The End of Era, Aging, and the Holidays

This holiday season was a strange and emotional one for me. On my way to see my dad I stopped off in the town where I went to college to see several friends. My primary stop was to see my dearest and closest friend of forty years who had prostate cancer a few years ago. Because of overcrowding of hospitals due to the COVID pandemic he was unable to have his surgery for approximately a year. He was finally able to have his prostate removed last year. Unfortunately by then, the cancer had spread to his bones, bone metastasis or metastases. This type of cancer is incurable and life expenctancy is around five years. Despite that my friend is doing incredibly well. He is a serious practitioner and believer in mindfulness. Thanks to that, his incredibly positive attitude (mind over matter!), a strong support network, and a chemotherapy "bomb" (several weeks of "bombing" the cancer with an almost overload of chemo) his PSA numbers are non-existent and his overall health is quite good. 

While in town I also visited with a couple I've known equally as long. One half of the couple is beginning to show (what I and I alone suspect) are signs of some sort of dementia. While his is still quite coherent (knows who people are, can easily do everyday activities, etc), he tends to ramble from topic to topic in the same conversation never alighting on any one point or idea. At one point sitting beside him he talked for almost five minutes non-stop and I couldn't make sense of any of it. I've asked other friends about this and they've noticed the same behavior and say it's progressing. 

By coincidence at the house of the friends above another friend happened to be in town from Virginia at the same time I was. His hair is now shoulder-length and white. He is in wonderful health, but the aging process is evident. Having not seen him in about thirteen years, although it shouldn't be, the difference was a shock. Several other friends I hadn't seen in almost as long came to the house for a small party/get together. It was the same with them. They've aged. Oddly enough, I hadn't considered that even though we haven't seen each other in so many years, they would continue to age just as I have. Of course they wouldn't remain looking like they did almost twenty years ago! Realizing that obvious fact hit me hard and strange.

Traveling on to my dad's house, I was a little surprised at how much he's aged since I saw him just a month earlier at Thanksgiving. He's going to be 85 in next month and is still very active. He still drives, lives independently alone (cooks his own food, does his own laundry, cleans his house, etc), plays cards at his church's senior citizen center every Wednesday with friends, visits the local senior citizen meal center on Tuesdays for breakfast with some of those same friends, and drives a neighbor to dialysis once a week. Despite all that, I saw a drastic decline from a month ago. He stumbles more now, his left hand shakes uncontrollably most of the time, and he's started repeating stories to me as if he's telling me for the first time. He's also beginning to mix and confuse stories and events. What happened with one of his sisters he now remembers as happening to another. He will tell me one facet of an event and an hour later he will retell the story with different people in the story.

In addition, my father is now living almost full-time in the memory of his marriage to my mother who died seven and a half years ago. They knew each other since they were seven and ten (mother, father respectively) and were married for fifty-two years. He misses her terribly and I don't blame him. He reminisces about their lives together, things they did, places they went, and tragedies they suffered together. He does this with a peculiar longing that sounds very much like he knows his time is coming to a close.

All of these things combined made for a rather melancholy and somber holiday. Yes, it was absolutely wonderful to see all the people listed above, of course! But it's brought to the fore the notion that a particular era of my life will be coming to a close soon. Some of the people I've loved dearly will be gone. There will be no more weekends to spend together, no silly stories to trade, and no time just sitting together in each other's company not doing anything at all. 

Most importantly is my dad. When he's gone I'll be the last member of my immediate family. My mother for whatever reason wasn't able to have any more children, and I am thus, an only child. My dad and I have not always seen eye-to-eye. Sometimes we've outright butted heads and not always gently. I have cousins I'm semi-close to, but it won't ever be the same. I won't have any brothers or sisters to spend my time with. I sit and watch my dad sometimes and I think about how he knows it's winding down faster now each day. 

I have mixed emotions about this. I'm acutely aware that life is short, and that notion becomes more real every day. I want to know that when this era or chapter in my life with these friends and family comes to a close I haven't squandered any of my time with them. I want to be sure it all counted. When they're gone I don't want to regret. I want to smile and be happy for the fact that these people were in my life in the first place. 

Moving Forward

As the pandemic has eased considerably, here are wise words to keep in mind going forward.

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
— Arundhati Roy

COVID Dreams and Crumbled Empires

I had my first COVID dream last night. I was going from pharmacy to pharmacy looking for at-home test kits. Every time someone grabbed the last one right as I was reaching for it. 

The employees in each pharmacy all had a "what does it matter now" attitude. The entire dream had a very dystopian feel to it, like I was living in the rubble of a crumbled empire. Go figure. 

The Bullhorn of Happiness

It occurred to me this morning that for the past year and a half we've been getting blatant, in-your-face messages. Messages that are telling us to slow down, enjoy your life as it is in this very moment, stop chasing false success in the form of stuff, look inward, and appreciate the present. 

That message has come in the form of everything from COVID lockdowns to Facebook crashes. Yesterday without Facebook did seem weird, yes. But it was much like turning off a squawky television and enjoying the peace and quiet. 

And yet despite all the bullhorns showing us the way to deeper happinesses, we go right back to "the way things were" or exhaust ourselves chasing it. Sometimes I think we'll never, ever learn.

Eating

I just saw a commercial for Applebee's with the theme to Welcome Back Kotter basically welcoming people back to dining out. 

Two things immediately occurred to me.

Firstly, eating is a sport. We rarely eat with our bodies in mind. In genera we don't eat for healthy benefits.

Secondly, we've learned nothing from the last Year of COVID. Everyone and everything is trying to get back to how things were. We're not slowing down and cherishing the moment. We've either forgotten or ignored the lessons COVID had to teach us about self awareness and the rewards of introspection.

Thought In the Time of COVID

I'm sitting quietly in my dining room reflecting on the events of the day. At 1.45pm, CST, I joined 75,495,716 people in the United States who've been vaccinated at least once for COVID-19. At the moment the significance didn't hit me. 

Sitting in my automobile afterward, I can admit to the tears that started flowing. I thought of so much. I thought of my mother who passed away almost five years ago now. In that moment I missed her more than ever. I wanted to share my moment with her so badly and knew I couldn't. I wondered how she would've handled the pandemic and its effects on family and society. Being the fiery, strong Irish woman that she was, I know the answer. She would've reached deep down inside herself and found the strength and wisdom to do the the things she knew were the right things to do. She would've pulled family and friends as close as possible, and as always in her own loving, selfless way, looked out for them before she looked out for herself. 

I thought of all the people who didn't make it to this moment. Those people who died hooked up to ventilators without family there to comfort them. Their families who suffered the heart-wrenching tragedy of loved ones dying and not being able to be there. 

I thought of all those yet to be vaccinated. Patiently waiting their turn, wearing their masks, keeping their distance. Day in and day out counting the moments until they get their chance to get the protection we all deserve. 

As I sat crying in joy and sadness for the things I've mentioned above, I thought back to my childhood. Steamy, humid summer midwest evenings filled with the sound of crickets and the amber glow of fireflies so thick in the air you could practically read by their light. Sitting in cool, metal Adirondack chairs in the dewy humid backyard grass of summer eating ice cold watermelon. Watermelon so cold it made your teeth hurt. But you could feel its chill spreading through your body as you swallowed each piece. Having contests to see who could spit the slimy seeds the furthest. 

These were the things I suddenly missed. The innocence of youth where the horrors of viruses that irrevocably damage and change lives was a million miles away and not even on the radar of a ten-year old boy. I grew up in the "between disease" times of the late 60s and 70s. Polio was a horror I only heard the adults talk about, not fully understanding their recollectant terror and the nighmare of AIDS. Horrific diseases that changed the course of humanity whether we admit it, recognize it or not. 

All of this flooded me within milliseconds, really. It all flashed in my head with a clarity and embrace that seemed almost impossible. How could I grasp such a large emotion and concept in such a small span of time? How could I project its sigfnificance into a future that hasn't happened yet? I don't know. I just know that I could and did. 

It's for all those reasons and many more that I have the duty to double down on my mask wearing. Why I have the responsibility to keep on social distancing. Why I need to keep washing my hands and staying vigilent. We're almost there. There's a light at the end of the tunnel and for once it's not a train.  

COVID's Rewards

I was just out walking the dog. As spring is beginning to take hold after a particularly rough end to winter I got to thinking about COVID. I have had my moments of COVID fatigue, to be sure. And while I go get a bit weary in waiting for my turn to be vaccinated, overall I'm glad for the experience. Over the past year I've become much more self-aware and my sense of being grounded in who and what I am has become more solidified.

There are those anxious for this all to be over so we can "get back to normal." That life and its daily dynamic is never returning. I feel sorrow for those groping and gasping for that "before" life. They don't see the gifts and opportunities of the past year. They've squandered the rarest of opportunities. The chance to read, to learn a new skill, to take up a new hobby, or to simply spend quality time with one's self.

While I didn't learn to play an instrument, learn to knit, or work jigsaw puzzles, I found greater parts of myself that were waiting for me to come find them. I not only found them, I embraced them. And that is a greater reward than any knit cap or 500-piece puzzle of the Eiffel Tower.

Reflections in the Time of COVID

I’m feeling very reflective about COVID this morning. Where I live it has been handled poorly to say the least, but it’s given me so much opportunity. I don’t think I’d be as mindful and self-aware if I hadn’t gone through this year. I had a wisp of “Opportunity Squandered” creep into my thoughts last night. 

Then I told myself I may not have learned to play the piano or written the Great American Novel, but I got deeper in touch with me. I found some of the deeper gears that make me work. I understand the mechanism so much better. Learning the piano or writing a book can’t even touch that.

The Mindfulness of the Wrong Shoes

I just had a good lesson in mindfulness, the Snowball Effect, compartmentalization, and gratitude.

I ordered a cool pair of shoes about a month ago and my normal shoe size wasn’t right for these shoes. I need two sizes bigger for a proper fit. I immediately sank into an all-encompassing despair that went from, “Damn. The wrong size!" to "Why can’t anything ever work out right for me?!” and the image of me as an old man living in some broken down apartment looking back on a life filled with bitter regret and missed opportunities. Funny, huh? 

For starters, I immediately realized I’m grateful for that moment. It reminded me that mindfulness is not about perfection. Nor is it any sort of acceptance of struggle, putting a smiley face on unhappiness. One can be the most mindful, calm, and accepting person in the world and it’s still okay to be upset and disappointed sometimes. Even about the size of a pair of shoes. It doesn’t mean I’m less mindful or I’ve failed some cosmic test of temperament. "Oops. You got mad about something trivial. You should've known better! We're going to have to take your Mindfulness Merit Badge away." It means I’m human, just like everyone else.

Second, the wrong shoes has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of my life. They are not partners out to "get me." The wrong shoe size isn't an omen for the rest of my existence. The wrong size shoes doesn't mean a lonely and bitter Third Act. That’s all internal programming from the past. It’s that record the ego puts on the turntable any chance it gets to play the same song over and over. It's the ego's way of tricking me to staying in place, right where it wants me.

Which brings me to the gratitude part. In the midst of a deadly pandemic I’m losing my shit over a pair of shoes?! There are people in hospital rooms in this COVID crisis fighting for every breath alone with no family to hold their hand, no spouse to comfort them in their final moments, and I'm complaining about shoes. How dare I. There are families in this crisis who don't know where their next meal will come from or how they're going to survive. Literally. I need to remember this. I need to be quiet and be still. I need to keep this lesson close and remember it as I move step by mindful step forward in a humble and grateful fashion. 

A Solitary Walk

I’ve taken to each day after work taking a nice mile or so walk around the neighborhood. Today being colder and the snow flurries on and off all afternoon made it feel like mid to early-late Autumn. The clouds had that Fall look, stark white and billowing on top, flat and grey on the bottom. The cold wind gusts only added to the Autumn feeling. Given the circumstances of Shelter in Place I was practically the only one out, and barely any traffic gave it all a cozy, desolate feeling I actually enjoyed. I stopped at one point and just watched the trees and the clouds. I thought to myself, "What do they care about COVID? They don't." It’s as foreign to them as the bees Colony Collapse Disorder is to us. They simply go about their silent, regal business. Floating across the sky and swaying in the breeze. I was struck by their humble arrogance, their steadfastness. Their world continues uninterrupted. They’re unaffected by us either way. Be here or don’t be here, they could care less. There’s a much higher purpose they’re an integral part of we haven’t recognized yet. They get the interconnection of it all and we don’t. We’re as foreign and almost meaningless to them as the gnats are to us.