Swamped

OK, it's pretty near official.......I am starting to feel swamped.  Oh, I know, I always seem to feel that way.  Too much to do and not nearly enough time to get it done in.  Or, just plain lack of total know-how on how to get it done.

Not talking about work, although that is a small piece of the swamp I'm mired in. I manage to get work taken care of.  After all, I need my job......and I enjoy it.

 No, it's the stuff of daily living.  I feel like I just can't handle it all any more. I feel like my psyche is wanting to skid to a dead stop, throw up its hands, and say, "I surrender."  But I can't do that. It's not like I constantly work at it.......no, I spend a good bit of time each day staring at piles of stuff to be done, both literal and figurative piles.  It seems impossible to make a start, and the piles just get bigger, of course.

And don't many people feel just that way?  Like life keeps throwing curve balls just when things seem almost on an even keel, like the details just keep adding up?  (I'm mixing metaphors with the best of them!)

How do you combat the numbness?  How do you fight that feeling of helplessness, like you just can't keep your head above water any longer?  Is it age starting to defeat me?  Is it simply that I've crossed the 60-year barrier and I'm just plain tired?

More, at another time.......too much to do to continue at the moment. And I can't stop now.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes

I am a little tired of people asking me if I am “enjoying my retirement.”  I know they mean well.  I would love to answer, simply, “Yes, of course!”  But frankly, retirement feels pretty much like working.

I know we should have planned for how we were going to live out our retirement.  We thought we had more time to think about things, to pull everything together into a neat, workable package.  But it didn’t work out that way for us.  Health issues got in our way, and we both retired sooner than we had planned.  Believe me when I tell you, when that happens, retirement bites you….. back (I decided not to use the familiar idiom, as my language has been pretty “clean” all my life, but you can read between the lines.)

Every time I see one of those ubiquitous commercials about “diversifying your portfolio,”  I could scream.  Most people in our immediate experience don’t  have “portfolios.”  They are doing well if their paychecks stretch from month to month.  I know there are folks out there who have done a better job of managing resources.  They have been careful about what some would call “frivolous” spending.  They have managed to put aside a nest egg.

But I am afraid, in our family, the enjoyment of life’s simple pleasures has eaten away at our resources.  Going to movies, listening to music, and reading books and magazines all cost money.  Eating out, not necessarily at expensive establishments, has further chipped away at our money.  Food at home has been of a good quality……lots of fruit and veggies and whole grains coupled with lean meats and seafood  takes a financial toll.  But hey, I’m Cajun and Bob just appreciates good food.  No bologna and white bread for us.  Call us weak, and we have to admit, yes, we have been a bit self-indulgent in some ways.

But we never, ever took our family on a “vacation.”  We never made the pilgrimage to Disney World.  We watched other families go…..to the mountains, to the beach, overseas…..and felt a bit of awe that they could afford it all.  Our children apparently grew up none the worse for missing out on such excursions.  They traveled to Disney World with the school band, or took a trip to the Huntsville Space Center with the gifted group.  Our two eldest lived with us in Elkhart, Indiana for two weeks in two summers, and got to visit places like Shipshewana and Goshen.  That counts, I guess, as a kind of “vacation.”  We were taking seminary classes, so it didn’t really feel that recreational on our end.

Bob retired because of long-term side effects of a Whipple procedure.  When they removed his pancreas and parts of other things and requilted his digestive system, there were physical results that don’t show up until years later.  Since no one expects patients like Bob to still be around years later, no one really knows what to do with these side effects. So, he quit teaching several years before he intended.

Without blaming any specific people, I have to say that the stress of teaching in an environment dominated by testing paranoia finally took its toll on my body and mind.  I, too, retired several years earlier than planned.  Only a few weeks after retiring, I landed in the hospital with a serious bout of ischemic cholitis.  I was very, very ill, and finally had the explanation for the constant sickness that made me miss so much school that final semester. 

My part-time work at The Meridian Star is mostly enjoyable……mostly, I say, because it is still, after all, work.  It helps to pay for our health insurance, which takes more than half of my retirement check each month.  It is a great blessing, but I don’t really consider myself “retired” yet.  God has been gracious in placing me in a work environment where I feel appreciated and valued, and where my skill set is useful.  I came into this job knowing zilch about it, really, and my colleagues have helped me all along the way to get the job done.  We’ve even had some fun doing it.

I’m not sure where all this rambling is headed.  I keep feeling proddings to write about life, about growing old, about what is lost and what is gained from living.  I am not sure what to do with these proddings, but I thought I’d let my fingers follow my thoughts and see where they led today……

Don't like this new look.....

I haven't been here in quite a while......a lot has been going down.
To start with, after having two really fantastic days with the NIE book sale and participation in the Downtown Art Crawl, I had to go into the hospital with another ischemic cholitis attack.  My really sweet colleagues at work plus two outside volunteers conducted the last day of the book sale for me, a kindness I can never repay.

I was in danger of having a piece of my colon taken out, but the docs felt I could continue to try to heal naturally.  If I have another attack within the next 6 months, though, they'll go in and do that.  To tell you the truth, when I saw the colonoscopy pictures of the ulcerated portion, I kind of wanted them to go in and yank it out now.....I am fearful of a perforated bowel, which would be a life-threatening event.  But everyone seems confident that we an handle this without surgery. 

To complicate matters, I fell on my left side in the hospital room bathroom, on the hard tile floor.  My arm and hip just felt kind of banged up, and I assured everyone I was okay. When I got home, I pretty much did nothing for about a week, thanks to my patient and loving hubby.  But when I got back to work a  week later, my lft shoulder and arm began to get worse.  My range of motion was limited and there was a lot of pain.  Anderson's set me up with Dr. Durgin, and I'm doing PT for six weeks. 

I can't take NSAID's because of the ischemic condition, and lortab wasn't really doing the job, so I got a steroid shot in my shoulder yesterday.....on MY BIRTHDAY!  Today  there's a huge improvement in my arm and shoulder, but I am so fatigued.  After working only two hours, I felt exhausted.  I know I'm supposed to be resting, but we also need money to pay bill, get food, buy gas, etc.   So.  Here I am, planning a second book sale for early in June.

Nothing I've told you has anything to do with the new blogger format......I have nothing to say about that except I don't like it.  But I'm sure Google thinks it knows what it's doing.

I'll try to write a more upbeat post soon, so hang with me.