Playing with a New Word for Aging

I got to this age the way everyone else does - by hanging around on this planet for X amount of time. What do we call being over 65? I read a couple of comments today without active participation until I decided to make up my own word for an older person. Making up words is more fun than aging. A word's power gets muddied in perception. Evidence crone which has slumped in popular usage over the centuries. Elder, some object to as too Druish. Senior? OK if there's a golf league to join or a discount to be had. Old. Nobody cares much for that because. Flowchart. That person with the wheelchair? Not me yet. If we think of this process of hanging around on earth for X time, (or for the math fans Earth+Time=Old. Maybe X=ET?) as spiritual growth or wisdom plus physical decline that gives me a place to word search. Wax and wane don't quite do the job because the etymology of those words is too close to make a word that's interesting or simple. Wax can mean grow in intensity, whether light in the case of the moon; or power in the case of potential energy (like a wound watch spring). That gives us aug. Augere in Latin, or Olde English, although that leads to augment and that leads to ED junk and I'm not going there. Wane gives us Latin vanus (empty) although I don't believe that etymological root. Ah, Yahoo, so not a root but a word itself. Combine spiritual growth and bodily decline. We're already in the realm of philosophical. Philosophy is not an antidote to science. Started reading a book by a philosopher which I then stopped reading because philosophy + science gets into the realm of gobbledygook. Holding two opposite thoughts in your head at the same time=bonkers. And getting a PhD in philosophy seems redundant to me. So trying to combine spiritual growth, which is potential energy (philosophy), but not applicable to every human's bodily decay over time, which is science and inescapable for everyone born of woman. That doesn't feel as much like bonkers. While the words are fun and highly entertaining for those of us old people who are terribly fond of words, old is old. No judgment on whether there is spiritual growth attained, or wisdom cultivated (and then, even more difficult: prove applied.) Judgment vs. discernment. Adding one more thought into this cauldron. So I'll stop here and go do something simple like laundry. Haven't even touched on the gobbledygookiery of adding anti-aging culture into the hopper. On to laundry...although...Latin de (to turn aside) as in decline, combined with a Latin word for growth silva is cool. Desilva. Turn aside from green? Maybe silva on its own. I am old. I am silva. [Photo: Detroit Bold is excellent coffee.]

Phantosmia Pareidolia and A Happy Day

Today was a fantastic day, start to just ending. My brother had a confused beginning, which my father identified as probably having had no sleep. An extraordinary engagement from Dad. We talked about a history hiccup I found on the Veterans Day internet, got more clarity on Dad's experience. Walked Wild Wing trail in company with first experience nature encounters, called a friend to meet for lunch, and then my niece called stuck in traffic minutes from where we were. The two women in my life who are recently certified rescue people - one alpine rescue; my niece, certified deep water rescue met for the first time. I found a new interesting connecting person in my long-time search for people who understand that science is not disparate from divinity, is in fact completely related. Alistir McGrath, professor of both science and religion and labeled a Christian Apologist on wikipedia, but that's a subject for other people, another time. Found some forward motion on the writing I've been mulling long and scribing short. Not a single pareidolia event, but if I live long enough I'll find Carl Sagan's face in the spots on my hands. And this final note before I sleep: I had another phantosmia experience. I was reading a facebook post from a friend about how war communications were sometimes sent (Western Union, although how terrifying for a woman waiting for news - opening that not knowing if it was I love you or sorry to report) and I smelled the fragrance worn by the woman receiving the telegram. Distinct. I've had this experience a handful of times before - Another Country with Rupert Everett, he was wearing a boutonniere, and I smelled it, with the movie on over my shoulder, not watching, and smelling the flower, turned to the TV to see it in his lapel) I looked up olfactory hallucination when that happened. Stroke, Parkinson's, okay. A book I reviewed on goodreads, which I could find but not today - I saw the author at her desk writing the book, smelled the paper, ink. My first public disclosure of this stuff. Does it matter? No. If I lived in any other century but this one, I'd be in a walled bin somewhere for even mentioning this. I think it's just the continuation of a marvelous 24 hours in any person's life, only I looked at every hour. Appreciated each quarter hour. A singular day.  It cannot be surprising that all my senses are open to the wondrous.

Jeep and Me

Aging. Load exceeds vehicle recommendations. Rust blooms where elements erode or pool. Creaky knees. Stiff hips. Short-term memory problem, will stall if left idle. Range of vision shortened by starring. Left shoulder sagging. Voluntary reflexes work this time, maybe not next. Skin dull overall. Could use a full service day spa for a week. Long miles on the engine, some hard distance. The stopping mechanism needs work. Filters less effective. We adjust. We coast.

Tie-Dyed Eggs

That's what the box read. Couldn't resist bringing it home, even though I had coloring already. In practice, this was more plastic bag squished color dying, but that sensibly didn't pass marketing department muster. I set up the regular tablet cups as my brother and I have a tradition of dyeing Easter eggs. Scott said "forget it" when I asked if he wanted to color eggs. It was an answer. He made a choice, which is unusual and great, and I didn't take it personally, which is something.  I asked my father if he wanted to try the other method. He did. It was a wonderful experiment. He got to use his engineering skills to figure out how to use the blasted droppers, and I got to watch him engaged in a project. We both finished with hands the color of these eggs. We tried to wash it off. I was cutting radishes for potato salad, and the white flesh was taking on the blue, red, green of the dye. Next time, my Dad counseled, we use gloves.

Grace

At Crazy Wisdom Bookstore this afternoon, we will be talking and sharing stories about aging. I called this get-together Coming Down the Mountain with Grace. It's a phrase I liked from a philosophy bath product my sister got me years ago that had on its label how you come down the mountain is just as important as how you go up. This morning I've been thinking about the skills we need to go up the mountain. Agility, physical strength, tenacity, attention, care, planning. So do we need these to come down the mountain. Maybe we're missing the physical strength of youth, but we're wilier, better at navigating, and we know to duck and weave. The downhill slope is faster, and there are those pesky obstacles that remain from the ascent. The ascent is how we learn. The descent is how we apply the knowledge.

Patriarchy on the Windowsill

I awoke today from a dream saga that set me sitting on the side of the bed, wondering what the heck just happened. This was a trip through decades. There were pieces of my life story, but it felt like an everywoman journey of struggle and pushing back. Against hostile bosses, thwarting spouses, patronizing colleagues, indifferent others – and I was awakened forlorn. Sitting on the edge of my bed in despair and confusion. That's not my normal setting. I can hit the reset mood button just as all women have to regularly in a world with entitled masculine energy paramount. The long dream felt like a trip down memory lane through the centuries, the way female humans have experienced it. I had to shake it off, and it was lucky to talk with a friend who called. I use humor as a survival mechanism and it works most of the time, but the conversation was necessary today to rise out of the melancholy. There's just some shit that's not funny. Humor comes from that pile. Humor is the other face of tragedy (which explains those theatrical masks, although separate isn't entirely accurate.) I made a commitment for next Sunday to go to a standup comedy coaching thing in Ypsilanti at The Mix. Caregiving is a rich environment for comedy. At the core of my caring comedy/tragedy is a golfball with 10-27-96 on it. It's the day my father got a hole in one. It's the day I was diagnosed with cancer. For 10 years I've lived with this golfball on the windowsill. You can see that when I'm struck with the date, I use my soapy hands to try to obscure the day. It took me 7 years to work around that pain of understanding that his pleasure trumps my pain: the crux of patriarchy. I switched the date to the back – he switched it to the front. Yesterday I noticed that he 1) managed to find the permanent marker without asking where it was, and 2) used it to write the date anew on the reverse. Rotating the ball won't help now. Doing some standup comedy, overcoming that fear, definitely will. And maybe it will help some other women, too.

Three Story Life 2014

Another Caregiver Ninja week featuring ambulance, hospital stay, care coordination and a diminishing sense of who and where I am. Seems that each crisis is easier in the coordination of, and harder in the emotional aspect. That isn't what I mean: it feels like I'm untethered from Self and drifting farther away from help and safety. Think Gravity with better underwear. We had that talk about DNR with my father and maybe we're closer to discovering what he really thinks. Specifics were discussed. Yes, 911; no vasopressor and intubation. Disturbing to find out that regardless of what is on file at the destination hospital, staff will go through the steps one by one. My own end of life preferences get in the way. Dad takes a myriad of meds, has had surgeries and procedures and dozens of machine tests. My journey is different. Three stories of end of life emotions, tactics and the overwhelming experience of it all. I told Dad his job for the future is to appreciate. Each day, the color changes, good meals, a fine night's sleep, calming memories, warm socks, hot coffee, a returned phone call. I'm trying to take my own advice.

Caregiver: Finding Your Self

Many notebooks and years later, this little book is the essence of all the late night wailing, the whinging on paper and the whistling in the dark. 9 years as caregiver. Seems unreal on one hand, and a lifetime on the other. In those years I've learned a little about life, and a lot about myself. I've written before about paddling, and understanding fully that the more you fight the river, the harder it will mess you up. I've mashed up paddling with life in published essays, but not in my head. I'm a slow learner, but once I've got my numbskull around something, I tend to hold it in awareness. I understand caregiving more now, and this is the book about what a caregiver can do to care for herself. To focus on how I feel, is this a good time for me to do that task, do I really want to eat meat and potatoes 8 nights a week? This little book is gentle and gracious, and I sincerely hope–helpful. The next one will have all the wens and wails and whinging. Stay tuned. Being un-noble is a whole lot easier. And more giggles. The Caregiver ebook is available for all digital reading devices on smashwords. While you're there, please take a moment to download the free children's book You May Already Be A Winner! to share with your favorite youngster.  It is an homage to a real Michigan man who is an inspiration for us all. And if you're not yet bored, read the interview. It was the most fun I've had in the house in a long time.

A Three Story Life: Another Christmas

Holiday season. Coming off a cold, I got slammed anew by a nondefined malady that I choose to call passing my evil twin. I was asleep for 2 days. My father left a note on the dining room table the second day that he was at the Hyundai dealership getting his whoozit what-iffed, and Scott was asleep upstairs. I found the note on the third day. I assume Scott woke up, because he was there at dinner tonight. The tree's not up, nor do I personally employ the Christmas elf that has put the tree up for the last 7 Christmases. That after having shopped for, and bought the artificial tree. I have not shopped once this year. I think I may not. I hate shopping. I don't even like to pick up takeout. I thought the smell of evergreen was missing, so I bought some greens, and they are now dropping needles on the valet. I'll throw them out soon. They do not smell like evergreen. After doing dishes for the 3rd time today, I decided what I want for Christmas. I want the whole house cleaned top to bottom. I told Dad. Nothing will happen though, until I acquire a cleaning crew, organize a day when we can be all out of the house, get us all out of the house, and pay the crew. Be a problem-solver, Linda, my friend says. Fine. Do the research, find the crew, get the schedule organized. Put up the tree. Get, make or steal gifts for my own giving and my father and brother to give. Wrap same. Seems I've been sick at Christmas time more than once in recent years. Maybe the holiday hooha makes me sick. This year I'll promise myself again that next year I'll be somewhere with a beautiful fire, a hot drink, a few good books and only squirrels and deer outdoors for company, and all of us grateful, grateful, grateful.

A Three Story Life: Backstory

We move about our lives in the history of our experience, like the classic suit in the closet we don't think about, no longer wear, but have not abandoned. Knowledge we can get if we're intellectually curious. We can knead awareness like physic dough, but the ingredients that made us are still there. Change can help us grow; the yeast of chaos delivered to our cupboard. Two conversations in an hour yesterday made me try to put that old classic suit on again. My father has 86 years of history and experience. I have no idea, and never will, what his life means to him, beyond what he shares in anecdotes, and what I can discern from reactions to events. He has no idea what my experience has made of me either. My brother may still be absorbing everyday events, but Alzheimer's disease has changed the interactions for the three of us. Dad wants it the way it was before. Scott wants the relationship to change. I need to adapt to the now with agility. Three individuals. One living with Alzheimer's, one living in the past, and me trying to make it all work harmoniously. Does how we came to this point matter? What defines who we are? The first conversation yesterday started early with Dad showing me the long sheet of details about the antidepressant Scott is on - the side effects that we're seeing in Scott. That's easy. We need a change in prescription. But Dad relayed stories about Scott's behavior that told me he's still trying to control his son. He picked up the sheet on the medication to read it because he wants a change to make Scott follow his orders. Scott, for the first time, is shaking off the control. Dad doesn't like it. What's my role? I told Dad for the thousandth time that we can only offer Scott safety and joy. He's done being trained. Get the medication changed, hope for a better outcome, and let the rest go. My backstory doesn't help me at all now. I hated my parents complete domination. I got out from under it, fought for dominion over my own experience, succeeded some, lost some. And here I am back in it. I can handle my own parental stuff, but Scott never did get away. Am I cheering his tiny steps for independence as a loving sister, or as a champion of freedom for myself? The second conversation yesterday was with a dear friend about affirmative action. Chaos delivered the newspaper headline to our talk, and my companion thinks it is time to abandon preferential legislation. I understand that constitutionally the argument is valid. My backstory is woman experience, starting with being the daughter of a sexually abused daughter; earning less for decades, counseling to get a grip, fighting to gain the ground I did, trying to help sisters up. I have strong feelings and history on this subject. It's my old classic suit. And I got angry yesterday, and suppressed it until later. The anger was a reasonable reaction, but now I'm questioning my feelings again. I'm mighty confused. Does it matter that my father wants to control his child, my brother? I don't know. Can I contribute anything healing and constructive? Why did a disagreement about affirmative action affect me so much? I don't know that either. I have the child story, sibling story, and adult senior woman story. Which serves me best? What helps my loved ones? And when the hell will I get rid of that old classic suit that used to fit but no longer does?

A Three Story Life: Navigation

Yesterday Dad yelled down the stairs. "I'm going out to scrape my car." Okay, I thought. What's that about? He was leaving for the dentist in half an hour. Practicing observe and let it go, I took note and moved on to other tasks. A thought drifted into focus. Maybe this reportage is about bearings. I fell a couple weeks ago. Afterward my left brain got caught up in analyzing what happened. It was a new surprising event and I mentally gnawed on it to get its flavor. I lost my bearings. Spinning out, my father calls it. What Dad was doing when he gave me his location was using me like a star in a sea of change. At first it seemed I was a sextant, but that's a tool - there are still x and y points to locate in order to use a tool for navigation. We have physical locomotion needs: how far away is the ground? How close that step? And we have psychological placement needs. Establishing behaviors that define our physiologic borders. Scott has lost sense of where his body ends and the rest of the world starts. We don't know how he feels about this. Dad knows how it feels, and although he cannot communicate it any more than Scott can, he sets his internal sextant to coordinate the points he can recognize. If I know where he is, then he feels less at sea. I become either a point on the horizon or the north star. It's an awesome role, and I will respect the assignment with humility and reverence, and think of it as an opportunity for growth. And this awareness is a marker to watch for this in other seniors, and hopefully, to remember to use it myself.

Trimming My Wick

Three wicks actually. The secret to candle burning longevity is keep the wick trimmed. The light is more intense, less smoky. As we learn to shine our own light in our world, as our passions are identified and we practice active engagement from our center, our light is wide and diffuse. Like a flashlight with an unfocused beam. I am learning to focus on the causes I care about, the people I love and the community I am able to serve. I'm trimming my wick. Three wicks actually.

These Are My Heroes. My Dad.

I'll draw a pencil portrait of Dad later, but I like this style of artwork for this post. It's the 1950s and 1960s when my father was working 12 to 16 hours a day as a machinist to support the family, and when his kids were growing up. When he wasn't at work, he taught us stuff. How to ride a bicycle. Swing a bat and a hammer, catch a fly, throw 'em out at second base, ice skate, block a goal, duck a punch, throw a punch, pass a football. When we were a little older, how to cut the grass, change spark plugs and a tire, paint a room, play an instrument, break up with grace. Later still, how to wet plaster. Okay, now add the plaster. Stir. Faster. Too slow. Throw that out. Start over. And in an emergency golf outing training session, how to play golf. Okay. You drive straight. Just keep doing that until the ball's in the hole. Always pick up your ball at 8. How to negotiate with machine tool guys. Don't snow them. Ask questions. Tell the truth. Walk tall. And now, how to cope with aging, pain, loss and grief. My friend Beckie's grandmother, Shirley, said that when you're old, what you miss most is how you defined yourself. I wish Dad could think of himself as a hero, as all of his children do.

Sunyata and Potatoes

I woke from an active dream yesterday in which my lucid brain was trying to write my dreaming brain a message. Literally, on a piece of paper with black ink. It was one word. Ademuth, asemuth, absemuth, something I could not recapture. Frustrated, I wrote what I just wrote here on a 3x5 card, and got on with the day. This morning, finding this card on my desk, and another that read "do Barb's honey label," I first made Barb's raw honey label, and then ruminated on the word. Azimuth came forward out of the dark. Looked that up. I know I knew that word, but I have no idea what my brain was sending me about that word. Planetary alignment? Words with z? How High the Moon? Noodling on the internet, I bumped into Saturn/Venus, Jupiter viewing early mornings this month. Trine, conjunct, quincunx and all that. Then I chose an Osho Zen Tarot card and got the Major Arcana No-thingness (sunyata). Then I read Pisces at Free Will Astrology, in which I was reminded that while the Spanish were looking for El Dorado gold in the New World, what they brought home was the potato. Then I stopped to feel the energy zooming around my body. I looked up sunyata (soon-yuh-tah), and decided I will not have time in this incarnation to learn everything I think I want to know. And that is the message from this morning. The energy zooming around my body is universal energy. Life is the journey from nothingness to nothingness. And in between, there are fun, interesting, joyous, awesome, quixotic, maddening, delightful, gorgeous, crazy, wonderful sidetrips. And potatoes. Why worry?

Anti-Aging

Anti-aging. What does that mean? I'm against aging? You're against aging. We all are going to fight aging with every breath we take. We will wrest control of aging from...uh...you know, whoever has control of it right now. No. This is not our word. This is a marketing word, a gimmick, trickery. 30-something guys in NY and Paris came up with this word because they work at advertising agencies that sell us the prestige beauty products we buy. How much money do we spend on this war against getting old? Just the anti-aging products alone in the U.S. only are worth $300 billion. How many children will that feed a year? How much healthcare can we afford per annum with that kind of loot? We are practically buried in anti-aging junk hourly. We can ignore it, but we don't. Because the boys in Paris and NY know that the word anti-aging, with enough exposure, causes nostalgia, regret, insecurity, low self-esteem and depression for what used to be; and women are going to cure what causes all that by hauling our credit cards and our butts to the mall. I just chastised a care2 post titled "Embracing Our Sexuality in Middle Age." My hackles got wriggly with the title. How does one exactly embrace one's sexuality? Ugh. Three paragraphs were in quotations, but it wasn't until I got to the 4th paragraph that the author revealed it wasn't her writing, it was Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen. I admire Jean Shinoda Bolen. Jean Shinoda Bolen is a wise woman, who writes about how to be a juicy crone. She is the real deal. Read all her books, and you will grow just by having the ink in front of your eyes. But the lifecoach, when she did start speaking in her own voice in the 4th paragraph, wrote she hates the word crone. Oh, fine. I was already riled, then glanced at the picture care2 put over the article. A woman, maybe over 55, maybe not. She'd either had a little work done, or she was airbrushed the way I altered my picture here. There is nothing real, nothing embracing, nothing authentic or true about this sort of manipulation. Although it was wicked fun to draw. If a woman chooses surgery, photoshop, or that $150 toner she can't live without, that's her business. And the business of the trillion dollar beauty products industry. The beauty products industry wants us to be unhappy with self, to live every day believing our true selves are not the best we can be. I get that. I buy stuff, too. But I do not enjoy the sort of activity-like scrubbing my own face just now-that makes me discontented with getting older. That makes me yearn for the past. That gives me pain. As I final-checked this picture, I thought I should take the ridges out of my nails. Somewhere in the etymology, yearn must share a common root with fool. I am aging. We're all aging at the same speed. My mother used to say consider the alternative. I get that, too. But the fight is to keep aging, not war on aging. No corpse I know owns 7 MAC lipglasses. I'm going to have to find out if MAC calls anything it puts out there anti-aging. Just looked. No anti-aging. MAC is smart. I want smart cosmetics companies that advertise as PRO-aging. Maybe with some 60+ year old women in the marketing and communications department. With titles. Can you imagine? You're a babe, babe! And you're wise, too, because you buy our goo! If that company ever shows up, my wallet will get more of a workout. For now, if I spend my money, it is with companies that honor, respect our age. No money to companies that want us to be unhappy with who we are.

My Plugins Are Out of Date

As if. One of the many reasons that computers will never replace humans is they're stupid. I'll grant you some humans might qualify, too, but no human on this planet will point out you have toilet paper on your shoe repeatedly after one reveal. "You have toilet paper on your shoe." Done. The plugins message banner is there every time I do anything. I've just endured 10 days of trying to get my entry to the 3 Minutes in Lyon Film Festival ready to mail, using old technology. Deadline May 25. Late April I completed the prep work. Early May I filmed on good days. Footage extends, and I get better at shooting each day; learn to pan slowly, hold steady, stay out of the direct sun. All prepared, I attempt to upload the film to my middle-aged Mac. Nothing. Nada. I try bribes, small sacrifices to the film gods. Nothing. I get a pretty picture of a laptop on the camera screen and not a damn thing else. Okay. Back out with a still camera to recreate the scenes. Open iMovie, and grind my way through learning how to work it on the fly. I cut audio tracks, do flips, transitions, fades and titles. Meanwhile I have the yellow police tape about my plugins and their current status on every single tab I open now. Google doubles down with a reminder that it does not, will not, and absolutely refuses to, support my version of Firefox. It forces me to Dismiss twice on every entry into the realm of the untrainable Google. Meanwhile, back in Filmland, I finally get iMovie to cooperate somewhat, move the masterpiece to Quicktime, and view a few glimpses of brief encounters, some tracking lines that look like a printer gone bad back in the 1980s, and no sound. Back to iMovie, wrestle it into submission again, playback works, back to Quicktime, back to phantom movie. Check the internet for forums, nobody wants to talk about iMovie 4. Nobody supports nothin' as old as this. I hop some more hurdles, get a good result with Quicktime and hustle the DVD to the post office. Mailed. Done. Get an email the next day that the file is 16 kb and not readable. Load all onto a stick, go see the computer guy at the library. He tries, he prints a conversion plan for iMovie to MP4 files via Saturn, to whatever. No, the library does not have a Mac. Who's buying all the Apple stuff? Huh? I stop by the technology store in town with its gleaming new Mac in the window. Do they have a working Mac? No. Damn. I think they have a lot of nerve selling Macs without one in the shop. Back to the phone store because my new phone has seized over all the calls to the film festival guy who was nice enough to tell me that if I was having more trouble, call. Guy at phone store loads my stuff onto a new phone, and says that will be $79.99. I said what? no, that's not the deal the other guy and I talked about. Well, the other guy ain't here. Fine. Load the shit back on the malfunctioning phone. Good bye. Meanwhile, back in Filmland the festival director calls and tells me if I can load the film to youtube with an unlisted address, send him the link and he can see it, we're good to go. Rosemary calls during the upload process. She becomes the film birthing coach. Pant. Breathe. Hold breath. Stop pushing. We, together, are the proud parents of a .dv. Rosemary said congratulations! I wanted a cigarette. Meanwhile, my plugins are still out of date. So's my car. So's my phone. So am I. I'm going to put yellow police tape around all of us.

A Three Story Life-The Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine was a device used by Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman to visit history. Peabody's Improbable History cartoons were a feature of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, a genius Jay Ward enterprise. Peabody, here, Mr. Peabody said to start, and we would then happily journey back in time. In our house, The Wayback Machine begins with that's like... or I remember. If Dad says I remember, there will be a tenuous connection to what we are talking about in real time. If it's that's like, the anecdote will have little or nothing to do with now. Many conversations include these two episodic references. I think older people talk this way because long-term memory is most readily accessible. Humans like to have self-relatedness. We all like to talk about ourselves. But the non sequitur recurrence makes it head spinning to keep up during a crisis that needs attention. In the midst of household problem solving, it's downright hard. It confuses me, it confuses people from outside our house who are participating in what's being discussed. Maybe it's common to try to explain what we did 45 years ago that may or may not have led us to where we are now. But information revealed in this way doesn't clarify anything for the listeners-it makes getting through a sticky wicket that much gummier. Today I said a dozen times, let's focus on the here and now. We moved into the 80s fairly quickly, but never did get out of that troublesome decade altogether. Do we all do that? Dad tells anecdotes to me as though I was not there when the story unfolded. This behavior is particularly perplexing because in every other way his cognitive function is fine. He just won't switch The Wayback Machine off, especially if we're confronting a situation that requires present tense attention and a rapid solution. I think those of us who are stuck in the past tend to stay stuck. Everything is a reflection, living is not done in the present. Problem solving is solving problems in the past. Alternative outcomes get reviewed repeatedly in private, until the past is a wheel in a cage. There must be some brain function that allows a successful conclusion from the past to stand in for what's going on now. I'm over analyzing this. I need more present and accounted for behavior in dealing with situations, because our lives right now contain serial situations. All I know truly is it is not possible to count your blessings when the wheel of self-analytics is going full speed, and I have great sympathy for my father. It has to be exhausting not to have blessings in the now to count.

A Three Story Life - Fishbowl

I like privacy. It's been a designed part of my life, by arrangement and preference since I was 16. Fortune favored me by allowing the circumstances to keep my life quiet and personal. It hasn't been quiet or personal since living the three-story life. My stuff is out in the public domain, so much so, that, before I have my coat off from whatever undertaking, I'm asked about outcome. It's a small thing; a thing I'm a little ashamed of having trouble adjusting to, but taken in a bundle, every day, every step out the door and walk back in, it's impacting my body, my mood, my well-being. Today it's my glasses. I have a pair several months old that have been an expensive hassle. I don't remember wanting a coating (and I'm not even sure now if it's glare or scratch) but the damn stuff warps in heat. The lenses have been replaced three times already, striated at the hands of the people adjusting them who plunged them into the heated beads that allow bending the frame, thus warping my lenses. I've got striations in the left lens now, without knowing what heat did it. I don't use hot water, I don't dry my hair with my glasses on; mysterious appearance. I went to the eyeglass place to ask for a solution. Blah, blah, blah, I have no interest in talking about it because it's the usual damned if you do/don't of business transactions these days, but since I told Dad where I was going, before the door was shut, he wanted to know how much of a fight it was. I don't know why he wants to know this stuff. Is he interested in how my life is? Maybe. Does he enjoy my confrontation scenarios? Maybe. He's learned just enough about my reluctance to share everything to know how to ask a question to which I cannot reply only fine. So, he's learned that. Why can't I learn to just let it all go? I moved into the basement when I was 16 to get away from all the questions my little sisters peppered me with, and now I am already in the basement. Reminds me of the old performance review snippets being email forwarded years ago. "This employee has reached performance rock bottom, and is starting to dig."

Blogs for Women Over 60

A sign on the roads in England that delighted me read Priorities Change Ahead. The first time I saw this, being the obedient first responder to orders, my brain spun. A sign is a sign is a sign! I never thought what UK highway system officials intended about driving, but what this sign meant in my life. I was only 50 then. Now, immersed in the fog of accepting that there is less time for me in the future on this planet than past, I think of that sign. We all have to change priorities in a country where age is not honored, women as elders are shoved into the first available invisible place; at a time when healthcare will be a priority while legislators decide old people (and children) don't need to keep living. Priorities change ahead. We were at a jazz festival in Detroit when a young person offered us a coupon for teeth whitening stuff. The young persons used to offer cigarettes a long time ago. Priorities change ahead. As he held out the coupon, I laughed, and said teeth whitening is number 1,741 on my list of priorities. My sister laughed. What are the other 1,740? she asked. We can't tell from search results on the internet what is a priority for women over 60. Hairstyles, fashion, sex, celebrity. My priorities as a woman over 60 are similar to most American women. 1) My health, 2) Family's health, 3) Exercise, 4) Relationships, 5) Finances, 6) Good work. Work might be volunteering, if 5) Finances are in fairly good shape, and there's time because 1) and 2) are well. I keep applying for part-time work in town and I keep not getting called. And I'm trying to give attention to signs. What is the work I would love to do in the time remaining? How can I help? In what way can I help heal the political polarity, the planet, and find deeper meaning in spiritual pursuits while maintaining optimum physical condition? These are the subjects women over 60 give priority. We can help each other find the sources for reaching our real goals. Please tell me where you find additional strength on the internet, and I'll link the sites. Let's create a community that shares and celebrates our priorities because priorities change ahead.

A Three Story Life: Grayscale

On this beautiful spring weekend, I cannot get myself out of the funk. Lowdown, hollow gut funk. Accumulative malaise. Scott is having an upbeat week. Dad maintains his usual life is a pain median line. All's well in the 'hood. But I've lost the color in my story. Depression is probably not catchy, but living in its weightiness long term is. For 7 years it has been my job to keep the mood elevated in the house. I haven't done a great job, but we kept going. I am unable to contribute right now. Every lift is harder than the last. I can act in a way that helps Dad deal with his issues of aging, and help keep Scott out of the way of Dad's mood, but I have trouble helping myself now. I'm down the blue scale to indigo, and the flight plan back up is missing. I know better than to read the news, or watch television because the news and television makes me scared and mad. Today I read about Walker in WI signing Act 219, reversing the equal pay law. Ron Christy on Hardball with Smerconish last night spouted the litany of Republican crud that the war on women the Republicans are waging across the country is a construct of the Democrats. And my gut gets hollower. The war on women perpetrated by drone Republicans doesn't impact my life as much as every tshirt put in the wash inside-out does, but it feels similar. It feels like progress is ephemeral and pointless. Tried to pay my car insurance yesterday. $12/month increase. And she warned about $30/year per driver Michigan mandated increase coming in May. I was so defeated by this I walked out. I actually said out loud I can't deal with this right now. I commented to Dad about it yesterday, and he got further depressed. My bad. Just now he said I want to help you out. He wants to give me $20 to buy a pair of sandals he just bought. It's a lovely thought, it's shoes, and I'm grateful for his offer, but it just made me sadder. I thanked him, demurred, and he said he doesn't want me to miss out on the sale. Sigh. My sadness must be terribly obvious, when Dad wants to help me cheer up. There are so many of us caregivers in the world, doing the best we're able, while we lose surety of our ability to do our best. We lose the essence of appreciation when we cannot appreciate ourselves. And we must appreciate us. To all the caregiving, weary, big-hearted women who wonder if there are good thoughts ever to be had again, I'm sending mighty good thoughts in your direction right now. Hold yourself tight, sisters. Hug yourself, pray, suck your thumb, cry, write a blog post, go to bed and pull the covers over your head, but find a way to heal for this moment. The next moment will take care of itself.