Thoughts

One of the many things that the new doctor and I talked about was the fact that I don’t always sleep well. She mentioned that she wasn’t a fan of sleep aids {to which I replied that I wasn’t asking for them!} Anyway, she mentioned that going to bed at the same time every night and getting up at the same time every morning was a Good Thing, and at that point I was hard-put to not to be sarcastic and say with great surprise "NO!!! I had NO idea!!!" but I didn’t because I am a nice person and on the whole, I liked how she was talking to me… I have no idea where this sentence is going…oh, yes, anyway, I agreed with her and mentioned I would make more effort than I was doing at present. So, last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep about 11 and woke up at 6:30. I got up, didn’t get dressed because I was hungry and needed food, ate breakfast, and since I was still in my pajamas, went back to bed! Oh, well! I went to sleep and slept well until about 9:30 when I woke and stayed in bed reading for another hour!

I actually feel very well and even have some energy. I have opened one box and—well not exactly put stuff away because it was full of used canvases, but propped them up against a wall until I could get the painting area set up. A couple of them are finished and I will eventually put them up on a wall, but most of them were experiments that didn’t work and I will gesso over them. I have got not only white gesso but black as well. Black makes an interesting background to work on.

Now I am going to change the subject to something I sort of touched on in the first paragraph and something I have written about before and that is the way some people talk to older people. I have had comments from people who obviously didn’t know me in which they spoke to me as if I was a small child, and a rather –well, I would say "dumb" but I have a cousin who is deaf and she gets angry when that word is used as a pejorative–let’s say "not too smart" child. And it is even worse when the said older person uses a cane. {People who have been reading what I write for a while may remember the woman in the elevator when I was going to see Fred in rehab who mentioned my shoelace was untied — a comment which I appreciated — but then she bent down and tied it for me!} Anyway, this new doctor I felt went out of her way to explain the meanings of "frailty" to me. As I mentioned, I am basically a nice person and didn’t jump all over her and tell her I have quite a good vocabulary and I am well aware what it means. I did realize that perhaps she had patients who knew what the word meant and didn’t like being called that. I don’t consider myself frail at all, but I am aware that my bones are more brittle than they were when I was younger, but so far I have never fallen and don’t feel at all that I might. I have occasionally tripped on something –in fact, as I told her, I had that morning–and when it happened, I automatically regained my balance and stayed upright. I am aware I may not always be like this but now I am not, in the normal usage of the word, frail. It also did occur to me that medically, I might be considered frail just because of my age and that I use a cane which is the main part* of the reason of the reason I didn’t get snippy with her when she used that word. It is quite possible she has had other people get annoyed when she mentioned frailty is a reasonshe checked  on the form for getting a handicapped parking tag!

OK, again, my stomach is clamoring for lunch since breakfast was rather early this morning!

* The other part of the reason for non-snippiness was that I actually liked her!

Goals for today:

• Opening more boxes! I tell myself this will not be forever even though, right now it feels that way.
• Laundry which there is–oh joy!– a washer and drier right here in the apartment.

Goals for next week:

• New bank account
• Open more boxes

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English Poet

Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.

– Oscar Wilde

Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone. ~Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers}