Loneliness

I finally have to admit that I'm experiencing loneliness. For the first year and a half after Ron's death, I didn't really have that feeling. I missed him. There was a huge hole in my life and my heart. But I wasn't lonely. At first I thought it was because there were so many people around after the accident that I didn't have a chance to be lonely. But that wasn't it. After I began to spend a lot of time alone, I still wasn't lonely. I was surprised. But then at about a year and a half I began to feel really lonely. I poked around inside myself to see if I could discover why. What had shifted was the feeling that Ron was going to show up just any time. I knew from previous losses that that feeling was the usual way my psyche reacts. There's just part of me that's not ready to give up on some sort of miracle. As time passes, so does that feeling. Once my whole being accepted that Ron was gone, I finally felt truly alone and without a loving partner: lonely. Well, that's probably how I'm supposed to feel for now.

Faces and Beauty

I'm not sure why I've developed an interest in this. It seems frivolous on the one hand and important on the other. Why are some people considered beautiful and some aren't? Frivolous, of course, since there are a lot of other much more important things to be interested in. Important since scientific studies show that good looking people - especially REALLY good looking people are treated far better by others that even nice looking people. But what is good looking or beauty anyway. What makes Brad Pitt a heart stopper as well as Russell Crowe. Weird. Julia Roberts is beautiful but her nose is all wrong. Just about the time I started staring at faces trying to figure it out, I saw a program on tv that said a plastic surgeon had figured it out. The eyebrows have to be a certain distance from the eyes, the eyes have to be a certain distance apart, etc. etc. etc. But the thing is all three of the Playboy girls have identical bodies and features but one of them seems to me to be more beautiful than the others. What's that about?

The Weekend

Springtime in the Ozarks weekend. We were married there and went back every year to celebrate. Last year the weekend was very hard.

We looked forward to going for weeks ahead of time and never had an unhappy moment in Eureka Springs. Every year was different but every year was wonderful. To think that Ron and I would never do that again was heartbreaking.

This year a friend suggested that she spend the weekend with me and another friend joined her. It was one of the loveliest weekends I've ever had. Amazing blessings.

Goodbye Kurt

If Ron were here, we would have a ceremony to mark the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, one of the strongest links in the bond between us. Both of us were reluctant atheists when we first got together. Over time we came to believe in a force for good in the universe which we called God. But both of us continued to laugh while in anger and sorrow about the state of the world, and Kurt's characters continued to aid and abet us. In one of his stories there were twins - a boy and a girl. Together they were geniuses. When separated they were mentally retarded. Ron said he thought we were like that. I had to agree but I said I thought that meant we were seriously co-dependent. He said, well, I can't repeat what he said, but it meant he didn't care, he liked our relationship the way it was. Goodbye, Kurt. I may have a ceremony for you even without Ron's physical presence. It won't involve flowers, though, so don't worry.

The Cane

Yesterday was my first visit back to physical therapy since my last visit to the orthopedist. I've been looking forward to going since I knew Kathy would not just put me in a little room to do isometric exercises by myself. (A waste since I already do them at home). I knew she would help me figure out how to use the cane. I've tried but I could see immediately that I didn't know what I was doing.

Sure enough, I've been doing it totally wrong. The way that works is to use the hand opposite to my weak leg. That way I'm bearing weight on my left hand and right leg simultaneously - stability! Yay. So, now I just need lots of practice.

I'm actually kind of lazy. I've grown fond of the convenience of the wheelchair. It's fast, it's comfy (nothing hurts) and it gets me lots of help which I've become accustomed to. But it's time to move on or grow up or whatever.

Anniversaries

Sometime in April, sometime in the 70s, is the time the tornado came through southwest Missouri and killed my mother and grandmother. I can never remember the exact date, but I've noticed that in April, my body seems to know something happened then.

In 1986 on April 1st, Ron and I got our marriage license in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We laughed because we said we could always claim we were just April fools. Ron insisted that he wanted to be married in a church with a real minister. I was amazed because he was totally anti organized religion. He told me he would haunt me if I had a religious funeral. So, I didn't. But he had to be married in a church. So, we were married on April 16 in the Presbyterian church in Eureka Springs, with my daughter, Liz and her husband, Fred and their son, Adam in attendance.

The poor minister did not know what to do with us. He told us he was worried about our ability to be married. He didn't say why. Ron was so terrified he was shaking. For many years I thought he was scared because of the risks of marrying me - which were many and high. In the end I realized he was more worried about whether he could step up to the plate and change the things his other wives had left him about. We got lucky. He changed quite a few things. A couple of the major ones he couldn't seem to change and he thought I was going to leave him. But I didn't. I was tougher than he thought and I loved him too much. Leaving him wouldn't have improved my quality of life one whit. We had way more joyful times than unhappy times.

Now there will be a new anniversary - the massacre at Virginia Tech. My grandson, Adam, will graduate from there in another year.

April is a sad and joyful month.

Virginia Tech

Another terribly sad event. I am so relieved that my grandson, Adam, is all right. I wish I had some words of wisdom to say over such a terrible thing but... It grieves me that some tortured soul thought the solution to his problems was to execute all the people he could before taking his own life. This isn't new in humans but the scale is new enough to pierce our hearts.

The Torture, Terror and Tyranny of the To Do List

Can't live with them; can't live without them. Without my to do lists I would be totally lost in my life and would forget important things and have to pay crumby consequences. But they keep me feeling anxious, miserable and less than at the same time. I have made lists, lists of lists, master lists, and lists of why I hate lists. In the beginning I felt better when I made lists - it felt like I had accomplished something. But right away I felt rebellious - as if someone else had imposed this list of chores and that I needed to protect myself. So, I'd go back to bed or the equivalent. Now I just make the lists and start trying to make myself do the stuff on the lists. I've tried rewards but I just reward myself before I've done anything. I love treats. I've tried accountability partners and that works the best but almost everybody I pick lets me off the hook. I must be bad at picking partners. So, then I feel guilty all the time.

Once I made a list of everything I thought was important to do and decided to work on it without interruption until it was done. I had to stay up about 36 hours straight to do it, but I finished the list. I decided being finished was not worth it. Another time I decided not to do another thing till I felt like it. I stayed in bed and read for days. Then one day I actually felt like doing something and got up. Then I just did what I felt like doing and got a lot accomplished. That lasted for several days/weeks and I thought I had found the answer. However, I decided I wanted to go back to school, enrolled and went. Assignments were absolutely necessary to complete when I wanted to or not, so my plan disintegrated.

I'm 65 years old and I don't want to die still being tyrannized by to do lists. My current plan is to make a list of ongoing priorities and work a little on them every day. I'm quite sure that changing this particular character defect will only happen with the help of God. But on my deathbed I'm sure I'm not going to be thinking about what I got accomplished from my lists. I'm probably going to be thinking about the people that I love so they will go at the top of my list!

Greed

The Bible says that the root of all evil is the love of money, which would make greed the most dangerous of the seven deadly sins. But what about pride/ego? That seems to be even more dangerous because it leads to playing God. Maybe pride/ego causes greed. Greed, from my observations, can serve a lot of purposes - sometimes people want to accumulate more and more stuff to make themselves feel financially secure. The thing is, it never works. It always seems like there needs to be just a little bit more even when there's a whole lot. Fear of not having enough seems to persist. Pride/ego can cause people to want more and more so that they will be envied by others. Again, the thing is, does being envied actually improve quality of life? I'm just seeing a lot of greed around me these days. How much is enough?

Coming back

It's time to get back to this. A posting every few months is no good.

The last visit to the doctor was mostly good news. I can't just take off walking like I thought he might let me do but I can use the cane as much as I can tolerate it. When I go back in a couple of months, he will look again at my knee. If the healing is complete with the femur, he'll consider going ahead with the knee surgery.

I called about the writers' meeting on Wednesdays. For me to really get to work with finishing some of the essays I've started, I'm going to have to have a lot of support. My evil brain thinks of many, many other things to do that distract me and keep me from working.

Why don't we know?

I'm worried. I'm a news junkie so I'm sure I didn't miss it. Why don't we know from the media what is motivating the right wing Muslims to fight so hard? I hear plenty of guesses and I have some of my own. Maybe some of the guesses are right. But I've heard nothing about someone trying to truly understand what is causing the violence. People fight to the death for a reason - and it's usually not because they hate freedom or because they are sure they're going to heaven. How in the world will it ever be settled unless there's an understanding of motivation?

It seems to me that most of the fights in the world are about greed - more territory, more resources, etc. But this one seems to be different.

Cracking up

I've thought and thought about this - why is there no relationship between "cracking up" and "cracking down?" Or maybe there is. One is going crazy/laughing hard and the other is enforcing rules with force. I didn't look this up in the dictionary but maybe there is a relationship! "I'm going to crack down on you until you crack up." Of course, it would really give me a start if I cracked down and they cracked up by laughing hysterically.

Update

I've spent the last couple of months thinking about what I wanted to do with this and have decided to continue with observations. I had thought I might do something else more personal and still may do that. But for now, I really want to continue to record the things I notice. These observations would have been good for a couple of hours of conversation with Ron. I think I might miss that the most right now.

Veterans

For all the years of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq I've wondered and wondered why there was no news coverage of the wounded. I thought maybe there was a restriction like there was on coverage of the return of the dead from the war zone. News reports said the administration requested no coverage for the protection of the families. Suddenly there's a special on CNN, and Oprah has a badly burned veteran on her show. So now I'm wondering: Why now? How would I find out?

Purple

I heard - I'm pretty sure on the radio - that Nancy Pelosi wore a purple suit the day after elections. The speculation was that since purple is a combination of red and blue (the Democrat and Republican colors), that she was signaling a new era of bi-partisanship. Now I'm going to wait and see if there are any comments on the colors of the ties of other male politicians. This is the first time in all the years that I've followed politics that the color of a government official's clothing was interpreted as a signal. I'm guessing it has something to do with sex - Nancy's, that is.

Gas Prices

Somewhere I heard that gas prices were going down because of the elections, and that they would go back up right after the elections. Some powerful people somewhere didn't want gas prices to affect the elections. I guessed that would be the Republicans. I thought, "Oh come on, nobody has the power and organization to control prices that tightly." Elections were Tuesday. Gas prices have gone up about .40 a gallon. Now I'm sort of scared.

After Surgery

I was prepared for everything except for the news I got after surgery. Apparently MRIs and Xrays are not all that reliable for showing what actual conditions are inside the body. My leg was much more damaged and much less healed than we thought, so instead of a 3 hour surgery, I had an 8 hour surgery with the attendant slower recovery. I had two big worries - how was I going to take care of myself when I had to stay at a 60 degree angle in a brace and was the femur ever going to heal (we thought it had been healing but it has not). Thank goodness the rehab center was able to teach me how to take care of myself. The answer to the second worry will come in time.

My plan was to get out of the hospital in 3 to 5 days, and then in about 3 weeks or so, start learning to walk. Instead I was in the hospital 3 weeks, and I'll not be walking until/if the femur heals. It took a few days to accept the change. My future plans will have to be based on the possibility that I'll be living a wheelchair lifestyle for the forseeable future. I can accept that. I was independent enough to do pretty much whatever I wanted, and I should be back to that in a few more weeks. I'm not crazy about being in a wheelchair for a long time, though. I'm always thinking about what the alternatives might be if my leg doesn't heal in a year or so.

I was glad to get home and be able to take care of myself! My lifestyle is still pretty dull, but I'm not suffering from boredom. I read, write, watch re-runs, pet the cat and occasionally go out with friends or have friends over. I am a lucky woman to have so many fabulous people in my life!

Tomorrow

It's surgery day tomorrow at 1:15. So I'm going to eat dinner very late since I won't be able to eat tomorrow. Other preparations have included a haircut, pedicure, physical therapy, chiropractic, prayer, affirmations. I'm all set. Also, the house is clean, laundry done, bills paid. It feels good to be prepared. Most of all I'm blessed with the love of family, friends, and cat, Cisco. He can tell something is going on so he's extra affectionate.

Computers

I don't understand why my home computer is dysfunctional more than functional. There's probably a book somewhere called, "Computers for Dummies" that I need to read. I'm dependant on other people to fix it every time it stops working which means long delays. It's actually been out of service more than it has been working during the past year. I miss my husband. He took care of all that. I miss him for big reasons and small. The computer is a small reason. But now I need to grow up and learn how to take care of it myself.

Language

I've been observing trends in language/slang for most of my life probably because my mother was an English teacher and she frequently commented on observations she made about how people talk. Several years ago I started saying "cool" about anything I thought was really wonderful. I picked it up from a woman I worked with who was very charismatic. It's a wonder I didn't pick up more from her! But now I'm really sick of saying "cool" about everything and I can't seem to stop. It's very annoying.

Another word that began to be commonly used a few years ago is, "absolutely." People seem to use it constantly as a synonym for "yes" when they want to put a lot of emphasis on the "yes." I hear it on television, at work, with friends.... I'm very tired of it too. I'm trying to think of a better synonym but so far no luck.

A new one I've just noticed is "at the end of the day" which seems to have replaced the phrase "when all is said and done." I just noticed it a few weeks ago and I'm already tired of it.