You Don't Know What You've Lost

Take something away and then you appreciate it, right?

Actually, I like to think I was appreciating things right along in the moment.

I was happy to wake up every day without my hands stiff and aching. I didn't know what was coming with the hands, I guess, but I woke up feeling good and I appreciated that. My dad used to say "If people don't drink then when they wake up, that's the best they are going to feel all day long." My drinking hasn't caused an unpleasant awakening in a long time. But the hand thing has made the first thing in the morning a hangover for my fingers.

When Dad was taking care of his own needs (apart from the help we'd arranged for yard men, cleaning, handyman, errands), I appreciated that. I appreciated that other people with parental units as elderly as ours had more demanding responsibilities. (FFP's duties still center on shopping and errands, amazingly, since his folks are 99 and almost 90.) Dad is working hard after a bad six weeks to get back to virtual independence. He spent 13 days of the last six weeks in two hospital stays and had four procedures and lots of intervention and tests. He's been to doctor's offices three times and to a pre-opt visit to the hospital and another emergency room visit. He's had several visits from a home health nurse, several from a PT specialist, etc. He has an evaluation from Occupational Therapy on Friday. I figure his ability to dress himself, go to the toilet and even cook is proof that he's getting back some facility. He's dealing with a lot. And I would be lying if I didn't say I long for when he was more self-sufficient. He told me yesterday that he had his last car wreck (and subsequently gave up having a car) a year ago. I admit that when he could still safely drive a few places and do his own thing that I appreciated that. I knew it might end just as FFP's Dad gave up driving (his mother never drove) because of his poor vision and that ended a lot of their independence. (Although his parents took cabs for a long time before they felt that was too onerous after a failure to pick up at the grocery store.)

This is where we are now. My health is good if my hands are trumpeting my age. My dad is improving after the latest interventions have halted a rush to possibly fatal anemia. And I don't really know where he will land. I'm going to monitor it until after the holiday and then, if necessary, get him additional help to stay at his house as he wishes. It would be easier to go to assisted living where meals and other services would be more straightforward. But he resists it. He knows how he would feel if he lost the ability to be in his own private space. I think he felt that during his recent hospital stays.

Looking Forward

We were dropping something off at a PR guy's office Monday and there, next to his computer, was an old Remington typewriter and a TV with little subordinate TVs built in that reminded me of those pictures of LBJ in the White House watching multiple screens. Once this was sophisticated office technology. We looked forward to having such things. (Well maybe we would have been pining for an IBM Selectric type ball electric typewriter.) I remember longing to have...an electronic calculator! Yes, I was of the slide rule generation.

At least, back in the day, I was looking forward. I don't find I do that much any more. Not that I live in the past. Not at all. I'm locked firmly in the present.

It's a present where you could be seduced by dreams of one sort or the other, but quickly slide back to the reality of physical decline (yours and other people's) and limited expectations. Being firmly retired (seven years) and barely into my sixties and living as comfortably as we are? Beyond my wildest expectations but not beyond my dreams. I dreamed of fortunes to lavish things on myself and, especially, others---friends and charities.

If only you felt that you were going to stay healthy and wealthy enough to have the imagined gadgets and adventures and didn't feel that there are many things you'll never do or have. The fact that you don't even want some of the things, that's good. But the feeling of limitation isn't always pleasant.

In 2001, after 9/11 I started working on a list of things "I'd never care to do" and things "I one day (still) hope to do or do again." Among the 'nevers?' Ride a motorcycle. Among the "hope to dos?" Travel to every country where women are not subjugated. It seems like a list I ought to work on some more. I'll look forward to that.

Not What I Imagined

I had things in mind when I retired. Ideas about how my life would go along and ideas about what would happen in the rest of the world, too. These visions don't usually add up to reality, though, do they?

I saw myself getting everything in my (old) house organized and working to a fault. I saw myself fit and active and achieving things, doing things for others. I thought my financial life would be organized and I'd have learned lots of new things. Of course, there were those books that I was going to write and entertaining and informative WEB sites that I was going to design.

I don't know when the vision shifted to downtown living. When I retired in 2002, downsizing was on my mind but the idea of living in 1200 square feet or so was not really something I'd considered.

I wanted to travel. FFP was still working full time running his agency and wasn't ready to do much traveling. However, not too many weeks after I retired I was off to Colorado with my dad and then off to Berlin. Dad was doing better then. He could travel, drive even. My in-laws had quit driving but could still walk around the neighborhood and take cabs to go places. Intellectually I knew that they would become more feeble and have more needs. (Although their current needs are surprisingly low for their ages.) I imagined that I'd keep traveling a lot. That I'd go back to South Africa and other places. Oh, I did get back to South Africa, had a trip to Dublin, a driving trip or two with FFP, trips to New York, two trips to France with FFP. It sounds like a lot but it's been seven years and we didn't go anywhere in the last twelve months except for a short trip to New York, a night in San Antonio and a couple of nights at Lake Austin Spa. I feel like a stay-at-home. I know I'm making too much of keeping up with the old folks. If they do as well as they are right now, it would be easy enough to get a little help and, um, abandon them for a bit. I am planning to plan a trip to New York. Oh and maybe back to Europe. Of course, the expenses of moving and the economic downturn have put a little damper on spending.

I guess after 9/11 and a closer reading of the newspapers about world affairs, I didn't hold out much hope for the mess in the world. I haven't been disappointed but I have been a little surprised by the scope of the agony. (And amazed that we are still as lucky as we are.)

I guess things are always different than in your mind's eye. I wonder if the Democrats swarming the White House are finding it like they expected it to be. I'll bet, to some degree, not.

Looking Ahead

There is our condo building rising beyond the tangle of power switching equipment next to the Seaholm plant.

I thought of putting this entry into the Journal of Unintended Consequences. It's sort of the 'appropriate planning' vs. 'looking for happiness in the future and not living in the now' dilemma. It's really been on my mind as I struggle to plan for a significant move and see all these things from my past as I struggle to reduce my 'stuff.'

I've been reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I was struck by this passage:

"People usually escape from their troubles into the future; they draw an imaginary line across the path of time, a line beyond which their current troubles will cease to exist."

I have done that so many times in my life. Not that I never lived 'right now.' I think I do that better at the moment than I ever have. But I remember so many times thinking that as soon as I (fill in the blank: paid off this bill, moved, changed jobs, retired, etc.) then I would have it sorted and be happy. Or happier. I'm trying hard not to think of the move downtown that way. I'm trying to think of it as just another stage in my life. I'm trying to enjoy my house while I'm still here and I'm trying to embrace sorting all this 'stuff' as a good and fun exercise.

Truthfully, whenever I look into the future these days, I seem to quickly retreat into the present. I'm getting older. Our parents seem perilously old. Then there are terrorists and global warming. Yeah, better enjoy the now.