More Time

I changed my mind about it being sad to be an old lady all alone in the little apartment where she spent the final 50 years of her life. That’s just a story. Now I’ve decided one can hardly think of anything more glamorous. (Another story.) The AARP Bulletin recently did a cover story on solo agers, which is a whole lot of people, and after I was done reading it, I felt optimistic and enthusiastic about being such a person. I’m a Solo Ager!

When I was a child, one way our parents (quite ineffectively) tried to encourage us to be confident and self-reliant was to yell from another part of the house, “Pretend you’re an orphan!” This might happen after a child had yelled a question such as, “Where is the new container of dish soap?” or whatever.

None of us appreciated that thing about pretending to be an orphan, though it was entirely well meant, but now I think it might actually be very good advice. Now I don’t even have to do the pretending part: I’m on my own, family wise, except for Uncle Rick, who has been instructed not to think of dying. (My Uncle David died a week and a half ago. I am down to one person who has known me since birth.)

I was not able to meet with any roofers while I was in Ypsilanti—I am now in San Francisco—but I did meet with two places regarding the air conditioning system the house needs, and I met with several places regarding the basement.

We chose a Mitsubishi air conditioner and I mailed in the signed contract and a deposit. About a week ago, my father got an email from a fellow named Julian who used to stroll by my childhood home in Ann Arbor after my parents had moved to Ypsilanti but before my father sold that house. This fellow really loved the house and yard and would have liked very much to buy it, but couldn’t afford it.

The house ended up being sold to some people who could easily afford it, who then bulldozed all of the landscaping that my father lovingly labored over for ten years after moving out of that house, along with a lot of details inside the house, because he wanted this place that he loved so much to be perfect for the new owners, who, besides bulldozing the yard, put on what I vaguely understand to be a garish and monstrous addition.

My father greatly regretted that he hadn’t just sold the house to Julian at Julian’s price. Some of the landscaping was left over from an Italian count who owned the place 100 years ago and who was the first chair of the University of Michigan’s new landscape architecture department. Count Tealdi. At the bottom of the Arboretum in Ann Arbor is Tealdi’s stunning peony garden. So the current owners of that house literally destroyed history (although I guess literally everything is history and therefore we destroy it all the time).

I spoke with Julian on the phone and we are going to get together next time I go to Michigan. 

He started to tell me what had happened to my childhood home. “The new owners—”

“Don’t tell me.”

“Well, they—”

“Don’t tell me.”

“Well, they—”

“Don’t tell me.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you. It sounds like you’re traumatized by what happened to the house.” 

Julian said he thinks everyone who knew that house is also traumatized.

Julian said that my father was a remarkable person and he said that my father told him a lot about individual plants in the yard, like where the crabapple trees came from. I do not have any idea where the crabapple trees came from—though I guess Julian could tell me—and felt an aching sense of loss, as that is about 1/500 of what I could have learned about the yard from my father had I only asked.

Both of my parents were master gardeners and I did not learn one single thing about gardening from either of them, except that I know you should use proper sun protection and I know that if you’re going to dig up a weed, you should try to get the roots.

Julian told me about the method my father had devised for killing a weed, which requires an eye dropper and is 100 percent effective; Julian now does it the same way. After that conversation, I told my sister about Dad and his eye dropper. She didn’t know that, either. He had a million such procedures.

I mentioned to Julian that we are getting ready to replace the air conditioner in the house in Ypsilanti and he said, “You really should go with a system from Mitsubishi.” That was after we had already decided to do just that, so that was a pleasing little echo from the universe.

Other than which air conditioner to get, I have not decided about anything, but whereas I started out feeling a lot of pressure to decide between buying the house in Ypsilanti or not, and whereas it seemed to be a matter of picking one of two things, and whereas either one seemed sorrowful in its way—I would either be losing my job or losing my wonderful deck with its view of the pine tree—I now feel no pressure at all, and it seems that there are many options and they are all wonderful.

I can stay right here and keep the job I love! I can stay right here and retire! I have asked my sister if she would like to buy the house in Michigan with me. If she is amenable to that, it could be a place I go now and then while retaining the job I love! Or I could buy the house myself and move there and retire. I could buy the house myself and move there and find a job. Or volunteer somewhere.

Even in reviewing all the great possible choices, it’s hard not to have potential losses come to mind, such as my doctor and chiropractor in San Francisco, or such as how seeing people and getting some exercise are built in in San Francisco and would require more effort in Ypsilanti. I do notice a flavor of trying to talk myself into liking being in San Francisco, and I notice my heart tugging strongly in the direction of Michigan. However, on a sunny gorgeous day in San Francisco, such as it is today, I think I’d be foolish to let this go.

The doctor and chiropractor are not trivial matters, as one body part after the other ceases to function without requiring attention, mostly in the form of various stretches and splints and laser treatments and application of this or that topical preparation.

That’s one reason I’m never going to have sex again. “You want to do what??? Oh, sure, I think I remember how to do that. Hold on while I take off my foot brace, my camping booties, my second pair of socks, my first pair of socks, my wrist splint, my sleeping mask and the night guard for my teeth. Let me go wash the arnica and / or the calendula cream off my arm, my leg, and my shoulder. Also, let me detain the cats in the other side of the apartment. Don’t mind that drool rag, or the backup drool rag. Actually, would you mind just going and doing that with someone else?”

The major dental work, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, wrist problems, shoulder problems, jaw problems and arthritis in my right index finger are all more or less manageable, just time consuming. It takes a lot of time to be old! I used to know a woman who was bitterly resentful about all of this. Now I understand why she was disgruntled—it is a good hour of stuff, literally, on a daily basis—but I keep reminding myself that this is what it takes if I’m going to feel fantastic, which I reasonably often do. And let the record reflect that we are not talking about Stage IV cancer.

I read a book where the author said everyone who gets a serious diagnosis wants just one thing: more time. But this is unlikely to be time spent feeling great, and it is time where one will now know what one is going to die of. Therefore, this right now is the more time. Every single second is infinitely precious, even if I do not feel fantastic at every second.

The book is called Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, by Stephen Jenkinson.

The one bigger thing is vertigo and accompanying dizziness. I nearly fell down in a store a couple of weeks ago, and I did in fact fall down the stairs in my apartment building with all of my laundry a month or so ago, fortunately literally just one step up from the lobby. I thought my cart of clean laundry was following me obediently up the stairs, and instead it fell away from me, onto the lobby floor, with me on top of the cart. Conclusion: I have to do laundry no less often than every two weeks; otherwise, it’s just too heavy. (By the way, there is a washer and dryer in Ypsilanti! Never again would I have to drag thirty pounds of laundry to a laundromat two or so blocks away.)

My chiropractor said he thinks the vertigo is a thing with my vestibular system. He gave me some exercises to do daily.

Then there is the emotional situation. I have lost 30 people in the last two and a half years, or an average of one per month. The job, of course, also entails nonstop loss and sorrow. Between the professional and personal sorrows, there are moments when I feel I simply cannot go on. I feel like lying down on the ground and never getting up again.

Then I remind myself of Dory’s song from Finding Nemo, as passed on to me by my friend Elea: Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

I remind myself of something someone once said in a 12 Step meeting: Do the next thing.

I remind myself of Roshi Joan Halifax reminding us, “Remember the law of impermanence.” I feel lousy at this moment, physically and / or emotionally, but I won’t always feel this way.

I remind myself of the difference between sorrow (e.g., tears) and depression (e.g., have been lying on the floor for five days). Sorrow is good. If I’ve been lying on the floor for five days, that’s a problem.

So I just don’t know if I’m in a situation where I physically and emotionally cannot do this work any more and need a perfectly regular schedule with plenty of time for the self-care we old ladies need if we’re occasionally going to feel fantastic or if indeed the vestibular exercises will do the trick and I’m just sad because about 29 too many people have died, and six months from now, I will be saying, you know, I feel better—thank goodness I didn’t quit the job I love, or on the other hand, why on earth did I quit the job I loved when I was in a temporary situation of debility?

Then there’s this: I have given up a lot over the past four years. I am not also going to give up the work I love, unless it becomes truly obvious that I have to. I think if my father could hear me say that caring for him and our mother has tired me out so much that I now need to quit my job, he would be devastated.

Here’s another little thing. I was reading in an AARP publication about taking CoQ10. I went into Arbor Farms in Ann Arbor to get some. The person there said to take ubiquinol, which is the absorbable component of CoQ10 or something. Supposedly this is good for your brain and energy level. I began taking it and in due time noticed that I felt really, really lousy. It turned out that, while CoQ10 makes a lot of people feel great, it makes a small percentage feel horrible. I stopped taking it, with a plan to wait a few months and try it again. After a while, I felt better.

I started taking it again a couple of weeks ago, and noticed on Monday of this week—three days ago—that I felt horrible, so I again stopped taking it, this time permanently. I think I am actually feeling a bit better—the reverse placebo effect?—and may feel better still as the stuff clears out of my system.

I did figure out why the choice about the house in Ypsilanti has been so tormenting. It’s three things, the first being that it’s the only arena where there is a choice. I didn’t have a choice as to whether my father or mother would die, but I do have a choice about selling the house or not. 

The second thing has to do with my memory, which has always been horrible. My siblings remember much more about our childhood than I do. I came upon a photograph of a smiling young woman with long hair. In the photo, she is wearing a blue coat. Her glasses have round frames. 

I didn’t recall ever knowing anyone who looked like that.

However, not only did my siblings easily identify this as being a photo of our mother, they said things like, “I remember that blue coat!” They remember all those things and I just do not.

So the second reason the decision about the house is so hard is that the objects in it are effective aids to memory. Here is the kniffles (“NIFF-luh”) press. Ah, yes, Mom used to make kniffles now and then when we were young, served with browned butter.

The third reason is that it just feels too hard and like too much, to lose an entire house and all of its contents on top of all else I have lost. It feels like I cannot do it.