Another Milestone Crossed
Well, I'm now officially a "Senior Citizen"™; I turned 65 yesterday.
As birthdays go, it was one of the more lovely ones I've had in a long time. My daughter got me a beautiful card with a pop-up bouquet of flowers and a bottle of my favorite sparkling mineral water, and then my 87 yr old best friend made a lovely scratch cake and had me over for cake & coffee in the afternoon. Facebook even pitched in (in a way) because I have reconnected in the last couple of days with a friend I knew from my very young days in Minnesota, someone I've neither seen nor spoken to in 55 years!! She inherited a couple of paintings my mom did back then and wanted to find me to see if I wanted them (and yes, I do!) We've been IM'ing and catching up on entire lifetimes - and it has been an absolute treat to have Facebook function in the way it was (I think) originally intended.
This stands in pretty stark contrast to the rest of the year to date. I'm still vacillating between beginning to move in the direction of picking up the threads of a life now that my Hubby's Celebration of Life has been accomplished and, on the other hand, simply sitting and not having the incentive or energy to do much of anything. Grief is a horrid process - you think you're starting to get on top of things and BAM, something hits you from out of the blue and suddenly you're a mess again.
Still, I have family & friends who try to keep me on the rails properly. I have my Russian friend, with whom I spent a minimum of one day/3-4 hours a week teaching my brain to function in Russian. I have the Theosophical group, for whom I play piano at services 2-3 times a month - meaning I need to sit down and actually practice my music. I have my weekly Saturday morning Koffee Klatch™ get-together with other friends to look forward to.
I'm not alone and lonely or necessarily being a hermit - but I have enough alone time now, I think under other circumstances it would be called "empty nest syndrome" that there's a big adjustment going on. I don't get out & about everyday, like I did while Hubby was in the care home - and I never thought I'd miss that part of things until I didn't have Hubby THERE to go talk to everyday. I thought I'd gotten used to having the house empty while he was in the care facility; but it's an entirely new kind of empty now that includes NO hope for Hubby's return home.
I need to call and have the hospital bed collected, as he'll never need it again; but haven't had the incentive quite yet to go in there and strip things down and start to clean the room out. I need to, I keep telling myself that today's the day, but... It's such a final thing to do - almost as hard as standing at the graveside, ye know? It will happen - and soon - just... maybe not today. Or tomorrow. Maybe next Monday, who knows?
At least I'm over The Bug™ that tried to climb up into my sinuses and make a nest there. Head colds usually either slip into my chest or climb into my sinuses - this time, I used echinachea liberally, took my vitamins religiously, kept hydrated and stayed in, and managed to outwit the bug. I need to remember to do that - so much better than suffering for weeks with after-infections.
Anyhoo...
Ya know, I really don't feel a whole lot older than I did before - and yet, I do. I'm 65, and a widow; two facts of life I had never considered I'd ever be. Now, I need to look forward and not back - I'm a Senior, but I got plenty of life left.
Time to get to it.
As birthdays go, it was one of the more lovely ones I've had in a long time. My daughter got me a beautiful card with a pop-up bouquet of flowers and a bottle of my favorite sparkling mineral water, and then my 87 yr old best friend made a lovely scratch cake and had me over for cake & coffee in the afternoon. Facebook even pitched in (in a way) because I have reconnected in the last couple of days with a friend I knew from my very young days in Minnesota, someone I've neither seen nor spoken to in 55 years!! She inherited a couple of paintings my mom did back then and wanted to find me to see if I wanted them (and yes, I do!) We've been IM'ing and catching up on entire lifetimes - and it has been an absolute treat to have Facebook function in the way it was (I think) originally intended.
This stands in pretty stark contrast to the rest of the year to date. I'm still vacillating between beginning to move in the direction of picking up the threads of a life now that my Hubby's Celebration of Life has been accomplished and, on the other hand, simply sitting and not having the incentive or energy to do much of anything. Grief is a horrid process - you think you're starting to get on top of things and BAM, something hits you from out of the blue and suddenly you're a mess again.
Still, I have family & friends who try to keep me on the rails properly. I have my Russian friend, with whom I spent a minimum of one day/3-4 hours a week teaching my brain to function in Russian. I have the Theosophical group, for whom I play piano at services 2-3 times a month - meaning I need to sit down and actually practice my music. I have my weekly Saturday morning Koffee Klatch™ get-together with other friends to look forward to.
I'm not alone and lonely or necessarily being a hermit - but I have enough alone time now, I think under other circumstances it would be called "empty nest syndrome" that there's a big adjustment going on. I don't get out & about everyday, like I did while Hubby was in the care home - and I never thought I'd miss that part of things until I didn't have Hubby THERE to go talk to everyday. I thought I'd gotten used to having the house empty while he was in the care facility; but it's an entirely new kind of empty now that includes NO hope for Hubby's return home.
I need to call and have the hospital bed collected, as he'll never need it again; but haven't had the incentive quite yet to go in there and strip things down and start to clean the room out. I need to, I keep telling myself that today's the day, but... It's such a final thing to do - almost as hard as standing at the graveside, ye know? It will happen - and soon - just... maybe not today. Or tomorrow. Maybe next Monday, who knows?
At least I'm over The Bug™ that tried to climb up into my sinuses and make a nest there. Head colds usually either slip into my chest or climb into my sinuses - this time, I used echinachea liberally, took my vitamins religiously, kept hydrated and stayed in, and managed to outwit the bug. I need to remember to do that - so much better than suffering for weeks with after-infections.
Anyhoo...
Ya know, I really don't feel a whole lot older than I did before - and yet, I do. I'm 65, and a widow; two facts of life I had never considered I'd ever be. Now, I need to look forward and not back - I'm a Senior, but I got plenty of life left.
Time to get to it.