Reflections after visiting the doctor.
April 5, 2025
I went for my regular ob/gyn visit the other day. It had been a while, surprising given my age, sixty-two, and the joy of laying under fluttering paper with feet in stirrups, and bare bottom, shining like, yes, the moon. Of course, I don’t know what my bare bottom actually looked like; I was not in a position to see much except for my doctor. She was lovely and gracious, checked to make sure the room was the right temperature, allowed me to prattle on about my kids before we got down to the business of the appointment.
Afterwards, she washed her hands. I sat up on the table, my feet, still in socks, dangled towards the floor. The doctor explained everything looked good, my ovaries were shriveled up to about the size of tiny grapes, (didn’t she mean raisins?) and I needed to schedule my mammogram.
It was hard enough confirming my age at the beginning of the appointment. But to be reminded that I am in my sixth decade and then told that my ovaries were shriveled?
I left the appointment and called friends and made the whole conversation a funny anecdote ending with “can you believe she said that to me?”
The whole time I was chuckling on the phone, I was sulking inside. I didn’t want to go gently into the good night. I didn’t want to be sixty-two.
For the record, I don’t like what gravity has done to my breasts, the laugh lines around my eyes, (crinkles, I guess, the word sounds like shriveled to me,) and that my feet are sore when I first wake up if I don’t stretch them out before bed. I don’t like having to stretch my feet out before bed; I don’t have the time, I floss longer than anyone I know in an attempt to make up for all the years I didn’t listen to the dentist.
But it finally occurred to me that yes, I am sixty-two. it’s not quite as great as thirty-two. But my kids and I have actual conversations. The people I call my friends must be really good friends because they have stuck around so long. And that sixty-two might be a bit easier than seventy-two or eighty-two.
I’m healthy. I go the gym. I can survive a forty-five minute high intensity workout without having to sneak to the ladies room for a breath. My body is pretty good to me, crinkly eyes, defeated breasts, and shriveled ovaries.
Getting older is, (and this is hard to say but I truly believe it, most of the time,) a privilege. It will be whatever I make of it. I don’t think I will grow older gracefully, but I’ve never been graceful and that’s never bothered me at all.
I plan to continue being who I am, at sixty-two, and sixty-three, and so on, and, hopefully, so on.
Today, I spent some time with my twenty-one year old daughter. She was bemoaning all of the work she has to do for college, the challenges of finding a summer job, and juggling all of this, along with time with her friends and stuff like laundry. “There aren’t enough hours in the day!” she exclaimed.
I said, as people do, especially people my age who have recently been to the gynecologist- “Enjoy these times, Katy. They go by so fast.”
I don’t think she heard me, or she did, but I’ve said it before. But she doesn’t have a clue what I mean. Lucky, lucky, girl, my daughter.
And I am a very, lucky woman, a work in progress, who needs to go stretch my feet because I’ve got a lot to do in the morning.
It’s been a quiet end of winter/beginning of spring season. The warmth, the sun, the first sight of crocuses, have not left my heart giddy and untethered, anxious for more, and joyful being able to walk a block in a tee-shirt and jeans.
With everything going on, my mood has been both somber and blessed. I have less to say than usual, I’m busy trying to make sense of the world and the people making noise in the world. I’m taking note of everything I have to be grateful for; it seems more important these days to appreciate everything I have to be grateful for.
The dogs make me laugh. Chanel is already upstairs waiting for me to join her in bed. Jack just brought me a moccasin he found in the back yard that looks more like part of a eviscerated rabbit than a shoe. Bernadette shimmies her butt every time I walk in the door, but only some of the time. I need to figure out what inspires her. Maybe she knows something we don’t.
There are the crocuses, the brave flowers of early spring. Ours are purple, and they are hidden behind a bush.
I’m not sure what to say to friends; we commiserate, we talk about our kids, how much sleep we’ve been sleeping, what we do when we can’t, a cold front, the temperature for the weekend and make gentle or barbed comments about the people in our lives. Whose husband stopped shaving. What seventeen year old only calls his mom “bro”. Which parent doesn’t want to move to assisted living but can’t remember to turn off the flame on the stove.
We promise to make time for a meal or a follow up call. There are pauses, long drawn out sighs, and things that aren’t really spoken about unless that can of worms opens, in which case we stay on the phone until we find an excuse to hang up.
There is food to be tended or a dog to be walked. Clothes to be thrown in the wash.
Yes, I am somber. But with all this gravity, there is also the weight and the luxury of blessings.
The obvious ones and the tiny graces like clean sheets, the upcoming Easter celebration at a friend’s, a call from Katy that I wasn’t expecting, coming across a poem I wrote a long time ago inside a paperback novel that I can’t decipher at all so it must be brilliant. There is the sliding my toes inside the sneakers that make me want to skip, the occasional amazing hair day, and the unexpected voice of Joe Cocker blaring out of my radio station, from a million years ago, asking if I’m feeling allright.
No, I’m not feelin’ too good myself.
But maybe I am.
I am somber and blessed, and brave, like a crocus. It’s early spring. Maybe giddy will come along, soon, for a while anyway.
I just need to make space.
Melancholy, Magical, Time of the Year.
December 17, 2023
I’m writing this in my kitchen, at a table with a log centerpiece and branches studded with holly. There is scented hand soap and a bag of homemade candy by the sculptured pitcher my daughter brought home from college. We don’t have holiday napkins; stores are already displaying napkins for Valentines, so we’ll have to make beige paper squares from the coffee shop.
I’m a little bit sad. I’m writing this here, instead of posting on social media, because I don’t want my words to seem like I’m looking for sympathy or heart emojis. I’m putting thoughts to keyboard because this is how I handle whatever is weighing me down, or lifting my heart.
It’s simple. This year, somewhere along the way, I lost some friends. Not to death, to a new baby, or because of a long distance move. Not sure how or why they have faded off the radar. But they did, and I miss them.
I have tried, periodically, over the past few months to reconnect, but when you are told, many times, “let me let you go, I have to take this call,” or texts are answered days later, it’s time.
That’s part of being alive, I suppose, and having friends. Life happens and sometimes we need to clean out the people in our lives the way we let go of old shoes or spent linens. Sometimes, there just isn’t time to keep up with everyone, people need to let go of some old friends to make room for new ones, new passions, or just space.
I suppose I’ve done the same to people in my life, though I can’t recall. It’s easy, as I charge forward, juggling kids, work, gym classes, and plans, to forget about the people I must of forgotten to call back, or follow up with.
It’s the holidays, so the people I’ve loved feel especially absent, because this is the time of year when we lean towards those who are most important in our lives.
Please, don’t feel bad for me. I have a plethora of people who pick up the phone when I call, even those who hate picking up the phone- “Julie, really, you could have texted!” I have people who remember my birthday and can tell you the last time I had a cold and the first time, and hopefully, last, I fixed the dishwasher. I have friends that “like” the multitudes of dog pictures I post, even if they are all starting to look like the last one, friends who bring me books, really good books, and leave them on my doorstep, just because.
So I’m good. I have plenty of friends and people who love me. I’m just missing a few and felt like telling the world in case you are missing someone, too.
We can miss our people together until we stop missing them.
Soon enough, focus will shift to the people in my life who really want me to be there.
While I’m waiting, I will take the dogs for a walk. There is rain and wind in the forecast. All I have to do is hold out a few leashes, and soon enough, Jack will step on my foot, Chanel will steal the ball from Bernie, and I’ll be too busy looking for poop bags to fuss about some people I used to know.
Happy Holidays!
This is the summer I gave up on my hair.
July 18, 2023
This summer, I am done with work every at 4 pm every day for the summer, (thank you, Quincy College). It’s been hot as hell lately, most days, so most days, I am climbing down the steps into the pool by 4:45 and slipping under the rope and inside the lap lane by 4:47.
My backstroke meanders. My freestyle is fast, especially when I remember to kick my legs. I don’t practice breaststroke anymore; it feels too much like the the stroke of someone who doesn’t want to get her face wet. Last year, I practiced butterfly. Well done, it is glorious to watch, and if continued for any period of time, it left me breathless.
This year, I keep it simple. I crawl. I float. I backstroke. I dive.
When I get tired, I pull myself out and slather deep conditioner onto my hair. Then I rinse off in the outdoor shower. Sometimes, there is a tiny group of six year old girls watching me shower because a lifeguard asked them to give me a turn. The shower is very popular with first grade girls.
I have a pair of goggles that keeps all the water out, and I cherish them as much as my fancy headphones.
I only have one swimsuit; it is two pieces that do not match. But the top piece is blue, and bottoms are black, and I don’t think anyone has noticed. I do spend most of my time underwater.
There have been quite a few changes in my life these past years; I am now recognizing this trend will continue, even speed up, in the near and distant future.
I find comfort knowing this is not particular to me; it seems everyone I know is experiencing roughly the same thing, just different circumstances-different levels and combinations of grief, joy, and willingness to adapt to, for lack of a better term, the increasing speed of life
I’m not sure I could adapt to life without swimming in Cunningham Pool, most days at 445.
But, I do.
Every year, it closes mid August so the lifeguards can go back to college.
I sign up for boot-camps and glory in the fall colors while walking Bernadette and Chanel, in the woods just behind an empty Cunningham Pool.
This was the first summer, I didn’t bother to blow dry my hair after dinner, even on weeknights.
I decided summer evenings could be better spent walking the dogs after sunset, going out for ice cream with Katy, heading to bed early, with a book, or to the sofa, to watch Ted Lasso, for the second time, with my husband, (it’s his first, and I think I’m hoping some of Ted’s optimism will rub off).
It’s hasn’t, yet anyway. But it’s only July 17th, and there’s time for us all.
It is the Sunday night of Memorial Day.
I haven’t attended a cookout, gone swimming, attended a concert, or had dinner with family.
To be honest, I don’t like much of the food that is eaten is cookouts, other than corn, and it’s too cold to swim. Taylor Swift was last weekend, I need to get over it.
My daugher just blocked me on Instagram, she’s nineteen and she had warned me she wasn’t going to let me follow her. But she did, and then two days later, she didn’t.
My husband spent most of the weekend talking about buying a lawnmower and is now working so he can pay for the lawnmower he bought for our tiny, tiny back yard.
My son answered my afternoon group text where I announced I was turning off my phone for a little downtime to ask me why.
He probably still likes me because he is a thousand miles away, so I don’t expect much from him.
On these three day holiday weekends, I want to play frisbee with a large group who knows me well and doesn’t mind that I’m not that good. I want to sleep in late, stay up late and not be the one to do the dishes, unless, the dishes are at someone else’s house, (I’d like to make it clear I am an excellent houseguest because I’m coming across here as kind of a jerk).
I want my challenge to be finding the summer placemats and getting the kids to put away their laundry.
But we aren’t part of large family, and none of us can throw frisbee farther than twenty feet, except Colin. He’d rather throw a football and is currently, like I said, far away.
I like to get up early, I don’t mind doing dishes with the radio on. Besides, it’s just me there aren’t many dishes.
I think life is harder now, than it was, years ago. Or maybe it just feels that way, tonight, on the cusp of summer. Maybe because it’s a holiday weekend, and there’s pressure to have something to say when when someone asks me at work on Tuesday morning- “what did you do?”
I’m not sure what’s coming next, except that if I don’t walk the dogs soon, they will wait patiently until I am ready. I really, really, really like dogs.
Tomorrow, I need to take a ride to the beach, hop on my bike, or head over to the Ponkapoag Pond in the morning. I have a whole day left, and I’m sure as hell not going to spend it negotiating with Katy regarding social media or nagging Sheldon about a lawn mower.
Well, I could, but I won’t, because I did that today.
Life is short. I can do better.
Postscript
I wanted to follow up about yesterday, the event detailed above when at 1 pm, Katy, a newcomer to Instagram at the age of nineteen years old and all around wonderful human, blocked me.
That funk resulted in a cookie binge, a shower that consumed all the hot water of East Milton and an entire bottle of lavendar calm body wash, (no help at all) and a google search about the cost of living in St Croix, because I went there with my parents when I was twelve and had a delightful time.
I am happy to share, I have been reinstated. It was all a minor misunderstanding which if I tried to explain, I’d probably get blocked again.
And today, I’ve done better.
Thanks for reading.
I’m Pretty Sure This Will Happen to Most of Us.
April 25, 2023
It happened tonight at the gym. It happens all the time when I’m working with high school students, having drinks at bar, walking my dog, watching television.
I feel a tiny wince somewhere in my chest, I wish I was that young. I’d like a do over or a do it all again.
This doesn’t last long. I don’t have the option of wallowing when I’m raising a twelve pound weight over my head, explaining the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized loans to a seventeen year old, or hanging out with my friends.
We’re all so busy lately. I’m busy, my friends are busy, everyone at work is losing their minds. Some of my colleagues are eating lunch at their desks, staying long after doors lock and sending emails at 2 am Sunday morning. (Not me. I have lunch with my friends, but that’s a different story, because my friends at work are the best.)
Essentially, I have too much going on to dwell on my age, or whatever the hell age I’d like to be.
Tonight, I dwelled.
When I was in high school, I drank Miller Lite behind the bathroom at the Tourne, a park in my hometown. A lot of people did this, I was known for being Rob’s shadow and spent the first six months of our relationship agreeing with everything Rob said, until we’d been together for a few months.
Around this time, I discovered the excruciating joy of passionate arguments in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night, in the snow, barefoot, because whatever the hell we were fighting was so important it couldn’t wait four hour until he picked me up for school. When I wasn’t whipped up and hysterical about Rob, I used my free time to squabble with my mom about why I had to empty the dishwasher when we had a housecleaner, and walk around a lake called Mountain Lake. I didn’t do any homework or play any sports, but it’s obvious, I was quite busy.
During my twenties, I was sad. My father died when I was twenty-two, and although he’d been sick for a while, his loss hit hard. I wasn’t hospitalized; I went to school, held some jobs, went through the motions, but looking back, I see a sad girl who should have been in therapy.
During my thirties, the first thing my brain tells me to write is I had a damn good time. I was on guest lists, went to concerts in limos, stayed up until dawn playing backgammon, and weirdly enough, talking about high school. I shopped. I hung out at the pool on the roofdeck on the Sheridan. I went to Walden Pond whenever my friend was kind enough to take me, and if she wasn’t up for it, I took a cab out to Concord and made the driver wait until I was finished. (I had a collection of cabdrivers that drove me places and brought me food and alcohol when I didn’t want to leave the house or the liquor stores were closing.)
Most nights, when we were out, I’d leave first, and head back to my apartment to wait for my friends to come over after the bars closed. I don’t like waiting in line for the bathroom and crowds make me uncomfortable. The limos were nice, and the concerts were amazing, but mostly, what I remember is trying to locate the limos after the concerts. That was not fun, and often took a very long time. Backgammon is fun, especially when you’re winning, but Walden and winning backgammon games aren’t enough to redeem a decade that, from this angle, looks pretty shallow.
I had children in my forties. I remember trying to hold slippery Kate up in the sink so I could wash her hair, and almost dropping her, because I turned around to look at the clock. I needed to know how many more minutes until I could put her to bed.
I skipped through parts of Lemony Snicket when I was reading to Colin because I wanted to get back downstairs to some tv show.
I loved taking them to the pool but we didn’t go often because of how long it would take to get them in and out of their swimsuits. And sometimes, while they were swimming, they’d need to pee. It was so inconvenient, those three to six minutes of helping my kids get ready to play in the water.
As they grew older, they started to move in another direction. I’d take them to the park, leave my book and phone behind, and they’d meet their friends. We’d go for a hike, and they’d want to turn around after thirty minutes so we could go for pizza.
By the time they were teenagers, I caught glimpses. I memorized conversations and wrote about them on Facebook, not to brag, but so I’d have records. I drove Katy anywhere she wanted to go, just to have time in the car. I tried to connect with Colin, but he started drifting away around age fourteen. The only time we spoke was when he lost something in the laundry, the only real conversations we had were in the car when we were on the way home from the police station.
Now, Colin is twenty-two and Katy is nineteen. Neither one of them live at home, but we talk. Colin tells me about his new apartment and sends pictures of his food all the time; this is a trend I don’t understand. Katy shares stories about frat parties I’m pretty sure not every parent hears, sends pictures of her new haircut, her new chair, her form in deadlift, and lately, has let me listen while she tries to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. Right now, archivist, physical therapist assistant, and media consultant are all on the table. She is also considering archaelogy but I guess the prospects for employment are dismal.
My kids are entirely different, but they pick up the phone when I call. Sometimes I have to call twice and then text, but they pick up.
The only do over I’d like is those fleeting moments when they were really small. I’d sit on the floor with Katy and color, instead of leaving her at the coffee table while I sat at kitchen table on my desktop computer. Colin loved playing with tiny plastic animals, I have no idea what he did with tiny plastic animals, but I wish I knew. I wish I didn’t always rush him off the swings, he loved the swings.
I think most parents go back to wishing they’d had just a little more time giving baths and cutting up vegetables. Maybe that’s why so many want grandchildren; I haven’t gotten there yet.
I’m good with where I am now. I live with a pup who thinks going to bed at nine is almost as much fun as eating cookies.
I work, and eat lunch, with people I like, for students who need my help. I don’t spend a fortune on records, (Spotify!). I like to cook.
I wake up without a hangover; I take my time getting ready because I’ve laid my clothes out the night before.
My kids talk to me, and quite often, when I say something, they listen.
Cancel the do-over.
I need to stop time.
Small Moments
November 27, 2022
It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
It just started to rain and I’m wondering where to begin.
Our family feels different than the others I know in our town; no family members live anywhere nearby, that we speak to often, anyway. Our unit is my husband, my 22 year old son, whose been on house arrest since last October, (weed, my friends, just too much damn weed in a closet,) me, who works at a local college helping students navigate financial aid, and my daughter, 19 years old, in her first year of college in Amherst, Massachusetts, two hours from home.
I just noticed I didn’t say much about my husband; for work, he is content to drive people to the airport, walk dogs, and detail cars, he’s been a member of the gig economy before that was a thing. While I’m at work, I send him recipes almost every day in hopes that he’ll figure out he should start cooking dinner each night. Often, he’ll go to the store for the ingredients, and half the time they go bad before one of us tackles whatever dish I’d discovered on the NY Times cooking app.
When we are in the same house, an observer might think we were boarders who had been sharing the same space for a while. Colin will text Kate, her room is across the hall, his door maybe 18 inches from his door, to ask her to go downtown and pick up his dinner or to Hanover to buy a dozen over priced cookies the size of tea plates. When she said goodbye to him on her way back to school, she tossed the words over her shoulder, at my prompting, as she walked out the door. I don’t think he heard her, I think he believed she’d left hours ago. She is quiet, behind her door.
My husband watches tv in bed downstairs at night, I watch shows on my phone from the sofa in the living room.
We’ve drifted; we weren’t always this way. Christmas will be awkward; all of us standing around in the same room. Probably I’m the only one who will see it as awkward. Or maybe, Colin will be off house arrest and we’ll share dinner in the city at a noisy restaurant and things will feel normal again.
God, my life sounds grim, our life sounds grim. It’s not. My husband and I have friends, we go out to dinner. Katy loves school and invited me to have a glass of wine with her when she had friends over this weekend. Colin bought a puppy last November, and we spend a lot of time sitting around on the run in the living room, watching Chanel wriggle and roll, chase a toy or a bottle of plastic, try to hump my left leg. Actually when she does that, Colin gets disgusted and goes back upstairs. (I wonder why she finds my left leg more appealing than the right.)
Usually, the Sunday night after a holiday weekend, I’m overwhelmed by what I didn’t do and what I need to do. It’s only 5:43 pm, and all that’s left on my list is to find a clean pair of pants and pick out some shoes for tomorrow.
Tonight, things seem lovely, not even a little bit grim.
Katy asked me to get matching tatoos. I am not sure I want to get matching tatoos, or any tatoo, but if I am going to have inkspots carved into my skin, it will be because Katy asked. I was surprised; I know we’re close, but lately I’ve been feeling like she regards me as just-a-mum, who needs to tolerated and offered the ocassional compliment or cookie.
Sheldon and I cooked a Thanksgiving meal to share with our son and his friend, since Colin couldn’t join us on Thursday when we went to Salem to see Shel’s sister. We didn’t fight about dishes. We didn’t squabble about celery in the stuffing, (I gave in, I put celery in the damned stuffing, and to be honest, couldn’t tell the difference). I didn’t snap when he left the table early to watch football, or when Colin neglected to put his dish in the sink.
Sheldon always leaves the table early for football, and Colin gets his dish to the sink about twice a week. I do not know why, once or twice, this has made me so mad, I’ve broken a bowl or glass by angrily flinging them into the dishwasher. Take that, cup!
I turned up the radio and sorted out the kitchen cabinets that store the tupperwae, the chinese food takeout containers, the old yogurt cups. I threw out the things without tops, I threw out the tops without things. I rearranged our bowls, I scoured our cookie sheets that were, to be honest, disgusting. I almost snapped a photo for Instagram but images of stacked plasticware are not what I want to see when I’m scrolling.
When I went upstairs, after dinner, Colin invited me into his room. “Check this out!” On his big screen tv, we watched some divers almost get eaten by a cluster of five huge whales, feeding on sardines by leaping into the air, jaws open wide, and scooping massive mouthfuls of water, fish, and seaweed, then gulping the whole mouthful down. The narrator pointed out it was luck that one of the divers wasn’t part the dinner; someone could have easily been caught up in the maelstrom. I’m going to keep an eye out for shows like that; explorers or hunters having near death experiences, with lions or sharks or the really big bears that have been on the news so much. Colin and I used to watch television together all the time- we loved “How I Met My Mother” and when he was older, it was all “Law and Order”. Maybe we can be brought together by violent nature shows that remind us we are lucky to be alive in front of huge flat screen tv. I’ll try anything that isn’t illegal or involve staying up after ten pm to connect with my first born, Collie.
Maybe my family feels odd, or maybe everybody’s family feels odd, from the inside.
Tonight, I am a little bit closer to mine. I am insanely proud of my cabinet, the stacks of leftovers in the fridge, my lunch already tucked away in a bag where I’lll find it. It’s been a good day, and a lovely weekend.
I am thankful that I have more time with the people I love, more than anything, and more time to figure out how to get things right.
Not An Easy Sunday
November 7, 2022
Sunday mornings I start my day, sometimes in my pajamas, at 750 am. I go to the gym down the street for a 8 o’clock Pilates class. I reserve a space three days in advance; it’s popular because it’s ridiculously hard but eighty percent of the time, we’re lying down, on our backs or our bellies, so it suits the lazy, the hungover, and the people that want to look good in a bikini. The classes are never the same, but I can count on a Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, James Taylor, type music, on the playlist.
It is hard, it is not so hard. If I chose. I can do pushups from my knees and use light weights. I like staying low to the ground when I’m just waking up.
Today, there was someone new. The music was soft. The moves were hard; ten minutes of side planks on a Sunday? There was stretching, and then more work. It was lovely. It was different. It ended at 849 am, four minutes over.
Church is at 1030. I’d signed up to teach religious education, or Sunday School, which means I spent half the service with eight 7th graders, helping the lead teacher with the lesson of the week. I’ve been out of the loop for a while, so I didn’t know the kids or the teacher, at all.
I made friends with Leona, the artist, and Sebastian, the shy one. The lesson had an African theme, my husband volunteered to fry the plaintains, (a job assigned to me,) so I could join everyone out to the yard and watch our group play a game.
It is November in New England and this morning the temperature was over sixty degrees. There is something delicious about spinning around in the leaves and the wind on a November morning in very short sleeves.
I can’t remember the name of our activity, but it came from Africa and hiding, then finding stones, was the point. The leaves have mostly fallen, so there were breaks to hang on naked branches, examine seeed pods, and discuss whose turn was next. No one slipped on the wet grass, or broke a limb, the human or the tree kind. At the end, we lost about half the stones, and the lead teacher said that was impressive.
We all tried the fried plaintains, and I don’t think they were that good, but some of the kids liked them or were polite.
I raced home afterewards to get ready for a funeral for a friend. This was a woman I worked with a long time ago at Quincy College. I can’t sum her up in a few words. She smiled with her eyes, adored sparkly eye shadow, spoke her mind without lowering her voice, and was someone I would call a friend today, even though it’s been four years, because she was loyal and fierce and…
I will think of her often. I wish I’d seen her before she died and after Covid.
There was dinner with friends and two glasses of Chardonnay. There was a walk around the block, Sophie sniffed, and Chanel sniffed and pulled.
And now, I am home. I am thinking about church and faith. I am thinking about my kids when they were young, and if the dogs will need another walk. The windows are open, so I’m thinking about global warming. I hear Colin’s voice upstairs, I wonder if I should remind him to bring his trash down tonight; tomorrow is Monday.
I am thinking about my friend Pat- years ago, she told me my boots were too beat up to wear to work, I gave them away the next week.
I am thinking about how two weeks ago, my friend and I talked about visiting Pat at a home and how she was a little confused. Both of us knew we didn’t have the time to make the trip.
So many people were there to say goodbye today. I hope she was watching.
We toasted at her when we got our drinks, and then conversation moved on- to classes, work, flight plans, holidays, kids and conversations.
That’s the way it goes, I guess. One day isn’t ever one day, really, it’s a million tiny days sandwiched between waking up and sliding in between the sheets.
May peace be with you, Pat.
May peace be with all of you,
Julie
The season of the big ouch
October 2, 2022
About three years ago, Sophie the Sweet, was diagnosed with liver and kidney failure. We were warned she didn’t have much longer to live.
I jumped on the internet and started making recipes for low protein low fat meals, most of them ended up greyish brown or brownish grey. Sophie the Stubborn never ate a bite.
We found her a ‘healthy” dog food that I would eat after I covered it with slabs of bacon, shredded mozzerella cheese, meatloaf, chicken skin, and catfood. We would place her bowl at the top of the basement stairs, behind the door, and stand on the other side to listen for slurping or toenails on cement heading downstairs.
For months after the first visit to the vet, tears would spring at random. Was this our last walk at Houghton’s? The final cookie party? The final glimpse of her gobbling a rabbit smeared on the driveway left by Michael, the cat?
But she went on. So we did.
Just last week, she started limping. My husband diagnosed her as needing a day at the spa. The pawdicure didn’t work.
For the past three days, I’ve been carrying her inside and out of the house. The healthy dog food is going to my son’s puppy, Nell.
Tonight, I fed Sophie a chicken enchilada, tore every morsel into tiny bites, and left out the bits with tomato, in the middle of the living room while Nellie tried vigorously to climb my right leg. I’m not sure what exactly Nel was trying to accomplish, but when she stopped, she looked like she wanted a cigarette.
Tomorrow, I’m thinking Peking Duck for lunch. It will be Sunday, and Chinese food tastes best on Sunday. We’ll take her to the vet on Monday. Maybe there will be another miracle.
Right now, there is a miracle dog in my living room. I”m going to go read a book and hope that she can read my heart as I sit on the couch, near her, in her bed, on the floor.
Tomorrow we’ll visit Houghton’s so that she can swim before the weather turns cold.
Winter is promises to be bitter this year.
Deep sigh…I don’t know where to start.
I started a new job that requires eight hours a day of training, in a tiny office just off the tv room, next to the pellet stove, five feet away from the back door. I work in front of one lap top and two huge monitors, one of which is pushed to the back of my desk and is dark. The training is challenging, the others in my class are rock stars, my leader is patient, funny, and patient.
I start every morning at 8:50 am, and am in my chair until 5. Lunch is glorious, and usually consists of avocado toast, eaten during class time so that during my allotted hour, I can take Sophia the Amazing for a walk, clean the kitchen, or workout in the living room, while Sophie watches from the couch or tries to climb up my thigh.
Dinner is a work in progress, either oven fried chicken, (Sophie’s favorite,) smoothies, (Katy and I ate too much at lunch,) or whatever looked good the night before when I googled recipes for what we have in the fridge.
Most nights, there is a workout, just because my body and my soul feel the need to jump around after spending the day in a chair learning things.
When I’m lucky, there is tv with Katy, at the end of it all. We watched Anne With An E and have moved onto Designated Survivor. I miss commercials, sometimes. Sometimes, I remember the pause button.
Sometimes, I wish life had a pause button, and then I remember it does.
Bed is early. Before sleep, I watch The Office, because it’s leaving Netflix, and there is pressure. I read.
From time to time, I collapse on the mattress, find the sheet, turn out the light, and fall asleep, like it’s easy to sleep, these days.
In between, I floss, sweep, check the headlines, call my mom, fold laundry, wander around Amazon, sip coffee, ask Sheldon if he’s ok, use my water pick, sweep, argue with Katy over the state of her room, how to load the dishwasher, or whether or not it is bad manners to not respond to a cheery “Good morning”. She says any response, even if it’s a sigh, behind a door, under sheets, blankets, and a cat named Maurice, counts.
I miss Facebook and Instagram- looking at pictures of what everyone else is eating for dinner, hearing about bad days, and victories, checking out dogs, cats, kids, and home renovations.
I miss likes, conversations, writing things out, rewriting, saying something, and being heard.
We are all missing so much right now, and making adjustments.
My life is good, and different. I am lonely as hell, contented, scared, and grateful.
How you doin’?
julierichmond 