As the long, cool days of April come to an end, and I am especially impatient with the cool, or what qualifies as “too cold” to me, I turn further inward at retrospection – the delicious pastime of musings which comfort me – and wonder what tomorrow will hold. I can see it will hold less of those things that were clearly unpleasant but necessary. For example, my illness is becoming more and more a thing of the past: a blip on the radar screen of life that has longer and longer intervals and will eventually flat line. However, in this instance, it is the illness that will be declared dead and not me.
Great expanses of time are spent on the phone with caring friends all whom I thank. It’s nice to know that for the number who have walked away since Bob died have been replaced by others, at least that many, who have come to stay. Without Bob, a totally different kind of man and therefore a different relationship is in my life now. He is so different that I frequently make mistakes handling him, doing and saying all the wrong things. It is so easy to get things wrong in a relationship, I have observed. It is always very embarrassing because then I have to do “damage control”, and “make it like it never happened.” He deserves better than a Servpro relationship, but he has only me, by his own choice.
Even though I am not showing a dog of my own, I am looking forward to the specialty dog shows ahead between May 1 – 4, 2014, two borzoi specialty shows and one group (Hound) show. I take so much joy at being there, watching the puppies, dogs and bitches of my friends running around the ring. There is nothing more exciting than that for me to do! I think more and more of how I can have another one to show. More and more I feel the need to do that, although for now I enjoy being a spectator just the same.
I am sorry to confess my worse concerns these days have been financial, even though I significantly downsized and am down to only one borzoi. I can only hope that things will get better for me. Yet, I see many friends leaving for more southern places like PA, DE, KY, TN, and SC. The other southern states are not really for me, and moreover, I feel I need to be on the east coast for access to the Northeast Corridor Amtrack train to visit my son. Only time will tell the outcome of this situation. He has been alerted to my concerns, and we will monitor the situation over the next two years to see how the situation unfolds. The status of my new relationship will play a role in my decision, too.
I continue to walk these days but they are on the hilly roads of my town. I eschew the hiking trails of Watchung Reservation that I love for many varied reasons, not the least of which is fear. I feel fear of being assaulted, fear of falling which I have already done, fear of being bitten by someone’s unruly dog of which there are many running around off-leash, and so on. My boyfriend is not interested in doing it with me either, so he cannot accompany me. I am obviously a “senior citizen” to young people now, regardless of how many plastic surgery procedures I have. Weighing well less than 100 lbs. does not help either. I appear to be very small, frail and fragile, and perhaps I am. Now, for the first time in my life I feel vulnerable, too.
I guess at this point of our lives, somewhere between being an adult and a “senior citizen”, it is important to see ourselves in our world around us realistically, and devoid of the fantasies that come through rose colored glasses. If we do not, the result can be calamitous. We can find ourselves adrift as if there were no gravity, and we were nothing and nobody, unloved and alone. I have observed many foolish people in my life, people with whom I have closely shared my life, people who have lived their lives that way with calamitous results, not the least of which is my own mother. You have to get it right for that not to happen to you. It may be hard to do; it may be the one right thing to do; and it may be hard to do that one right thing. But unless you do it, you perish. I recall the words:
Rage, rage against the dying of the light! (Dylan Thomas)
as if as long as there is light you will think and see things clearly and find your way.