Slowing Down

The biggest overall challenge I've had in old age is slowing down. I adhere to the Spoons Theory for a while and then fall off by tackling too much in one day. What I mean by "too much" is one over the one alloted social engagement or two very short walks into stores or restaurants, say with Daughter.

I know this wandering about sounds outrageous in Covid Times but we're had no cases for the last 5 days and everyone is masked and tables are distanced and stores all look different with arrows and wide aisles and everyone following protocols. I know. Extraordinary. Hats off to everyone and particularly our Minister of Health, our Chief Medical Officer and our premier who all happen to be doctors. And whose modus operandi is "An Abundance of Caution," and the nautical term "Hold Fast, Newfoundland." with multiple media appearances and special little chats with children ("Yes, Santa Claus has been vaccinated.")

I tackled too much when Daughter was in here on Saturday. It would sound measly to my 60 year old ears but nowadays, I feel quite pathetically elderly when I have to be mobilised. I recognize my Covid weight isn't helping. But many of us resort to soothing "treats" during this stressful times. And I hold my hand up. And tips to avoid such indulgences would be welcome.

Today is Monday and I am going out later on with George in hand and a grocery order pickup. I had arranged this for Saturday when Daughter was here but the brain has also slowed down and I had forgotten to complete my order by pushing "confirm", another hiccup of old age. There are a few. And I feel inordinately ashamed when my glitches confuse and bother me.

I throw all this stuff out here as I am quite nervous about sharing all these wee failings of mine with anyone close to me. As is the case with most elders. These dangerous and lethal old age homes may await us if we display any kind of incompetence at all. So I am cautious of concentrating on tasks at hand. As I have left burners on and walked away from lit candles. My busy brain needs to offload more files.

Meanwhile I go back to the Spoon Theory and plan my week out more carefully. Life shouldn't be a trudge and a chore even if one's physical energy is severely limited as mine is.

Bate Out

Yesterday the Everest of Banking, Library-ing, mailouts, and a grocery dabble (my curbside pickup is on strike) took place. Along with bed-changing, showering and dishwashing.

I didn't count the spoons.

The library had what they called a "soft opening". The librarians were behind plexi-glass but encouraged shelf browsing. I didn't. It was all I could do to pick up the three books they had on hold for me. But delighted I am with these as I was running a little low on my stockpile and that creates panic and you don't want to be around that.

I managed to cruise a little island inside the grocery store which had those display items of non-matchy things. Like grapes beside beef-rolls and lemon meringue pie beside spinach dip. All of which I bought as I felt like I was on death's door and couldn't move beyond this island of ill-matched goods. So yes, now I have a large thingie of cabbage rolls too and a chicken pot pie for a family of farmers and assorted little cheeses and oh 8 Portuguese rolls.

But I'll stretch the magnificent melange out into a semblance of kinda sorta meals.

I was sitting on the only bench outside the checkout area when a friend tinged and said she was in the grocery store and did I need....?

She came wandering out in surprise and told me I looked like death warmed up. Just what I wanted to hear.

So I got home, finally. A sad, trudging, and deathlike carapace of a human. Only to hear news that an old friend in Ontario had died after 3 years of awful and relentless cancer.

So I did what you would do, crawled into bed and stayed there. Thinking of times past and grieving and then thinking reach out to some younger people. Which I did. And they sent me pictures of completed projects and flowers.

But I'm still bate out as I type. Bate out? An Irish expression. Finished. Can't lift the pinky for a cuppa.

But hell, yes, we march on.

Amuse-Bouche
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Free-Floating Fridays

Grandgirl received her Master of Economics degree yesterday. Can't tell you how proud I am.

I transplanted the African Violets that I call The Three Sisters and they are thriving. I haven't been able to grow violets since my Toronto days (and a fine hand I was at it too) so am thrilled they like this eastern lookout.

I'm surrounded by sudden onset dementia lately. I don't even know if there's such a thing, don't want to know. Two women in the laundry room yesterday were completely baffled by the machine knobs. Women who were completely competent before. I had to go back to help them with the dryer knobs. A man I had a kinda "coffee date" with not too long ago was reported missing by his sister and the police found him wandering around the nearby lake looking for his car. 5 kilometers from his home, the car was parked at his apartment building. He is now in a home. I saw him about a month ago at the local coffee shop. Without even greeting me, he asked me for a ride downtown. I was on my way in the opposite direction and declined. He was odd, never looked at me, stumbled off outside as I watched him, puzzled, not realizing he was in a bad way even though he smelled to high heaven as if he hadn't washed in weeks. I feel weird about this. Is my compassion quota all used up?

I'm still not coming to grips with my seriously reduced energy levels. I take on too much and then have to bow off. The spoons theory needs to be honoured more by me. It's like I'm greedy for life in such an enormous way and then run into my elderly self, defeated and disgruntled and dismayed and disappointed. Not a good feeling.

PS Please feel free to join in on Free-Floating Fridays and link to your post on comments here.

Spoons and Drawers

In other news.

Have you heard about the spoon theory? I read about this over the holiday season and tried to explain it to others who fell around laughing. But listen. As we age, become disabled, are disabled, depressed, challenged, tired, no energy, diseased, we can apply the spoon theory to ourselves.

This is how it started:

"The term spoons in this sense was coined by Christine Miserandino in 2003 in her essay "The Spoon Theory".[8][9] The essay describes a conversation between Miserandino and a friend.The discussion was initiated by a question from the friend in which she asked about what having lupus feels like. The essay then describes the actions of Miserandino, who took spoons from nearby tables to use as a visual aid. She handed her friend twelve spoons and asked her to describe the events of a typical day, taking a spoon away for each activity. In this way, she demonstrated that her spoons, or units of energy, must be rationed to avoid running out before the end of the day. Miserandino also asserted that it is possible to exceed one's daily limit, but that doing so means borrowing from the future and may result in not having enough spoons the next day. Miserandino suggested that spoon theory can describe the effects of mental illnesses as well."

My ideal is under 30 spoons per day. But some days, like yesterday, I run it up to 33 spoons. Why? If I do my laundry that necessitates very long trips to the laundry room. We can only use one machine at a time and if there are many loads, that's a lot of walking. We don't complain as it's free. So each laundry load to me is 4 spoons as each trek up and down the hall is .25 of a kilometre. So today I have to compensate for that, which I am and I'm subtracting those 3 spoons from today.

My spoon sheet:

I'm starting to keep a daily tally and thought it might be of some value to my readers as most of are in some stages of aging, decrepitude and/or challenged in some way.

And yeah the Kondo-ization of some of us. I take what I can apply to my own life from her and discard the rest. But her drawer theory? Love it.

for instance here is my kitchen drawer:

I love the way I can see all the dishtowels and dishcloths (yeah, all hand knitted by moi - thanks for noticing!) and it does "spark joy" to also see all my colourful knickers at once leaning against each other in orderly fashion. And yeah my t-shirts and jammies too.

A lot to be said for it. Not all of it, but a lot of it. I still have to deal with photos and unhung pictures.