Gratitude * Sunday
Quote of the Week
"But wait! If I could shake the crushing weight of expectations, would that free up some time for joy, or relaxation, or simple pleasure..."
(from Louisa’s song Under Pressure in the movie En Canto; lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda)
Sunday Haiku
Primrose surprises, prevails during cold, windy, gray, late winter days.
Sunday Musings
As I’ve said, I don’t do resolutions. I am a constant project of improvement. I don’t need a new year for personal revelations because it happens daily.
Improvement sometimes means letting things go. Trauma, unfortunately, does not always let the body cooperate with what the brain wants to do.
Scheduling a purge for the first week of January was maybe brilliant. We empty out the old year, so we are nice and clean to begin the new year. Maybe it’s the luck of the draw as I’m pursuing a solution to a health issue.
January is a trauma trigger for me. I was dismissed from a job I liked in 2016. It was a small event two co-workers blew into a hurricane. It could not be undone, despite the lip service of my union rep. Progress has been made on letting go of emotions about the dismissal, and the nightmares are finally lessening, but still happening. It’s been years, and one would think one would be over it. Perhaps there is no getting over some traumas. If only I could learn how to control dreams.
Complicating the dismissal trauma was job hunting at the age of 63 after sixteen years in what I thought would be my retirement job. Nobody, trust me on this, nobody wants to hire a fat woman who walks with a cane, regardless of intelligence or experience. Especially when she was dismissed from her previous long-term job.
It’s so easy to give up on working for earned income after one is 60. I’m tired. I hurt. I’ve worked since I was 12. This life of struggle has worn my brain and body into mush. The nature of the human body seems to support about forty years and every day after that is gravy. We are lucky to get what we get.
Health issues are their own traumas. You get to know your body and trust it to do certain things as required when suddenly trust bursts and the body betrays. Achieving what we were able to do in the past is not always restored; this writer is grateful for still being able to move and walk even if abilities are not the same. With aging one has to take every step with intention.
I lived the first week of 2023 in a sort of liminal space getting ready for the medical procedure doctors recommend for folks over 45. None of my favorite, essential foods were allowed: no strawberries, no poppyseed muffins, no pistachios, no sesame crackers. Constantly thinking about food is distressful, especially when you can’t have it and there is so much food in the house. I’m not a big eater, but I want what I want. I’m grateful it was a short time and an effective purge.
During that time though, because of eating lightly and the brain fog, I kept having the feeling I was playing hooky, which I’ve experienced way too much since leaving my previous employment. Suddenly it seemed because I was purposely being physically easy on myself that week the brain betrayed.
I’m retired. I’m on my own schedule. My brain doesn’t yet recognize I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. Hwell, except take care of my health. I’m also not a great housekeeper so there is always plenty on my to-do list when I want to do it.
Between our American pressures of self-sufficiency and my own personal work ethics, it seems I still bear guilt when I am not “busy doing something,” anything, which is entirely silly. As a dear college classmate told me one day, “Guilt is avoiding responsibility.” That’s the test. If you are being responsible, you bear no guilt. Makes sense to me.
I remind myself I am responsible. I pay my mortgage and my bills. I have food in the house and appliances in working condition and other tools to keep my house clean and tended, even though I’m slow getting the cleaning done, cleaning not being my favorite pastime. I opened my home to the son and his family in their time of need so I’m being a responsible mother as well.
Retirement, though a relatively new concept in our culture, is supposed to be a time of rest and enjoyment before our final event in this lifetime, though maybe not so much for low-income citizens. (Low-income persons have poorer health outcomes.) For most people the last day of work is a party, a celebration of closure for the end of working years, and a commencement to the next chapter in life. However, when one is forced into retirement that disrupts the common pathway to closure. I did not retire through my own devices; I was planning a few more years of gainful employment, so there was no closure. The torture of looking for work another six months after the trauma amplified the original trauma, and the ensuing exhaustion overwhelmed both brain and body. I gave up looking for work. Because a situation is over, whether experiencing closure or not, does not mean the impact of it leaves.
This year I’m working on getting over the “playing hooky” feeling of not doing, doing, doing every waking minute. I’m not lazy; the body and brain don’t cooperate. I want to accept everything I do in my life as what I can and want to do. I want to let go feeling pressured by myself, by my personal ethics, by cultural expectations. The body wants the mind to cooperate, and vice versa, to not fidget, and not have moments of anxiety and panic remembering I’m not working. Letting go is harder than doing, doing, doing.
Color Watch – colorful attractions in my neighborhoods this week – The eye-pleasing sweet pink of primrose during the gray days of winter.
Current View – {These are only my opinions about movies and books, but don’t let me stop you from trying these reviewed items yourself; your opinion may differ.} Binged on the ginger and the whinger as I won’t give them advertisement by mentioning their names. It didn’t take any focus at all to watch; I just don’t find people of privilege complaining about being victims and throwing family under the proverbial bus to be entertaining by any stretch of my imagination. The presentation was so repetitive and shallow I wonder how they allowed it to air. Maybe they aren’t as bright as they think they are. I only wasted my time because I am so nosy. Meeooow. I won’t read their books.
Currently Reading – Finished The Santa Klaus Murder (1939, fiction mystery) by Mavis Doriel Hay. This classic British mystery was so much fun. Recommended.
This week I have been grateful for:
- No evidence of colon cancer in the medical procedure.
- The surprising joy of being able to eat what I wanted again.
- Being able to get up by myself after falling in the shower.
- Ibuprofen and Tylenol.
- Swimming pools and hot tubs.
- Making progress on my cleaning project.
- Looking forward to the next part of the cleaning project.
- So much abundance of stuff. It’s not boring.
- Joy in all its packages.
- Music, babies, rain.
- Still having a bit of wit after watching a lifelong friend descend so quickly into dementia.
- Creativity.
- Coffee ice cubes when I run out of coffee.
- California strawberries.
- Water.
Hoping you have a lovely week.
Namaste. Peace. Blessings.
Floral ribbon border by Laurel Burch
Sassy Kas 