Feeling old... Defensive walking...

Age is a funny thing it's relative, personal, and it's tied to time which is such an elastic concept that there seems to be no rhyme or reason.  The passage of time is completely esoteric.  You certainly can't pin it down.

Yesterday The Best Friend had a birthday.  She was treated to the dubious pleasure of TLOML and I singing Happy Birthday onto her answering machine.  The Best Friend was one of the youngest women in our class at school.  In June I will turn 50 and TLOML hits her half century in November.  Strangely,The Chef, who was featured recently in a newspaper article has managed to only be 47....  Hmmm very interesting, cause I am almost certain that she was actually older than me!   LOL.  Oh well, we know that there are some things that can halt the passage of time and most of them have to do with wealth and fame.  I don't blame The Chef really; after all, 50 is a VERY BIG number!

Jazz, my blogging fibro sister, has written a great blog about feeling older than she is and rather than repeat all the things I wanted to say that she has already said I will just link to her here (I'm sure she won't mind).  It's a great blog.  So often I have ideas fermenting in my brain getting close to becoming a blog and Jazz will jump in just before I am ready to write it and steal all my thunder!  Sometimes we seem to be eerily in sync.

My take on this feeling older actually needs to be credited to a conversation I had with The Best Friend a couple of months ago.  She pointed out the way elderly people negotiate their way through a crowd.  Many/most/perhaps all seniors move near other people with a visible hyper-vigilance.  This isn't "defensive driving", it's "defensive walking".  Keeping a very close eye on anyone else who is moving nearby and testing the ground before putting all weight on the leading foot has become a way of life for me.  I get it, I really get how elderly people feel out in the world.  I know what it's like to fear an accidental bump with a stranger - I know because it hurts!  It hurts like (insert expletive of your choice) when I get jostled in a stupidmarket queue or when someone laughing unexpectedly steps back into me and it triggers a series of painful spasms that radiate from either the site of impact or from the part of me that moves unexpectedly to save myself.  I now travel the world with the wary, skepticism of a bona fide Methuselah!

When I was a kid I never took a staircase at less than two steps at a time; almost every time I ran down steps I would jump down the last five or six.  I touched a banister only to vault out of the stairs or down to the next flight.  There were two speeds, flat out and stopped.  Those days are gone.  Now I traverse the globe with care, caution, and a desperate desire to anticipate the movements of any other things that move!

Last night I knocked over a glass of water.  Startled myself which hurt my back.  Dropped to my knees to wipe up the spillage which caused stabbing pains to explode from both knees.  Reached under the bed with the bathmat and seriously popped some kind of tendon in my right shoulder.  Then stood up and collapsed on the bed groaning in pain.... see what happens when I am surprised?  Thank goodness TLOML was there to take over and clean up my mess.  The knees and shoulder have yet to relent.  So do I feel older than I am - damn straight I do.  Do I move like someone older than I am - pretty much all the time (unless I forget or react and do something like I did with wiping up the spill last night).  Do I have that suspicious hyper-vigilance about how other people are moving?  Yep, I do.

So to all my geriatric followers (of whom I have none) I get it!  I know you are careful and that the cranky look on your face is actually fear.  I, like you, fear the unexpected.  I don't need to bungee jump for thrills - walking through a crowd is about as much excitement as I can stand!

Gush, swoon, gush...melt...swoon

I have been having a wonderful time with TLOML.  We have spent time with her brother and his family and it has been really delightful to see people interacting with her and loving her.  They are a loving family and clearly she brightens their world as she does mine.

There has not been even one thing that has not gone beautifully.  I feel like I am living in a love story, I would say a romance novel but there has been no conflict or crossed wires to hang a plot upon... We are actually sickly sweet and swooningly into each other.  She is very solicitous and thoughtful; in some ways more sensitive about my need to conserve energy and take it easy than I am. I'm loving being cared for and cared about but I do get a bit stubborn about wanting to contribute.

Today we did a massive shop because tonight we are having a dinner party.  While up at the mall I took her in and introduced her to my little mate at the optometrists (he agreed with me that she is beautiful and was very happy for us).  Mostly we have been spending time with her friends and family which is wonderful for me.  I don't have to carry the conversations and I can sit back and watch her interacting with her people.  Tonight we are having two other lesbian couples for dinner.  The first couple are the people we stayed with when TLOML first arrived.  Lovely women, her long time (childhood) friend and the friend's Irish partner.  The other couple are friends of mine, my long LONG ago (early 80's) first serious girlfriend (actually the first person I was ever in love with) and her terrific current partner, who I have only met twice but who I really liked on sight.  It should be a good evening.

I'm going to make some garlic prawns and scallops and serve them over French bread and then we are also going to have roast pork, apple sauce, and some baked potatoes and pumpkin with steamed green veggies too.  It has been fun planning together and shopping for dinner.  I'm lying here getting some horizontal time while TLOML makes us some lunch.

My Gay Brother has reached out to me which is fabulous and he and his partner will be down in Sydney on Friday evening in time for us all to go and have dinner.  That will be the first and only introduction of TLOML to my family this Christmas...  Well not including The Boy - he will be getting home tomorrow (Thursday) and I'm picking him up at the train station at sparrow's fart.  I expect he will meet with TLOML some time tomorrow, maybe in the evening.

All the pieces just seem to keep falling into place for us, I can't believe how wonderful things are, how natural and perfect it all feels, how compatible we are.  I am spending a LOT of time feeling incredibly grateful to Herbert.  I was so low so recently that it is hard to believe this spectacular turn of events.  Sometimes I just smile and shake my head and I can hardly believe that it is the other Displaced from school...  Of all the people in the whole world WE have fallen in love with each other after 31 years apart.  In all honesty I am having to downplay this for you or you would all have to be taking turns at throwing up!

Expectations are the root of all disappointment

The title of this blog is my phrase - I coined it about thirty years ago and I have never heard anyone else saying it...  It came to me in one of those fits of clarity when one of the pieces falls into place...  It came to me when I had an awakening that my dad was never going to be like Gidget's dad.  He was never going to be Mike Brady  or the character Brian Keith played in A Family Affair; not Father Knows Best, not Ward Cleaver.  There was a seminal moment when I realized that I was unhappy because I had expectations that were not being met.

Were they reasonable expectations?  I'ts a good thing you asked that question!  Is it ever reasonable to expect someone to give more than they want to give?  Is it ever reasonable to expect someone to be someone they are not?  Is it ever reasonable to think you should be welcome at your father's home?

I wrote a blog the other day about my disappointment in my brothers not attending Eileen's funeral and I took it down because I thought I had been too hard on them.  Their reasons were valid and it is unreasonable for me to subject them to the standard of honour I apply to myself.  Yesterday before the funeral Gay Brother called me to ask me to convey his regrets which was fine, but in the conversation I told him that I have a problem with my thyroid (among other things) and he casually said that Straight Brother has also.  Straight Brother has a auto-immune disease that is strongly hereditary and Gay Brother had been tested but did not have it.  At the time I was only mildly perturbed and the conversation moved on.  Later when I was thinking about the conversation I started to be very concerned that no one had bothered to tell me.  If the condition is hereditary and Gay Brother bothered to get checked out why did it not occur to either of my brothers to tell me so that I could be checked out?  Why didn't anyone remember that I too carry the same genes and the same propensity to be affected by the same conditions?  It's just another reminder that I am invisible, out of sight - out of mind I guess.  It looks, from my blood results, like I have Hashimoto's Disease which manifests at hypothyroidism where my brother's condition manifests as hyperthyroidism.  Still, I may have been further along the road to understanding my issues if someone (anyone) had bothered to mention this "hereditary" problem to me.  Or is that just another unreasonable expectation?

Today has been physically a BAD day for me.  The pain in my shoulder when I washed my hair this morning was so bad I had to sit down and sweat for a few minutes before I could move enough to dry myself, today is one of the days when my clothes are hurting me, when any movement can stimulate a stabbing pain, when everything aches.  If I hadn't had an unavoidable appointment I would have spent the day recovering from the not very strenuous day yesterday.  At that interview today with the government I was asked when I last had a good day and it made me realize that my definition of a good day is changing.  I need to think about that some more.  What I call a good day at the moment might well have been what I would have called a bad day 2 years ago.  Are these just my expectations making natural adjustments to my situation?

If I could find a way to have no expectations would I always be delighted with what I was given?  Would every day be a good day?

(Is this secretly just another point of view on the pessimistic optimist?)

Off to see Dr McLovely now after my urgent horizontal rest.

Why doesn't "Acceptance" mean getting presents?

I've been going through some barriers lately... Delusion busting I guess....

I hope I'm not the only one who has successfully perpetrated a fraud against myself.

When I moved home to Australia in the beginning of September I was under some strange illusion that I would be fine when I got here.  Without a magician in sight I had managed to convince myself that a reduction in stress and the sights and smells of my homeland would make everything better (well at least everything manageable).  Maybe it was the high of surviving the packing and moving, I don't know, but for about a week I did feel pretty good.  In pain, slow, tired but not too bad - perhaps I was just very distracted with excitement and with seeing all the changes that have taken place in my absence.  I don't know.  Then I overdid it and crashed - and crashed I have stayed.

For a person with a poor tolerance for stupidity I was really stupid.  I KNOW that this happens, I KNOW that the windows of time when I can feign normal are further apart and shorter all the time, I KNOW that I have been getting steadily worse for several years.  Of course none of that was front of mind when I was spinning my web of self delusion!

My self image is undergoing a redesign and the new decor is not very attractive, brown, grey and gloomy have never been my colours!  (Yes I know gloomy is not a colour - but it should be).  I've been thinking about acceptance.

I remember the first time I used a motorized chair.  It was when I was living in the US and on one very pain filled day I just couldn't face the endless aisles of Walmart.  What a relief it was to use the scooter.  I know people stared at me with my robust appearance of strength and good health, but for once I did not waste my precious energy trying to persuade my friend that we needed to leave!  For once I wasn't desperately looking for somewhere to sit down and eyeing off the changing rooms to see if they were clean enough to take a moment horizontally.  I also remember the intensity of the emotions that surround the renegotiation of self image that using an aid arouses.  In fact I have been dealing with this again lately as I find I need to use a walking stick pretty much any time I am walking anywhere.  I think there is a possibility that I am deluding myself about this too cause I tell myself it is mostly about balance, and yes my balance is appalling, but I think I am also giving my legs a bit of a break and letting my arm and shoulders take some of the strain.  I know people look at me differently when I am using the cane, they move differently around me.  It is a visible sign of the ravages of my invisible condition.  But there are gains too, it kind of explains my pitiful slowness and my twisted grimaces; it gives me permission to let the pain and fatigue show, and that is a relief.  Hiding, faking, pushing, straining and acting are bloody tiring.  Yes "FAKING the thing so many people say fibro diagnosed people are doing... Well naysayers, you are right, we are faking... we are faking that we are ok when we are NOT, we are faking that we are like everyone else when we are NOT!  Faking being normal not faking FMS.

Tomorrow I am seeing Dr McLovely again.  My test results and xrays will be back.  I need to write myself a list of things I want to mention to her cause I can't trust myself to remember them.  I've been having some trouble with my vision but I think I will leave that for another time if it doesn't resolve, it's really only in the mornings anyway, maybe like morning stiffness for my eyes where they seem to take a while to wake up and pull focus correctly.

Anyway time to sleep - I had a big day today - I changed the sheets!

Confession time!

They say confession is good for the soul but mostly I think it is good for your stress level.

I have never been very good at accepting any limitations and it remains a challenge.  Asking more of my body and my mind has always been a component of my way of life.  The last five or so years have really knocked me around, in every way, and I must confess, for the first time in my life, my confidence is pretty badly dented (though hopefully not totaled!).  Yet, accepting limits is not my strong suit.  

Professor McAwfullyCute (the doc who came up with the nifty 'Undampened Stress Response Resulting In Widespread Chronic Pain' tagline (hereafter referred to as AUSRRIWCP)) said if I felt comfortable walking for half an hour I should walk for twenty minutes.  At that moment, though clearly I heard him, I think he was talking in rectangles and I was only understanding in triangles because that whole concept really didn't sink in.  He actually told me that pushing the envelope makes things worse not better - again I didn't grasp the real meaning of that, it seems so counter-intuitive not to be able to build fitness by gradually pushing harder.

I know I have talked about pain and the AUSRRIWCP (where are those catchy anagrams by the way???) before, but I'm not sure if I made it clear that this is an immensely variable condition.  I can't ever say there is NO pain at all but sometimes it is both tolerable and manageable, these are the GOOD days!

Yesterday was a GOOD day, after a couple of not too heavy pain pills I was feeling about as good as I ever do and as I mentioned in my blog yesterday it was a glorious day here in the most beautiful city on earth (and no, I have not seen them all but I have seen more than most people ever will and the only one that comes even close to Sydney is Cape Town - so there)! [deep breath]

Forgive me, body, for I have sinned.

Yesterday I was overcome with the urge to play golf and I failed to fight the temptation.  

The view to Rose Bay from Woollahara Golf Course (3rd Tee)

Here is my conscious mind's version of limitations - "don't take too many practice swings, move slowly, only play 9 - or less if it hurts too much... yadda yadda..."

The reality was that even by the second hole it was starting to hurt, but I pushed on...  I should have listened... I didn't.

Here is my body's attitude to my limitations - "SCREW YOU - tomorrow you will PAY!"  (My body is more vengeful that the most vicious tyrant in history - than even Caligula at his worst!)

Alas, tomorrow is now today...

On a lighter note a few days ago Diane J Standiford in her excellent blog A Stellarlife blogged about a childhood confession and asked her readers to tell their stories too... this was my comment.  (Please don't let my brother actually read this!)

I guess I was about 7. we had a huge, battered old table in the basement/rumpus room of our house and my mother had left some ghastly mauve paint lying around down there...  My oldest brother was very naughty and I was a pretty easy kid most of the time but I was angry with him...  I wrote HIS initials on the table in mauve paint.  It was just the sort of thing he would have done!  What was the difference between my mother and a nuclear bomb?  The bomb only explodes once!  No one has ever known to this day that it was me...

So I invite your confession - good for the soul remember!

PS - Seattle might be nearly as beautiful as Sydney if the sun ever shone and Auckland is pretty too.