SPEECHLESS

I have so much to say that I feel speechless.  But I'm sure the words will come.  Here goes... 

I cannot begin to enumerate all the ways our government is being dismantled under the Trump/Musk regime.  He is doing exactly what he said he would, but with more speed and a bigger wrecking ball.  Whatever is most cruel and illegal seems to be top of list.  Authoritarianism (the president and his merry band of Cabinet level sycophants) and oligarchy (billionaire and top campaign donor Elon Musk, unelected and unappointed, running amok shuttering programs and firing thousands of government employee while he lines his pockets with government contracts) are in charge, with the Republican Party unwilling to stop them. And while a shred of democracy still stands, many feel impotent and overwhelmed.  It's just how they want us to feel.  There is enough finger-pointing to go around and again, that would be a never-ending run-on sentence.  

So I am doing what I do.  I've become even more involved with our local Indivisible group -- a grassroots nationwide organization of activists who take to the streets and take to the ballot box and work to save democracy and support progressive causes, policies, and candidates.  It feels good.  I have found my "tribe" of resisters.  I spend a lot of time organizing, attending meetings, making phone calls to legislators, writing letters to voters -- all the things.  We are told it works.  It IS working, but slowly and maddeningly inconsistently.  

I will never, ever, ever, ever understand why people voted for this chaos and destruction, nor why they continue to support and even rejoice in the destabilizing and terrifying actions being taken that will harm so many Americans -- and others around the world. Government programs, entire federal agencies and funding are being cut.  Thousands of federal workers are being fired on a moment's notice. The FBI and CIA and military being gutted;  completely unqualified and inexperienced people have been chosen and confirmed by the Republican controlled Senate to serve on the Cabinet and in charge of vital parts of our government (qualifications seem to be loyalty to the current president and having had a job on TV).  The U.S. now aligns with dictators around the globe, turning our back on historical European allies to court favor with Putin and Russia.  It's all madness.  And I am so afraid for my grandkids.  This could all end very, very badly.  

But I fight on as best I can and try not to completely give in to my anger about those people who don't like what is happening yet do not take any actions.  A phone call to a legislator takes literally one minute! And it is so important and it works.  Every activist organization emphasizes this.  Putting pressure on them is the tool we have.  USE IT!  That this administration eeked out a win that could have been avoided if those who didn't bother to vote had gone to the polls angers me too. And I believe my anger about this entire situation is righteous.  AND what's equally true is that I am heartbroken for our country and the people who's lives are being hurt and destroyed in so many ways.  The cruelty of people applauding others' misery is stunning to see.

But life on the micro-level continues...

I have a dear friend who suffered a seizure (no stroke detected) from a dangerous spike in blood pressure nearly two weeks ago and has been in the hospital since.  I've gone to see her nearly every day as she lies there, weak, non-communicative for the most part, exhausted, and confused.  We all are just an accident or illness away from this most tender vulnerability;  I'm learning lessons in dignity and compassion.  It will take a long time for her brain to heal from the trauma and for her body to become strong enough again for her to stand and walk.  I am heartened that she recognizes us and can seem to follow conversation, even if her own responses are often only one word.  This woman is brilliant, bright, funny, and beloved. We've been friends for decades and I have great memories of great adventures with her.  She and I and another friend took to calling ourselves the 'Shiny Sisters' and we hope she will shine again soon.  

Hub is away on his fourth snowboard trip of the season; one more to go.  Again, so much to say.  His many trips have been a point of contention between us for many reasons over the years.  Details are tiresome and private.  But this time...this time...something is different.  All that therapy (see prior post) has paid off and I have had a GREAT week home by myself.  We have not been in touch much, and that's good.  I needed to be in my own space, prioritizing myself, not feeling his absence so much as focusing on my presence.  My presence as an individual creating my own life.  It's long overdue.  I know it sounds like, "What?! Of course you have your own life!"  And I do.  I'm not dependent upon him nor do I pine away for him.  Like I said, it's complicated.  But right now I am so delighted to feel 95% terrific about what I'm creating for myself and that, my friends, is a relief I cannot even begin to explain.  You may be confused by this, but all I ask is that you be happy for me.  Believe me, I deserve it.  LOL

We bought a new car.  An electric KIA EV-6.  It's very futuristic and cool.  And I don't understand it at all.  It has so many tech-y bells and whistles that I wonder sometimes who is in charge -- me or the car?  LOL  I'm getting used to it and more comfortable with it.  But I have yet to watch the 40+ mini-lesson videos on the KIA app that explain all the groovy things it does.  Cars used to be stop/go/steer, right?  Hmmm...

So much seems just out of reach lately -- a little surrealistic; changing so quickly.  I don't do well with chaos so I have focused on my meditation practice and spend some parts of every day just getting quiet and grounded.  Politics, activism, illness, technology, emotional turmoil/healing...it's all a whirl.  No wonder I seek out PBS Masterpiece Theater programs and cozy mystery novels, yoga and meditation, and sometimes dark chocolate to calm me.  🙏🏽

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

SEISMIC EVENT

These days you hear a lot about the climate crisis. Still, probably on some level you just take it for granted that things will always be there in the same way, forever and ever, amen, with the earth... and with your life.

Oh sure, there may be the occasional windstorm, a few lightening strikes, a brush fire, but nothing that we don't have the tools and the wherewithal to handle quite handily.

You are aware, of course, that the threat of a tornado or hurricane or earthquake is a reality, but really, don't those bad things happen to other people???

The barely perceptible tremors can be explained away or ignored for a long time.  Maybe a larger rumble comes out of the blue, but it's over quickly and, well, who wants to worry about what that might mean?

Then one day you wake up and realize that actually you have been worrying, you have been wondering, you have been a bit stressed, and you've been stockpiling for the day the big one hits by wrapping yourself in a protective coating of "I don't care; I can handle anything."

Then, BOOM, the earth shakes, you lose your footing, you grab for anything solid to hang onto, but in spite of your best efforts the walls come tumbling down and you are standing in rubble.  You look around and wonder how this could have happened.  You thought your structure was strong -- stronger than most.  But you were wrong.

You wander around dazed for awhile, kicking at loose bricks, breathing the dust of powdered mortar. You search for signs of life and find none.  So you turn away from that futile task and start to research how this happened.  What did you miss?  How could this have been prevented?  Why are you reacting as if death were at the door when others who face similar messes just whistle while they sweep?  How can you get through the devastation?  How do you rebuild?

You call a couple of friends in to take a look.  They seem to be a bit shocked too, but wise also, and  they sit down in the rubble with you and start to knock the stuck mortar off the individual bricks.  Dust flies in the air and lands in buckets where you mix it with tears and it grows thick and strong.  You have the materials, but how to reassemble what once stood?  You call in professionals for advice.  They mostly tell you things you already know, but they also offer empathy for the job ahead, assurance you are up to the task, and affirmation that the mess is not yours alone to deal with.  You do not live alone in that house.

And one day sooner than you thought possible, you are not alone anymore.  Your partner is standing with you in front of what once was your home.  There are two walls, standing parallel to each other, but the roof and adjoining walls are gone.  There isn't much supporting those two remaining walls.  Still, you look at each other and decide, "We like this house; we have to save it."  And you each pick up a brick and from opposite ends of the expanse and you begin to build again.  You lay one brick, then another and another, spreading the mortar on thick.  One or the other of you gets tired, frustrated, feels hopeless.  One or the other smiles, laughs, reaches out with an encouraging hug.  Every brick brings you closer together until there is a partial wall built to bolster the two that had been standing alone.  One expanse has been filled, strengthening the whole.  It feels like hope.

Soon the two of you find yourselves doing what you do best; making blueprints, gathering tools, setting to work, celebrating each other's joys and acknowledging the frustrations inevitable with any project worth undertaking.  At night you lie in the dark, entwined, and marvel that something new and stronger is being built from the devastation.  And you vow to keep building.

At least, that's the view from here...©

PROWLER AND MUSINGS

A couple weeks ago at 1:52 a.m. my phone dinged, waking me from a light sleep, with an alert from our security camera showing a man walking up my driveway and around our garage.  What?!?  Then another "ding" and the back camera picked him up on the patio heading for the door that would lead into the house that is well-hidden from anyone's view.  He walked up to the door, looked up at the little row of windows at the top, and immediately turned and left briskly.  I think he saw the 24 hr security monitoring system sticker.  If he'd opened the door, the alarm would have gone off and police would be called.  Nonetheless, my heart was pounding as I dialed 911.  In short order I saw the squad car pull to within a block of our house, lights off; three officers walked toward our house and once at our driveway, three large and bright flashlights illuminated the whole area as they walked around the whole house.  Nothing.  He was gone.

Earplugs firmly in place, Hub slept through the whole thing, including my 911 call.  People ask why I didn't wake him and I don't really know.  He wouldn't have done any more than I already did and I guess I wanted to just handle it.

I'm practicing individuation.  I've had anxiety probably my whole life as I look back on it, but I never used to have the degree of anxiety that I currently do about feeling vulnerable.  I think it's an age and stage thing.  It started with my "fainting out of the blue for no diagnosable reason" spells 8 or so years ago and when I write that I'm stunned I'm still carrying fear of it happening again after all this time.  I just seem to hold onto bad experiences and let them dictate how I live my life sometimes.  The whole reason we have a security system in the first place is because a guy broke into our home in 1985 when I was home alone with my newborn Son One.  No one has broken in since (although apparently we had a very recent close call.) And my fear of flying was from a horrific flight in 1981!  I've had dozens of great flights since, but still I get queasy every time I board a plane.  Sheesh!

Anyway, Hub travels a fair amount, leaving me home alone and every time he's away it's such an effort to remain calm and centered and anxiety-free.  It's exhausting, actually.  And ridiculous.  It's not as if he is some Ninja-trained, Secret Service style 007-skilled security force ready to jump into action as my protector.   He's just a guy who likely would be pretty freaked out too.  He just calms down faster with a rational rather than an emotional response to most things.  So I'm trying harder to handle things on my own, in my own way, cutting him out of the picture as if I'm a single lady, as strong and capable as all the women I know who live alone in what appears to me to be some strange brew of a silly, saavy, sassy, strong, and determined mindset.  I so admire it.

I also disappoint my feminist self and feel I'm not walking my talk if on the one hand I rail against the patriarchy and on the other I'm a wee bit afraid to be alone, which is weird cuz it's mostly men who are the "bad guys" of my nightmares and mostly men who I think can keep me safe.  That dualistic
thinking gets me into trouble.  The patriarchy IS bad and most criminals are men.  And men are also built to have more physical strength and protect-the-hearth hormones.  But the fact remains I feel like a wuss.

I realize I'm just thinking "out loud" on the page here.  Mostly musing about how couples negotiate their lives together.  Thinking about gender roles and how they shift over time.  Thinking about change and how hard it is. Thinking about ages and stages and how shocked I am that there are still growing pains in a body and mind bumping up against 70 years old and in a marriage bumping up against 50 years long.

I will post this, as I always do, hoping a reader will be able to relate and not feel alone with his/her own struggles to be free, safe, in love, and alone.

At least, that's the view from here....©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

JUDGE NOT

My new year is not starting out so super great.

Right off the bat, Hub left for nearly 2 weeks on a snowboarding trip.  He came back with a painful knee that he could no longer ignore.  I wrote about that in January.  Since then he's been almost full time making various medical appointments with specialists to address knee, foot, and shoulder issues.  Looks like Job #1 is a total knee replacement in the spring.  Always an athlete who is in great shape and who still wants to take on all manner of physical challenges with skill and confidence, he initially felt sidelined and despondent.  But now with a plan in place, he's moving forward, so that's good, but I'm still worried about all of it because that's what I do.

His absence was a challenge for me, given my wee anxiety disorder.  I don't like being home alone.  But instead of fretting and lamenting, I tried a different tack.  I pretended he didn't exist.  What if there was NO alternative to me being home alone?!  Voila!  No resentment.  I had to just put on my big girl panties and live my own independent, single lady life.  I called to mind all my strong, capable, live-alone woman friends... and you have no idea how much you all helped me!  I also did a daily check-in with a BFF, and felt loved and safe in her knowing all was OK with me and if she didn't hear from me, she knew to send in the militia.  What would we do without our women friends?  No idea.

So pretending he didn't exist got me through the weeks, but made it a difficult adjustment when he got back....hmmm.  Glitch in the plan.  I empathize with military wives who miss their man when deployed, learn to get on without him, then find there is a big adjustment to be made when he returns.  So, yeah, that was a thing.

Then I seemed to run into a buzzsaw of unintended pissing people off.  I also mentioned in my January post that Son Two and his fiancé had had enough of my judgmental side comments about big weddings with big price tags and my "joking" advice that they just elope.  When he sat me down with the 'knock it off' request, I knew he was right.  I recalled when I overstepped a couple times with my advice to Son One and my DIL too.

And then Hub and I had a significant disagreement last week, that has been an ongoing conversation, where my judgements also play a part.  Sometimes I apparently express my opinions like a reformed smoker who thinks those who still smoke should quit too, instead of recognizing that some people still smoke...and that I should just shut up about it.  "This doesn't affect you", he says.

So, given my super strong ego and ability to take in criticism in a healthy, confident, "Gee, thanks" manner, none of this phased me in the least.  NOT!  Naturally I dove into the pit of hell and decided I was the world's worst mother, wife, friend, human being.  Blah Blah Blah.

So, I start February a woman on a mission to be a "no-judgement, "no-comment", "no-advice" zone.  The problem with this is that I find I have very little to say.  I go silent in conversations, rehearsing if my pithy comeback and clever repartee is full of judgement, or if I'm about to say something that is less than kind or charitable or is dismissive or, hell, I don't know...just WRONG.  Given that I apparently am often unaware when I'm being hurtful, it makes it hard to trust my judgement. (Judgment being judged!  Oh, it's all so confusing!)  But I'm trying.  It's an interesting challenge to just observe and offer data-driven feedback.

Here, try this.  At breakfast at a local restaurant, my food wasn't as good as it usually is in this place.  I might have made a joke to my dining partner along the lines of, "Sheesh, the cook must be hungover today.  This omelette sucks."  Then we laughed and told shitty food stories for awhile, starting with how bad a cook I am.  Instead, I guess I should have said, "Guess this omelette is not hitting the spot today."  Data.  No judgement.  Nothing more to say.

Maybe as I get better at this it won't seem so lifeless to me.

I'm pretty sure I haven't actually left a wide swath of hurt feelings in my path of family and friendships.  People seem to like me well enough and appreciate how I behave in the groups I frequent.  I think.  I hope.  But there is always room for improvement and I've been knocked silly by recent events, so I'm all in with trying to rid myself of commentary that may serve some purpose in the moment, but as Hub warned, can also ultimately be isolating if no one can live up to what may be interpreted as my exacting standards, I guess.  Don't want that, so hey, live and let live.  Then I'll decide how much of how you are living I can accept in order to remain in integrity with my own life.  A girl's gotta draw the line somewhere.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com