A really good blogger asked me to make a link for his posts. Being an old dog, I did not know how to do very many things with my computer, but I do have a puppy who knows all about this stuff. (And, a little child shall lead them!) My little child is forty-seven and pretty good looking. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it! So, the puppy taught his old dog how to make a list of my favorite blogs. It is at the top of the page --- I am proud of my new trick!:o)
My ideas of marriage have been in constant flux over a lifetime of marriage to my one and only. Early on, I had lofty ideals that if, (God forbid) I should suddenly be run over by a speeding train or any other such catastrophe --- my dear husband would have to remarry, because he was so happy with me. Actually, I think I wanted someone to mother my children until they could fend for themselves. Deep in my heart, I knew that I couldn't stand the thought of him whispering sweet nothings into another woman's ears. The very tiny, creeping, ugly little voice said in my ear, "What if he tells her about all your shortcomings?"
There is a joke about a wife questioning her hubby in this way;
She, "If I were to die, would you remarry?"
He, "Oh, probably".
She, "Would you give her all my lovely things?"
He, "Oh, probably."
She, "Would you even give her my clothes?"
He, " I might."
She, "How about my golf clubs?"
He, "Oh, no, she's left handed!"
In my late thirties, a good friend died from a really nasty cancer. As if that were not bad enough, her husband told a few of "the guys" some of her intimate details. (e.g., having her monthly period start when she was sick unto death and lying in her own blood) I cried at this betrayal of her womanhood. We all know that there are thoughts and happenings in our lives that we hold near and dear and share only with one other trusted person, perhaps we even keep them to ourselves. Our inner being is indeed fragile and in need of a confidant with the ability to respect our privacy. Another friend lost his wife a couple of years ago and is blissfully married to another woman and people are saying things like, "John is so much more fun with his new wife than he was before." Just stick the knife into my ribs and twist it around a bit! Admittedly, his new wife is a live wire and the first wife was every inch the lady. I went to Hospice and gave her manicures and pedicures because I loved her and now he is having more fun with the new model.
My brother's widow of three and a half years is getting married next month. While I am extremely happy that she has found someone to be a companion--- I harbor this nagging little thought ---"You can't do this --- you are my sister-in-law and your children are my nephews." The new groom is a widower and certainly loved his first wife and my s-i-l loved my brother. We are talking older people here---grandparents. This man will make her life very comfortable and they love to travel all over the world ---she can stop tutoring primary children in her home, if she wants . Don't jump on me because I sound selfish --- I am in a whole new territory here. I must be thinking in terms of those left handed golf clubs. My husband has been with me as long as I can remember and I would hate to die and have him find out that some other woman would have been a better wife, lover, companion. We have to keep changing out minds about how we feel regarding life and love. There should be a pre-nuptial that says you cannot tell your new husband the longings of your previous mate's heart.
One of the other bloggers mentioned being a nurse. So, I thought I would quickly give you a taste of hospital humor ---
Doctor, leaning over a patient just recovering from anesthesia, "I have good news and bad news, which do you want first?"
Patient, "Give me the bad news first."
Doctor, "I had to amputate both your legs."
Patient, "OMG! After that, what could possibly be good?"
Doctor, "Your roommate wants to buy your slippers!"
Second scenario:
Doctor, "Good news or bad news first?"
Patient, "Give me the bad news."
Doctor, "I amputated the wrong leg."
Patient, OMG, what could be good about that?"
Doctor, Your bad leg is responding to treatment!"
You see, nurses work through blood, sweat and tears. They eat lunch between emptying bedpans and cleaning barf off their scrubs. So, in self defense and to keep from fleeing, screaming from the hospitals --- we hear and tell truly tasteless jokes and laugh before the
tears start.
You don't get into your eighth decade without experiencing a number of interesting things. Marriage, childbirth, deaths in the family, auto accidents, et cetera are all occurances that routinely come and go with the rhythm of a marching band. I worked in a hospital as a nurse for twenty years and saw all sorts of horror and proceedures, along with joys and blessings.
Today, I have seen and felt something completely new to me. The doctor plunged a 20 gauge needle directly into my throat , and thence into my thyroid gland. It wasn't that bad --- just that weird. Thirty years ago, we didn't have ultra sound images to guide physicians in their perverse doings. Of course, they didn't have the life saving techniques at their finger tips, but my grandmothers would have run screaming into the night at the thought of needles sticking into their throat. Sometime, I will have to sit down and ponder on the things that I have seen come on down the Pike during my lifetime. It seems like we have always had these wonders available to us, but I remember being in the hospital for the first time at seventeen and the nurses didn't even start I.V.'s, the doctors did.
Well, I'll find out at the end of the week whether or not this worked or whether they will be playing pin cushion with my neck again. Big thought of the day--- "You're gonna do what to me?"
Please excuse this blog site. I have attempted to fix something and I broke it! The letters are as big as a Times Square Billboard and I am stuck! I'll be back as soon as one of my kids takes pity on me and fixes things! Thanks
Well, I retyped that post, but I'm not certain that I did my blog any favors! lol
I'm turning into a blogaholic. The whole thing has been creeping up with increasing velocity. I am wondering, uh ---where have I been, lo, these many months? The wonderful world of electronics belongs to the young, but eventually the senior citizens will catch on ---then, you'll all leave and start something new. Adults have been copying teens for years, but the newest fashions have finally gone too far to be copied by anyone in their right mind or rather in their right size. So, as I started out to say ---a few people have clicked on my comments on other blogs and one thing has led to another and I am totally enthralled by the sheer numbers of great, funny, insightful people flying around the blogasphere. Today, I was catching up with Dr. Andrew in his lovehonoranddismay.blogspot.com/ blog (isn't that a clever title?) about the problems a perfectionist creates within a relationship. After admitting that I am indeed a perfectionist, I had to stop and realize that I wasn't always aligned with the weirdos of the world. It started on a very specific occasion. If he reads this, I will probably be committed --- but, I'm going to give it a shot!
The background has to come first ---
I started my senior year of high school the first week of September, 1953.
The new schoolbus driver was a twenty-one year old hunk, who had recently returned from the Navy, during the Korean thing. He was going to college on the G.I. Bill and driving bus to have spending money.
I was the first one on the bus in the morning and the last one off at night. Not being one to let any grass grown under my feet, I struck a claim before any other girls could bat an eyelash and started dating him the next
Friday night. He made the mistake of using a line on me --- something to the effect of, "If you were out of this school, I'd marry you". Sure thing!
Before he knew what hit him, I dragged him over the state line, forged parental permission and we were married on October 24th. We had some grandiose plans of keeping it a secret until I graduated. Think again, el bimbo! Being young and very dumb, I did not realize that our city is right on the Ohio/Michigan border and some of my classmates lived in Michigan and got "The Monroe Evening News". But, they paid tuition and crossed the state line to attend our school. When the marriage license was published, the jig was up --- we had to fess up, tell our parents and take our medicine. My father (a teacher and attorney) was going to have it annulled, but my mom said, --- 'THEY SPENT A NIGHT TOGETHER!" Now, think 1953 --- a night together meant "used goods" and they would probably be stuck with me forever.
Dad gave up his dream that I would teach Latin and mom had lots to
chat about with her girlfriends. I did manage to continue my senior year despite mononeucleosis two weeks into the marriage. I used every cent my new husband had for the hospital bill, because as a married, almost woman, I was no longer covered by my dad's health insurance.
So, we started our married life in a one car garage apartment sans T.V., dishes, pots, pans --- and anything else you can think of, but we had a wonderful time together. (Getting to know one another, so to speak --- both as people and in the Biblical sense.) His mom would look at me as though her son had lost his mind, but she always did want another little girl. (All 5'2" and 95 pounds of good gymnast and bad majorette)
About a year later, we moved into an 8'x26' trailer. Things were really tight and there was no bathroom --- that was across the street. (It did make things difficult, if you had the flu.) But, being young and resourceful, we found lots of things to do with each other. Keep your minds clean, folks! (Well, fairly clean) Our big plan was to pay the thing off and go to the Florida shore to listen to the waves crashing on the sand. I worked in an office and he worked as a carpenter while we lived in the trailer. Between a full time job and being a full time wife, I wasn't really committed to keeping things in great shape. Besides, we spent most of our spare time chasing each other around that 8'x26' space. One night, I awakened to a husband who was delirious with fever and I had absolutely no idea of what to do. We had no phone (keep thinking poor), so I jumped into the car and drove five miles to his parents home at three in the morning to call the medical academy. They promised to send a doctor right out and then, his mom said that she would be right over. EGADS! I drove those five miles back in an illegal flash. The clean dishes were in the drainer --- stick it under the sink! The dirty dishes were in the sink ---stick them in a bucket and hide them in a closet! Our hastily discarded clothing, even the undies were caught up and stuffed into another, tiny closet. Then, OMG, DH is naked --- and his mom is coming over. Have you ever tried to put jammies on a delirious, naked dude? Everything looked presentable when his mom and the doctor arrived, except for me---think bed hair and wrinkled clothing. The first words out of the doc's mouth were, "I forgot my tongue blades --- could you get me a spoon?" Mom started for the silverware drawer ---"NO! I'll get it." I'm fishing silverware out of the drainer under the sink. It turned out to be tonsillitis, but his tonsils had been removed when he was a child. I didn't know that you have several sets of tonsil tags and sometimes new ones take over when your immune system is threatened.
Now, faced with a mother-in-law who thinks you are a bimbo, not to be trusted with her only son -- wouldn't you develop a lifelong problem with perfectionism? The rules are something like this --- keep the home like something out of "House Beautiful", pick up every night before bedtime, never leave dishes in the sink, bathrooms must look like they haven't been peed in for years, closets and drawers have to line up like a department store display and make the bed if hubby gets up during the night to potty. Today, I keep two homes (one in Ohio and one in Florida) but, the work of moving twice a year is killing me! The hardest part is pretending that the "good fairies" take care of the details.
I forgot to say --- besides being a willing wife in the Biblical sense --- I could really cook at seventeen, after having cooked for a family of seven for five years. My mother had not been well during that part of my life, so cooking for only two was fun.
Life together has turned out to be ten times anything I ever had dreamed it could be --- and they said it would never work! We had three children in our twenties and then I went to nursing school at forty. (I finally found a use for all the high school Latin) You really can have it all, but I don't think they meant my way!
Here we are, suddenly finding ourselves on the short end of the stick of life. We still believe ourselves to be the same two people we were the other day when we married. Our minds tell us that we are just as good as ever. Then, we arise from our easy chairs and find the first couple of steps to be difficult, because the joints have stiffened up when we weren't looking. The mirror holds still more surprises. When did that seventeen year old girl become a grandmother? When I was young and the children were little, the days were longer and the years went by more slowly. Now they fly past in a blur and I am afraid that I will miss something in this fast paced world. I read in another blog that the elderly are funny to watch with all our little foibles. I beg your pardon! I am seventy, not elderly. I thought my conversation had kept up with the rest of the people being held in place by the Earth's gravity. I have to snicker to myself when I hear a younger person (perhaps 40ish or 50ish) talking about their parents, as though they had lost their marbles in a crap shoot. We have forgotten more than they have learned much of the time. Young people will be amazed at how quickly the time goes between fifty and seventy and how badly they will wish they could hold back life's final curtain. Every day is a gift and we really love opening that gift every day.
Since we have retired from the working world, we live half the year in a condominium in Ohio and the other half in a candominium in Florida. (Candominium being a tincan in a doublewide park full of old people) Yeah, I'll admit that some people get old, not just in their bodies, but in their thought processes, too. The ladies who walk their poodles in baby strollers do catch a raised eyebrow from me and the non-golfers who buzz about in their golf carts are a real trip. But, I know I get the same reaction when I strap on my rollerblades and take a couple of laps around the park. They probably have 911 on speed dial and are anxious to see the men in white coats catch me in their butterfly nets. It is getting harder and harder to live those six months among the people who play Bingo on Wednesday nights at 6:30 and are home promptly at 8:00 for a nice early bedtime at 9:30. My lights burn into the night as I play on the computer or read or watch the medical channel, while the rest of the park is in total darkness. One thing I can say for these lovely over 55ers --- they get out of bed by 6:00 and have done their daily walking exercise, while I am still snoozing lazily in bed.
The best part of Florida is the trip to and from in the proper season. The world we see is ever changing and so beautifully made. Interstate 75 is as familiar as the back of my hand, but there is always a freshly mowed field of wheat, a country church with the sun shining on the steeple or one of those wonderful old, wooden barns to admire. Most of the barns are beginning to sag a bit or are outright falling down and being replaced with the newer steel, pole barns. We love the old barns --- they seem to hold a more romantic time, a time when farmers loved the land, the stock, the crops, their families and everything natural. I suppose that we are a couple of old barns, beginning to fall into disrepair around the edges, but still capable of holding the crops for a few more years. We behold the beauty along the roads between here and there and love the sight of the old and regal, when others might only see the piled up mile markers and weeds along the fence rows. It is all in the eyes of the beholders.
To the Youth at Church
I've been reading blogs and see a pattern of late summer, early fall uncertainty in many of the bloggers. Junior High apprehension about going on to Senior High, Senior High fearful of the college or adult life in front of them. It's sort of like babies taking that new first step or not taking it for fear of falling down --- fear not --- The Lord is with Thee and with Thy Spirit! All of life is a series of endings and new beginnings. If we had crystal balls, and could see into the future, would we really want to know what lies ahead? Most of the fun in waiting for Christmas morning, is the anticipation of what lies in those festively wrapped packages. Some people cheat and peak into those packages and then are disappointed that there are no surprises in store. I could tell you that your parents and grandparents are just as uncertain about some aspects of their lives, but are afraid to admit that they are not as sure of themselves as they might appear. All we can do is throw ourselves on the mercy of God, knowing that everything in our lives has been known since we were still in our mother's womb. You get up in the morning, do what you have to do, keep heading in the direction that you desire and the next thing you know --- great things start happening. If God doesn't want you to continue in a particular path, He will slam the door and you will get the message through the window He has opened. Enjoy your young life --- we are too soon old and too late smart. ^_^
