A Whinge and a Whine

Us elders don't write enough about the exhaustion we feel. We put on brave and stoic faces. Well some of us do. Tasks seem to stretch out into infinity. Decisions are made about dishes vs bed-making. How many stops can I make today, library, bank, pharmacy, shop, coffee meet-up. Mentally I know I can only manage 2. Where's my wife, shouldn't she be doing the rest of the stops? Oh, I forget. It's only me. Note I didn't say husband. He'd be busy getting the oil changed (I have to do that too) but he might make dinner and shop the insurance rates. Oh yeah, I do all that too. I know there are exceptions to these hide bound female/male categories, not that I see any around me. Solo maintenance takes a hell of a lot of energy.

In case you're thinking this is all a whinge and whine, well, you'd be right.

Overwhelm is a weird condition. I don't want it. It seems to be a choice. Either ignore the list (and watch your world fold in on itself) or succumb and start ticking those boxes.

We did an hour this morning on the CBC call-in show. Talking, talking, listening, engaging, being nice. Mein Gott, it is exhausting. We were geared up then about the next communique going out to media across Canada but when we left the studio, didn't we sort of collapse in exhaustion. Unexpected then but truly no surprise when you think about it. Having headphones and engaging with listeners is tiring. Very tiring.

Though we looked right perky as we did it. Afterwards, I fell on my bed fully clothed and slept like a drunk after a bender.

When I awoke, I quickly got enraged at someone's assumption I was pushing close to 80 (it is 4 years away STILL) and that basically (she said) it was a huge stretch for me to even be web literate and then commented "God love her" as if I was some pitiable basket case drooling over my keyboard trying to find the enter button.

Easily irritated by assumptions, that's me. Old habits die hard. I don't suffer fools gladly and never have. But she did me a favour. Rage imbues me with unhealthy energy.

Elder Musings

~~I am thrilled with a new project I was fortunate enough to get.

~~However, I am slower, do you guys of elder vintage find that tackling work that was formerly a kind of I-can-do-this-with-one-hand- tied-behind-my-back is now an-all-hands-on-deck situation? And speaking of all hands I find that a sporadic carpal tunnel problem I had returned and boy was it a challenge to heal, older tissues, repetitive strain injuries take triple the time to heal including an arm splint to bed, oh gawd was that awful. I digress, it is now healed with the odd twinge to remind me not to abuse it again.

~~I'm also aware that the the 30+age gap between my clients and myself has me faltering a lot with business language. It's not that I don't know it, it's that it is more difficult to retrieve out of my brain files, particularly in business conversations. This morning on a 3-way conference call I found myself fumbling mentally with what term I could use for my PC(personal computer rather than my smart phone), thinking: is PC still used? So I blurted "Main frame." Now there's a blast from the past. I've been 40 years using these suckers. They let it go, tho surely they must wonder what I meant or what decade of the ought-oughts I was in.

~~See what I mean?

~~My wee friend whom I've mentioned before (under 30) wants a coffee date late tonight and my mind immediately goes to bedtime interruptus now: my nightly routines of a bit of Netflix, my book, my games of online scrabble and I want to decline but hey, I know this stuff is good for me too. Break the old routines, get out there.

~~Daughter wants me to meet 2 of her friends and host them to brunch in my place next weekend and I'd thought: no more of these get-togethers when I moved here, just hermitize. And hermitizing has not been good as my inner slob takes over and things need to be put away rather than gaped at in puzzlement as to where to put them. There's very little excess, but photographs, binders of writing, old laptop, wools, crafting supplies, multiple unhung pictures, you get it. But I mulled and thought well: incentive. In the past friends and I always joked that the best housekeeping system is to entertain once a month and I've followed that for years and years now. So yes, I need to do this, there's nothing like new friends and seriously I'm quite proud that Daughter likes to air me and share me. The maternal age-gap has shrunk between us which is quite lovely. And rare. And I treasure it.

~~Impatience with myself - that internal voice. I must slow down as I drop things in my speedy old way of doing things. Spoons, pens, phone, blue tooth ear piece, papers and I find myself castigating myself. Slow down, honour the crone.

~~One thing at a time is important. I can't do everything in one day and mornings are the best. So I do one thing on the to do list every day, or more if I can manage it, and the current day's wee jobs too, but I list them all as I learned in that Living with Chronic Diseases Workshops so I know that I've accomplished something at the end of the day, even if it's self care.

PS Photo is not me, but hey, I can sometimes feel like that.

Barefoot, Pregnant and Get Back into the Irish Kitchen

When I first read this article in the Irish Times, I thought it was tongue-in-cheek. In this day and age, surely, the country of my birth could not possibly be advocating a return to repression and misogyny? Herewith an excerpt from the article:

"Of course there will always be a place in the world of business for exceptional women. Women also have an important role to play in jobs that are too demeaning for men, like teaching. But the general employment of women is another matter. Indeed, working women almost certainly caused the credit crunch by bringing a second income into the average household, pushing property prices up to unsustainable levels."

But now I see it being referenced in reputable blogs and by serious journalists and I rethink it may not be satirical at all.

Last time I looked, not one woman was mentioned in the Ponzi schemes and I was particularly taken by photos of all the male bankers, insurers and car manufacturers, caps in hand, approaching governments for obscene bailouts.

Oh, wait a minute, now I get it. It was women in drag, right?