A Little More Introspection

As I approach my eightieth birthday–next May–I notice I am getting more and more like Fred. Recently, I bought some sweat pants and these days I am wearing T-shirts and sweat pants every day as he did. I am, as yet, not an expert in this since I don’t have pockets! He HAD to have pockets! I can see the value of these since, until I got a Big Idea, I was struggling with where to put my cell phone! {And no, I haven’t as yet vomited on it or left it in the car or the pocket of a coat I seldom wear! } The said Big Idea was to use an over-the-shoulder-strapped little padded bag which I first bought for my Kindle. I used to walk regularly back then and one place I went to a lot was a cute little park where I would sit and read the Kindle. These days I have the cell phone in the front pocket but I am still putting the Kindle in the bigger pocket. and thus, everywhere I go around the apartment , the Kindle and the cell phone go with me. Another way I am being like Fred is that although I wake up at my usual six-ish, I don’t get up, and if I can’t go back to sleep, I read. It is now 11:30 and I have just finished breakfast. Fred used to get up at about 11 am and usually by then I had been up for hours and pretty well broken the back of whatever the job-for-the-day was!

I was aggravated a bit yesterday to realize that the pain in my foot was coming back. It is more like an burn/ache across the top of my foot and it is definitely there this morning since I cannot tie the shoelaces on my right foot without acerbating it. It is not a severe pain. It does not, to compare it with the previous pain, cause me to suck breath and yelp inadvertently when the foot is used; however, it is annoying and a bit of a let down after a couple of painless days. BUT<—{this is an important "but"} although I feel it a bit when I first start to walk, it diminishes as I move. SO <— also an important word here} I am moving about a bit more than I used to be.

Before all this cancer or not cancer I am dealing with now, I very rarely read during the day at all. Now, I am comforted by having the Kindle with me wherever I am and I read so I don’t worry. When I was a child, and especially when I was a teenager, I read constantly to avoid what was going on in my very not-normal life back then. I can remember being the only person in my boarding school being unhappy when holidays came and we had to leave to go home for a couple of weeks. And I also remember being excited when it was time to be going back! In the boarding school, I didn’t have to make an effort to be "invisible." No one shouted at me or slapped me suddenly across the face, or, the most important part, no one "hid" alcohol around the house and sipped on it all day. That was my mother.

My father was a good man but although I knew he was very proud if me for being such a good student, as I got older, there were no more hugs and kisses especially in public. Apparently it was fine to hug and kiss your little daughter in public but totally taboo when she looked like a woman. Incidentally, I was 12 when I was told this. In other words, as I interpreted it then, what other people thought about him as a policeman was more important that showing love to his older daughter… Well, that is how *I* interpreted it at that time. I can see now that there was most likely MUCH more to it than that. Anyway, I can accept now that as well as being proud of me, he also loved me. Anyway, to go back to the original point, right now in this limbo of waiting, I am helped a lot by reading. What I choose to read these days is deliberately light, "fluffy" stuff. I don’t want to have to think about anything so mostly what I am reading are mysteries I have read before. Mostly I can remember who-dun-it but that doesn’t matter. When I am reading, I am not wondering if I DO have cancer and frantically planning how to deal with it if I do!

OK, I have finished my cereal so time to go and get my coffee from the kitchen.

 Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

– Jalaluddin Rumi

 If not me, then who?

If not now, then when?