When I'll Be Happy

You know:
When I graduate.
     When I get a better job.
When I find true love (or true sex).
When this move is over.

Of course, none of these joys last very long.  Actually, I did bask in happiness for about ten days after we moved to this house.  What a horrific move it was, 10,000 pounds from two stories and a basement, and Tom couldn't help with any of it, partly because he couldn't do stairs, partly because he's a man.  But we got moved in, staged the old house, sold it, and then - his polio doctor told him he was never going back to work.  Post-polio syndrome advancing.

There went that.  Now I had a man around the house   all   day   long.  And a morbidly depressed one at that.

But that was ten years ago and we adjusted to that and found other Big Problems to ruin our lives.

Today though, the weather is beautiful and I wasn't noticing myself brooding on a Big Huge Overwhelming Problem.  Instead I noticed myself criticizing myself in pretty much my father's tone, "Shut your mouth, you'll let the flies in." Something like that.  So maybe I had allergies as a kid, too.  Today the pollen was getting to me and my slender aristocratic nose was having a hard time streaming air, I guess.  I kept finding myself semi-mouth breathing. Ah jeez.

But that was only the beginning.  Then there was how fat I've gotten (30 lbs. over my high-school weight), and how lazy too, really not active enough in everybody else's opinion, and how I forgot what I came here for, and oh, the mess in the front closet and the kitchen floor and . . . I began to ask myself, When will I be happy with myself?


Actually, on a good day I am basically happy with my privileged first-world life and myself, though little things like that intrude.  Go back under the bed, monster.  On a bad day (which today was not) the self-criticism really flows.  I'm more aware of it now than ever, as I've been working with a book that had me look harder at how I do that.  This is much like Zen - dark enlightenment, it's sometimes called.  This is the part about spiritual practice and personal growth that nobody tells you about, and nobody likes.

So bringing this out into the light, I thought, I'll be happy with myself - that is, I'll be perfect - when I meditate twice every day, clean out the frig, hang up all my clothes, oh, the kitchen floor, get my manuscripts out and published, iron that scarf....

In short, I had a to-do list headed by
Lose 10 lbs.!  Maybe 20!
With at least 100 other things on it.
And that's how women are.

I haven't even touched on the faults other people probably think I have, which I am blithely unaware of.*  So that at least is something to like about myself, that little streak of ignorant bliss.
~~~~~~~~~~~
* The old prescriptive grammar said, "Never use a preposition to end a sentence with"** but I have a PhD in English, and a rebellious streak, AND I'm not paid for this, so I write what I want.
** I know - I'm joking.

Both sides now

Things I bitch about:
~ Everything has gone to hell since the fifties. See the ad that opens the video above (though I kinda like the music).
~ I'm addicted to Candy Crush.
~ My mother doesn't clean up after me anymore.  (And that's not the only way I miss her.)
~ My bladder is getting old along with the rest of me.
~ I have to wear custom orthotics and athletic shoes pretty much all the time or my left ankle hurts and I break tiny bones in my feet, which is excruciating.  Worse:  I just can't go barefoot, even around the house.
~ I am allergic to every season.  Spring grass and tree pollen.  Summer ragweed.  Autumn leafmold.  Winter cold (fibromyalgia).
~ There is a very limited choice of dingbats here on Blogger. It makes me -

~ Really bad karma led me to being actively bipolar.
~ And really bad karma makes it impossible to take any of the drugs.  We've tried.  Not that the drugs work.
~ The compression fracture I got from my bad fall this spring hurts most of the time, and gets worse when I drive or wear a bra.
~ This is our front yard today.

from the bedroom window

from the street

~ The new line to the sewer is costing us almost $8,000.  The house has smelled like drains for several days.  We didn't have water or the ability to flush the toilets for two days. 
~ I'm still not completely unpacked since the last move (ten years ago).
~ I keep falling down breaking bones, getting concussions, nobody knows why.  Neurologist appointment coming up, sigh.
 
What, you need more?  I've got more.  I have 83 problems, like everyone else.  But on the other hand, obstacles are also opportunities. . . .
~ The internet!  Candy Crush!
~ Zen in the West!
~ I had a loving mother who taught me hard work by example, and at least gave me an ideal of neatness.
~ I'm still here, aging bladder in place.
~ My insurance covered the orthotics. I haven't broken a foot bone since I got them.
~ Our house has a good HEPA filter on the furnace and central air.
~ Bipolars are creative.  Irish poet karma is not all bad.
~ The sewer problem has led to much neighborly conversation and compassion.
~ I am newly appreciative of flush toilets.
~ Finally, while I hate falling, I've always liked the Samurai motto - 

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Sheba Aging

Sheba's doctor called.  Thyroid normal, creatinine higher.  He wants us to give her subcutaneous therapy for a couple of weeks, I think he said once a week, and continue the antibiotic, then make an appointment later this month so he can sedate her and look at her mouth.  Maybe there's an abcess there, or a badly decayed tooth.  Poor kitty.

Maybe I can learn to do the subcu, motivated by the knowledge that to have a technician do it costs $20.  That's on top of a bag of the liquid that costs, did the girl on the phone say $27? Can that be?  That would be once a week.  84 problems?  85?  I need to drop a couple off the other end.

Sheba looks very fine today, not afraid of us, sitting here beside me on her chair accepting frequent petting. Above is a picture of her sleeping there, trustful and relaxed, at home.  With work, we humans can understand sickness and old age, and learn to accept them as inevitable - accepting death is harder - but animals are only confused and afraid of losing their abilities.  That makes us especially want to comfort Sheba and care for her.