stone about my life. I could move through it, I could create it day to day. I could write. I could dream. I could read the books I wanted to read. And re-read them. I could shamelessly like old black and white movies.

But the other side of that was I had to accept you as you were as well, disliking the old B&W's and hating Jane Austen and really enjoying your trumpet. That was absolutely fine too. And I had to really mean it. I had to accept your wealth or your fame and not be intimidated or envious of it. I needed to wish you well in everything. I had to let go of the desire to change you. You were exactly as you were meant to be too. You see, I used to get acceptance and approval mixed up. I thought they were one and the same thing. But they're not.



And I'm still learning and still slide a little backwards on this acceptance business from time to time. But my whole life has substantially improved as a result.

An antidote to the 12 year-old Australian runway model {LINK}

The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, for I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift !

I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don't agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?
I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 50,60&70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.

They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.


I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.


As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.


So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it ...! )