Like most people, I am a creature of habit. Lately I have been noticing a dramatic change in my customary behavior. In the past I would “run around 100 mph with your hair on fire,” as described by a friend. Several health related wakeup calls had me slowing my pace out of necessity. Sadly, those breaks were short lived and I would be right back on the treadmill of activity. I thought I needed to keep moving or I would miss out on opportunities to meet people or get hired for various gigs. At the end of each day, I was gratified, but emotionally and physically exhausted. I wear numerous hats, stacked so high that I would have to duck to get in a doorway. I am a social worker, therapist, journalist, author, editor, interfaith minister, speaker and PR person. I have responsibilities to manage in all of those realms, a multi-tasking mama.
Somehow I manage to keep all the plates spinning, like Eric Brenn who did it so adeptly on The Ed Sullivan Show back in the 1960s. On the rare occasion that I have dropped some, I have been able to do damage control and pick up the pieces. I remind myself that it is a marathon, not a sprint.
As I am aging (now 62), I have been noticing, with dismay, that I don’t have the stamina to accomplish the physical feats I could easily do in the previous decades. As much as I like to work out, because of a cardiac condition and asthma, I can’t keep up. I remember something my athletic father said when in grip of Parkinsons. When I asked him how we was feeling, in one of our daily phone calls, be responded that he was “Disgusted,” because my mother needed to do tasks for him that he would have done without thinking twice. I know the feeling, Dad. There are times when I need help opening baby proof doors at my son and daughter-in-law’s house. My toddler grandson has the dexterity and ingenuity to accomplish that task…sigh.
I wish I could walk quickly without getting winded. I wish I could hike in the woods, climbing elevations without feeling like my chest was being compressed.
I wish my mind was as sharp as it once was. My CRS (Can’t Remember Sh*t Syndrome) causes familiar words to slip through the cracks in my brain. I was distressed last week when I couldn’t recall something my mother said on the regular whenever I would get myself in a tizzy. Then, like a knock on my brain pan, it showed up. “Knock it off.” Whew! What a relief.
This week, I was interviewed for an NPR show called The Pulse. The topic was women and aging. As I was speaking to the host, Maiken Scott, I found myself hoping that I wouldn’t forget what I was going to say, not wanting to miss cogent points. We’ll see how it turned out!
One observation I have made recently was that since the pandemic began, I have been more comfortable with my own company, gliding along at a snail’s pace at times. Without the need to run here, there and everywhere, I have the luxury of indulging in moments of sweet solitude, rather than thinking of it as isolation as I had in early 2020. Back then, I was in a deep funk, wondering when we would be able to emerge from the cocoon and be out and about more freely. I was cautious, wearing a mask on the rare occations that I was out in public. Even now, having been fully vaccinated since February, I am selective about where I go and still mask up in buildings.
This morning, I was speaking with my friend Janet about this and we took a look at the Delta variant from a spiritual/psychological perspective and not just medical/scientific. We wondered whether the message it was delivering was that the world jumped too quickly back into what passed for normal in the ‘before times’. Perhaps it was reminding us to go within again to find balance. Last year at this time, I was paradoxically eager and hesitant. I felt protective of my own health and that of my family and friends. Now, I have enjoyed a taste of the ‘normalcy’ that I have craved and still am concerned about the ramifications. I don’t live in fear, but I am also not lackadaisical.
As I am sitting in my plant filled room that I described in a previous piece, I am listening to music, lifting my head to look out at the pale blue cloud spotted sky that a few nights ago was dark and intense, with multiple tornado sightings in the region. I’m grateful that in its random nature, it passed us by. I had a thought that I could sit here all day, with nothing scheduled, no obligations. Could I simply stare, erasing the chattering monkey mind thoughts about the state of the world and my place in it? I think so.
Sometimes our stop-doing list needs to be bigger than our to-do list.― Patti Digh, Four-Word Self-Help: Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives
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