The 70er I get the less I care about many things. At this moment I don't give a rat's ass about who Generals, Movie Stars, Politicians, Sports Figures, Co Workers, Neighbors and everyone else on the planet copulate with. I am trying to think of something that I care less about but for the life of me I can't.
There are so many things in this life that I do care about. I don't watch the news to see and hear about who's doing who. One thing does come to mind; if I ever need a serious operation, I would like the best surgeon possible. I don't care who or how many people they are or have fornicated with, I don't think that makes a difference to their surgical skills. And if I ever need a really good lawyer I don't care with who and or how often Mr. Greenspan has sex. The same applys to plumbers, carpenters, electricians etc etc.
There are so many important, some terrible, some wonderful things to care about in this life. How about world hunger, famine, war, disease etc etc? How about seniors living below the poverty level. I care so much more about 70 something people being forced to live in conditions they have no say in, than who is screwing who.....Just Saying
Tuesday, November 13th, 2012...........4:32p.m.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
The Advantages Of Aging
I think all to often I dwell on the disadvantages of getting older. There really are some good things about being 70 something. For one thing I don't care as much; I am not sure that I ever cared a lot, probably not, at least not as much as most people seem to care, or perhaps I just care about things that most people don't...whatever.
I can remember the years and years and years that I went to work every morning. Many of those mornings I would think, "I would love to sleep in this morning". Now I make a point of sleeping in almost every day. For as far back as I can remember, at least 65 years, reading has been my favorite thing to do. Now I bring about 6 books home from the library every week and sometimes I get 5 of them read. I used to always say "One of my greatest regrets is that I will never live long enough to read the books in the world'. I still won't but at least I am working on it. I also very much enjoy writing, now I at least write a blog. I have had a book in my head for many years, it is called "Living In Other People's Houses", a series of short stories that would be mostly autobiographical.
What I wear has never been of great importance to me, now I can definitely live by my clothing motto.
"Is It Clean And Does It Fit?"
There have been times in my life when I would be concerned that I enjoyed observing life more than participating in it; now I just let myself enjoy observing. I don't have to work, so when I do I make sure I am doing something I enjoy; I spend time caring for animals and "Living In Other People's Houses". No one expects me to do a lot of housework, which I never did do anyway, only now I don't feel guilty about it.
Afternoon Thoughts
Saturday Afternoon, October 27th, 2012......4:21 p.m.
I can remember the years and years and years that I went to work every morning. Many of those mornings I would think, "I would love to sleep in this morning". Now I make a point of sleeping in almost every day. For as far back as I can remember, at least 65 years, reading has been my favorite thing to do. Now I bring about 6 books home from the library every week and sometimes I get 5 of them read. I used to always say "One of my greatest regrets is that I will never live long enough to read the books in the world'. I still won't but at least I am working on it. I also very much enjoy writing, now I at least write a blog. I have had a book in my head for many years, it is called "Living In Other People's Houses", a series of short stories that would be mostly autobiographical.
What I wear has never been of great importance to me, now I can definitely live by my clothing motto.
"Is It Clean And Does It Fit?"
There have been times in my life when I would be concerned that I enjoyed observing life more than participating in it; now I just let myself enjoy observing. I don't have to work, so when I do I make sure I am doing something I enjoy; I spend time caring for animals and "Living In Other People's Houses". No one expects me to do a lot of housework, which I never did do anyway, only now I don't feel guilty about it.
Afternoon Thoughts
Saturday Afternoon, October 27th, 2012......4:21 p.m.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Gratitude
I have been wanting to write this blog for at least a week. During that time I have been more aware of all that I have to be grateful for than usual. I think, I hope that never a day goes by that I don't have moments of gratitude for all the good things in my life.
I live the most wonderful family in the world, and everyone who knows them even slightly agrees with me. There is much love in this household. Jonathon, my youngest grandchild, has a friend who lived with us for awhile. After a couple of weeks of living with us, he told me one day "I have never lived in a house where everyone likes each other". Those words have stuck with me, I thought at the time how very sad, then I remembered that in the house where I grew up, not everyone liked each other and we all spent a lot of time dealing with our negative emotions. Mine was fear, fear of my Mother and almost everyone else. It wasn't a home, it was a house, and a scary one most of the time.
My health is not perfect but it is good. For the past 2 years I have suffered, and suffered is the right word, with pain in my knees. Last week I went to my Dr and he told me that I didn't need a knee operation but I did need relief from the pain. Now I have pain relief available when I need it. What a relief that is. I have been walking around for months fearing an operation, now, not only do I not need one but I have medication for the pain. I am grateful that I have a new Dr. who seems to really care about me being comfortable. Now when I wake up in the morning with a lot of pain in my knees I know that I don't face the entire day and night with that pain.
My youngest son, Rusty, has been working for a friend of mine for the past 10 or 11 days. I have spent three of those days and nights with him and my friend. I love spending time with my children. I still marvel at the wonderful, unique, and talented people that came from my body.
I have family, friends, interests, and I am loved and able to love in return. Life has given me so many gifts and I am truly grateful.
Afternoon Thoughts
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012................2:22p.m/
I live the most wonderful family in the world, and everyone who knows them even slightly agrees with me. There is much love in this household. Jonathon, my youngest grandchild, has a friend who lived with us for awhile. After a couple of weeks of living with us, he told me one day "I have never lived in a house where everyone likes each other". Those words have stuck with me, I thought at the time how very sad, then I remembered that in the house where I grew up, not everyone liked each other and we all spent a lot of time dealing with our negative emotions. Mine was fear, fear of my Mother and almost everyone else. It wasn't a home, it was a house, and a scary one most of the time.
My health is not perfect but it is good. For the past 2 years I have suffered, and suffered is the right word, with pain in my knees. Last week I went to my Dr and he told me that I didn't need a knee operation but I did need relief from the pain. Now I have pain relief available when I need it. What a relief that is. I have been walking around for months fearing an operation, now, not only do I not need one but I have medication for the pain. I am grateful that I have a new Dr. who seems to really care about me being comfortable. Now when I wake up in the morning with a lot of pain in my knees I know that I don't face the entire day and night with that pain.
My youngest son, Rusty, has been working for a friend of mine for the past 10 or 11 days. I have spent three of those days and nights with him and my friend. I love spending time with my children. I still marvel at the wonderful, unique, and talented people that came from my body.
I have family, friends, interests, and I am loved and able to love in return. Life has given me so many gifts and I am truly grateful.
Afternoon Thoughts
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012................2:22p.m/
Thursday, October 4, 2012
"Pain Is Inevitable, Suffering Is Optional"
I am not exactly sure who first said this, but I do know it comes from a Zen Master. I like the word, I agree with the words, it is just that at the time of being in pain the words don't help a whole lot. When the pain first arrives, be it physical or emotional, I am to immersed in the pain to even remember the words. There are some pains that only an anethesetic or time, lots of time, can heal. Even then it isn't really healed, possibly it is numbed or dulled but not healed, at least not for me.
Sometimes I find physical much easier to deal with than emotional pain. I do not have a high pain tolerance, so I usually deal with physical pain quite fast. I will show up at an emergency room or my Doctors pretty quickly with physical pain and I will loudly proclaim my discomfort. I will seek relief from my physical pain almost immediately. My emotional pain I seem to deal with quite differently. I live in my emotional pain for long periods. I can almost get comfortable there. I can withdraw, cocoon, eat myself fat, sleep myself silly and do all kinds of self medicating. The best remedy for emotional pain for me is to talk about it, in fact for me that is probably the only remedy. And for some reason I find talking about it very difficult. I quite often feel shame for having emotional pain. Sometimes I feel like it is my own fault, and no doubt sometimes it is. That doesn't make it any easier to live with, just more difficult to talk about it.
Sometimes I make mistakes, now how easy is that to talk about? Sometimes I am betrayed by people I care for and trust. That is also not easy to talk about. Because I have a strong belief in Karma, there are times I believe that I have done something wrong and what went around is now coming around. For me when it hurts enough I finally do something about it, be that therapy or talking to a friend or a family member.
You would think that A 70 Something Woman would have learned this lesson a long time ago, wouldn't you?
Afternoon Thoughts
Thursday, October 4, 2012.........6:45p.m.
Sometimes I find physical much easier to deal with than emotional pain. I do not have a high pain tolerance, so I usually deal with physical pain quite fast. I will show up at an emergency room or my Doctors pretty quickly with physical pain and I will loudly proclaim my discomfort. I will seek relief from my physical pain almost immediately. My emotional pain I seem to deal with quite differently. I live in my emotional pain for long periods. I can almost get comfortable there. I can withdraw, cocoon, eat myself fat, sleep myself silly and do all kinds of self medicating. The best remedy for emotional pain for me is to talk about it, in fact for me that is probably the only remedy. And for some reason I find talking about it very difficult. I quite often feel shame for having emotional pain. Sometimes I feel like it is my own fault, and no doubt sometimes it is. That doesn't make it any easier to live with, just more difficult to talk about it.
Sometimes I make mistakes, now how easy is that to talk about? Sometimes I am betrayed by people I care for and trust. That is also not easy to talk about. Because I have a strong belief in Karma, there are times I believe that I have done something wrong and what went around is now coming around. For me when it hurts enough I finally do something about it, be that therapy or talking to a friend or a family member.
You would think that A 70 Something Woman would have learned this lesson a long time ago, wouldn't you?
Afternoon Thoughts
Thursday, October 4, 2012.........6:45p.m.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
The Terminology Of Death
For quite a while I have wanted to write about the words that so often are so often used around death and dying.. Some times these words make me want to laugh and sometimes they make me angry. As a 70 something woman I don't understand why we avoid the words "death, dying and dead". All these words are in the dictionary yet we seem to treat them like we used to treat bad or dirty words.
When someone is ill, terminally ill, we are so reluctant to use the word dying. It amazes me and even amuses me the lengths we go to to avoid using these words. When a person is that ill we like to use different words and phrases, like he/she is doing poorly, after a week or so we move from poor and poorly to failing. Now the dying person is failing, that always makes me think that the dying person isn't trying hard enough, if they would just try a little harder they wouldn't be failing, would they? Most of learned in about grade 4 or 5 that if we were failing we should work harder, study harder then we wouldn't be failing. After usually a length of time failing they "PASS". Apparently in the end everyone passes, no matter how long they were failing.
Even then people don't die apparently. After 'passing" they enter into rest, go to their reward, I guess the reward is for passing. There are a lot of ways that we have found to avoid using the words dead and death. I have found that the 70er I get the stranger this seems. I would like to get my great reward while I am still alive.............just saying.
Afternoon thoughts
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012...........4:18p.m.
When someone is ill, terminally ill, we are so reluctant to use the word dying. It amazes me and even amuses me the lengths we go to to avoid using these words. When a person is that ill we like to use different words and phrases, like he/she is doing poorly, after a week or so we move from poor and poorly to failing. Now the dying person is failing, that always makes me think that the dying person isn't trying hard enough, if they would just try a little harder they wouldn't be failing, would they? Most of learned in about grade 4 or 5 that if we were failing we should work harder, study harder then we wouldn't be failing. After usually a length of time failing they "PASS". Apparently in the end everyone passes, no matter how long they were failing.
Even then people don't die apparently. After 'passing" they enter into rest, go to their reward, I guess the reward is for passing. There are a lot of ways that we have found to avoid using the words dead and death. I have found that the 70er I get the stranger this seems. I would like to get my great reward while I am still alive.............just saying.
Afternoon thoughts
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012...........4:18p.m.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
My Mother's Birthday/Deathday
My Mother was born on August 24th, 1920, she died August 25th 1986, one day past her 66th birthday. I can never think of her Birthday without thinking of her deathday.
I have written about my Mother's death before but I feel a need to write about it again. I had many feelings when my Mother died; loss, relief, a feeling of a lot unfinished business, but most of all a feeling of "disbelief". On some level I could not believe that she allow it, dying I mean. I always saw my Mother as overpowering, over bearing and dominant, and not in a good way. My teacher from years ago used the best descriptive word for my Mother "formidable".
At the time of my Mother's death we had the same Doctor. He had told me weeks earlier that my Mother was terminal and had weeks to live. I heard what he said, but I didn't really believe it, or if I did I had buried that information so deep down that I didn't think about it.
Yet I knew the day of her birthday that year that she was dying and she was dying that night. I stayed at the hospital all night that night. The night started like the many others that I was at the hospital. My Mother was not on any medication for pain because up until then she had experienced little to no pain. Between 10 and 11p.m. that was all to change. She had pain, a lot of pain. There was a state of confusion at that point. (The state of confusion is one of my if not favorite states, at least it is one of one of my most familiar). our Dr was moving from a rented house into the new house he had just had built. Apparently he was unreachable. This was 1986, pre cell phone days, it seems now that no one is unreachable anywhere, anytime.
Anyway, my Mother's pain was intensifying and there was nothing on her chart about pain medication...It now was 1:a.m. on the 25th of August. I asked the nurse nicely at first, then I asked her not so nicely, then I demanded that she give my Mother something for the pain. She explained again and again about the being nothing "on her chart" for pain medication and about being unable to reach our Dr to get his permission for pain medication. Finally I exploded, I rarely if ever do this. I told the nurse that I could find the Dr., his new house was just a mile from where I lived at that time. I told her that I would throw rocks or bricks throught every window of his new house until I got some attention. At this point she found another Dr in the hospital who ordered pain medication for my Mother, amazing what threats will do, especially when you really mean it. My Mother was given morphine by needle at this point. The nurse knew she dying, the blood clots that were in her leg were moving to her heart and lungs. The nurse told me that the norphine would hasten her death by perhaps hours. Like who the hell cares, you can can live 6 hours in excruiating pain or die with no pain in 4 hours, Duh............
My Mother died at 4:20 a.m. that morning. I missed it. I was in the lounge having a cup of tea and a cigarette at that time, you still could smoke in hospitals at that time. 9 out of 10 Drs had stopped smoking Camels, but smoking was still allowed. When I walked into my Mother's room a nurse met me, she told me my Mother had passed, (I hate the term, what is the alternative? failing) I was left alone in the room with my Mother. I looked at her face. My Mother had mentioned once to me about the hairs that grew out of face, I always remember her with a pair of tweezers pulling out hairs.
She had asked me if anything ever happened to her would I do this for her. I frantically looked for her tweezers, found them in a makeup bag and straddled my Mother's body on the hospital bed and began pulling out hairs from her face. This is how the nurse found me when she returned to the room.
She looked at me, said nothing and returned in a minute with a valium. I climbed off my Mother's body and made phone calls to the family. This all happened 26 years ago today. I needed to revisit that time. Thank You.
Saturday, August 25th, 2012..........3:51 p.m.
I have written about my Mother's death before but I feel a need to write about it again. I had many feelings when my Mother died; loss, relief, a feeling of a lot unfinished business, but most of all a feeling of "disbelief". On some level I could not believe that she allow it, dying I mean. I always saw my Mother as overpowering, over bearing and dominant, and not in a good way. My teacher from years ago used the best descriptive word for my Mother "formidable".
At the time of my Mother's death we had the same Doctor. He had told me weeks earlier that my Mother was terminal and had weeks to live. I heard what he said, but I didn't really believe it, or if I did I had buried that information so deep down that I didn't think about it.
Yet I knew the day of her birthday that year that she was dying and she was dying that night. I stayed at the hospital all night that night. The night started like the many others that I was at the hospital. My Mother was not on any medication for pain because up until then she had experienced little to no pain. Between 10 and 11p.m. that was all to change. She had pain, a lot of pain. There was a state of confusion at that point. (The state of confusion is one of my if not favorite states, at least it is one of one of my most familiar). our Dr was moving from a rented house into the new house he had just had built. Apparently he was unreachable. This was 1986, pre cell phone days, it seems now that no one is unreachable anywhere, anytime.
Anyway, my Mother's pain was intensifying and there was nothing on her chart about pain medication...It now was 1:a.m. on the 25th of August. I asked the nurse nicely at first, then I asked her not so nicely, then I demanded that she give my Mother something for the pain. She explained again and again about the being nothing "on her chart" for pain medication and about being unable to reach our Dr to get his permission for pain medication. Finally I exploded, I rarely if ever do this. I told the nurse that I could find the Dr., his new house was just a mile from where I lived at that time. I told her that I would throw rocks or bricks throught every window of his new house until I got some attention. At this point she found another Dr in the hospital who ordered pain medication for my Mother, amazing what threats will do, especially when you really mean it. My Mother was given morphine by needle at this point. The nurse knew she dying, the blood clots that were in her leg were moving to her heart and lungs. The nurse told me that the norphine would hasten her death by perhaps hours. Like who the hell cares, you can can live 6 hours in excruiating pain or die with no pain in 4 hours, Duh............
My Mother died at 4:20 a.m. that morning. I missed it. I was in the lounge having a cup of tea and a cigarette at that time, you still could smoke in hospitals at that time. 9 out of 10 Drs had stopped smoking Camels, but smoking was still allowed. When I walked into my Mother's room a nurse met me, she told me my Mother had passed, (I hate the term, what is the alternative? failing) I was left alone in the room with my Mother. I looked at her face. My Mother had mentioned once to me about the hairs that grew out of face, I always remember her with a pair of tweezers pulling out hairs.
She had asked me if anything ever happened to her would I do this for her. I frantically looked for her tweezers, found them in a makeup bag and straddled my Mother's body on the hospital bed and began pulling out hairs from her face. This is how the nurse found me when she returned to the room.
She looked at me, said nothing and returned in a minute with a valium. I climbed off my Mother's body and made phone calls to the family. This all happened 26 years ago today. I needed to revisit that time. Thank You.
Saturday, August 25th, 2012..........3:51 p.m.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Feelings And Actions
Many times in my life there has been a real conflict surrounding my feelings. Early in my life it seemed I wasn't allowed to have feeling, I certainly wasn't allowed to voice them; so my feelings were secrets that I carried inside me. Like most secrets they began to fester and often left my sick. It was a kind of soul sickness, one that was always left untreated. Worse yet, I began to deny my feelings to others, and what was really bad to myself. In time I no longer really knew what I actually was feeling.
It took almost 70 years for me to fully realize that it is O.K. to have my feelings, all of them, anger, guilt, hurt, fear and love. It is O.K. to voice my feelings, in fact it is necessary that I do; necessary for my emotional, spiritual and physical health. If I don't speak my fear, and anger out loud then I can't voice my love out loud either.
I don't have to act on my feelings, but it is essential that I acknowledge them. I think that was the part where I got stuck; perhaps I was afraid that if I ever voiced my feelings I would act on them. In reality it works the other way round, if I give a voice to my feelings they dissipate, they become less and they are manageable.
"It is O.K. to be angry but it is not O.K. to be cruel". I already knew that, I just didn't know that I knew it.
Afternoon Thoughts
Thursday, August 2nd, 2012.......... 5:03p.m.
It took almost 70 years for me to fully realize that it is O.K. to have my feelings, all of them, anger, guilt, hurt, fear and love. It is O.K. to voice my feelings, in fact it is necessary that I do; necessary for my emotional, spiritual and physical health. If I don't speak my fear, and anger out loud then I can't voice my love out loud either.
I don't have to act on my feelings, but it is essential that I acknowledge them. I think that was the part where I got stuck; perhaps I was afraid that if I ever voiced my feelings I would act on them. In reality it works the other way round, if I give a voice to my feelings they dissipate, they become less and they are manageable.
"It is O.K. to be angry but it is not O.K. to be cruel". I already knew that, I just didn't know that I knew it.
Afternoon Thoughts
Thursday, August 2nd, 2012.......... 5:03p.m.
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