We love each other (in September, we'll celebrate 44 years of "official" marriage, with a few years of dating before that!). However, we've never been one of those joined-at-the-hip couples. He is used to coaching soccer two nights a week and having games every Saturday and Sunday. I have always had a joyfully-abundant calendar of concerts, bookclubs, and dinners (and lunches, now that I am retired) with friends. All of this is a bit too much togetherness (insert wide-eyed emoji here). We are managing to navigate these different and turbulent waters, where crises can either make or break a relationship. We snap, we argue, we clam up... and yet we remember why we chose each other as life partners, and we apologize and connect and reignite (cue Mary Tyler Moore theme song!).
I decided to put together a list of my coping mechanisms, in hopes that it might inspire others (also, it really just helps me fill a bit of time... :-) :
~ Daily schedule. When I have the entire day ahead of me, I am not likely to get much accomplished but, if I attempt to structure my day with some of the items below, in addition to the little things like "take my vitamins", it helps keep me on task.
~ My balcony. When I first wake up, I make a cup of coffee or hot tea, settle into my lounge chair, and greet the day, as well as the Wild Kingdom that is my backyard. How can I be anxious when there are birds singing in the trees, turtles swimming in the pond, and prehistoric-looking iguanas loitering on the lawn? (The golfers are a breed unto themselves!). In the evening, I slow down to watch the sunset, and breathe deeply, inhaling gratitude and exhaling worry.
~ Menu ideas. I make breakfast smoothies for us both, and we are on our own for lunch) but, when I get home from Publix and as I am re-stocking the freezer, fridge, and pantry, I write down ideas for potential dinner meals, which makes nightly cooking plans as close to no-brainer-ish as possible.
~ Smoothies. Frozen fruit + protein powder + coconut water + SuperGreens powder + my NutriBullet = easy, healthy, and delicious!
~ Essential oils. Some of my daughter's friends have gone into the essential oils business, and I commissioned one of them a while back to make up three blends for me: Healthy, Energy, Calm. They came in small roll-on bottles and not a day has gone by without me using one of them. These days, most often, it's Healthy... :-)
~ Walking. I had been walking the trails in our Broward Library Park but now that feels riskier, so I am traversing a 45-minute-ish route in our condo complex.
~ Stretching. Super-important, especially since my sciatica kicked back in two months ago. Ugh. Doing specific exercises about 3 times a day, and in the condo pool when I'm there. I also use a massager the kids gave me for Christmas a few years ago.
~ Pool. Believe it or not, they've stayed open and, now that the snowbirds have headed back north, only a handful of people are down there. I use an antibacterial disposable cloth to open and close the gate, as well as wipe down the lounge chair. I use an SPF 30 on my arms, legs, chest, and back... and an SPF 15 on my face (I also wear a hat). Aaaaahhhh, natural Vitamin D. And of course there is a book involved!
~ Reading. I had checked out 25 books from our local library before things started getting really bad, and I am systematically working my way through those. I set myself up for success by trying to choose only 4- or 5-star material, interspersing novels with non-fiction with memoirs.
~ Blogging. Yes, here I am again after a 7-year absence. An exercise in creativity, an online journal, a stream-of-consciousness blather. It really doesn't matter if no one reads nor comments. This is for me, and is an excellent steam release from the pressure cooker of life, to upload my swirling thoughts so I don't go completely crazy... at least until the next day, when I feel the need to unload again.
~ Family get-togethers. We meet twice a week, at first at the Broward Library Park, then the park in our old neighborhood, now at a grassy area in our condo complex. Folding chairs, blankets, six feet apart, telling stories, laughing, just seeing each other's faces. Sarah and Colin came over the other day so he could run around. The little guy is 20-months-old and full of energy. He is so confused, because why isn't Lala hugging him and picking him up as usual? He came toward me, and I started running (because I didn't want either one of us to potentially contaminate the other), and I turned it into a game but, when they left, I was so upset. It is a fact of life that I can't touch my grandbaby right now. This is all just so f*cked up.
~ Potato Chips. Oh god, as some people crave sweets, my drug of choice is salty/crunchy. I learned that I cannot buy a big bag, or else I will eat the entire contents. Bemoaning this fact to my son Rob, who suggested snack-size. Yes! The Baked Lay's variety pack is just what I needed, and I really do ration out one per day. I found this one in yesterday's portion. It's a sign from The Universe... :-)
~ Talking on the phone with friends. I used to *hate* the phone, because I spent so much time on it at work. Now that I am retired, I am more appreciative of voice-to-voice, especially now that face-to-face get-togethers are not an option. I have spent the last two weeks having meaningful as well as hilarious conversations with dear friends and family members: my children, of course (daily!); my sister Mari and my brother Brad; friends Nancy, Judi, Eileen, Melanie, Laurie. Still to come are Linda and my cousin Laura. Soul-refilling.
~ TV/Movies. I cut waaay back on screen time when I retired, viewing a few shows (Top Chef, Project Runway, etc.) and IMDB-recommended movies and series (JoJo Rabbit, Unbreakable, and others). thankyoujesus for Netflix and HGTV. My friends Laurie and Dana just bingewatched Downton Abbey, and others are mainlining West Wing (ah, remember the years when we had an intelligent, compassionate, articulate President?!?).
~ Being overcaffeinated in the morning, and then sharing too much sh*t via my phone. I only mean to inform and not annoy, but I think my family and friends are frustrated with my links. Must. Stop. That.
P.S. Before I deactivated my Facebook account, I chose my Word of the Year (which I've been doing since 2007, following Christine Kane's lead). In 2020, Contentment spoke to me (I have Enough!) and I instituted a buying moratorium. I've been so very good but, I confess, in these trying times, in a fit of weakness, I ordered a pair of earrings via Amazon, inspired by the woman in the Resilient video I posted a few days ago [hangs head in retail-therapy shame!]
SONG: In Spite of Ourselves by John Prine (and the live version as well... :-)
[Another head nod to Melanie, who shared this Kevin Bacon/Kyra Sedgwick version with me earlier!]
BOOK: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
POEM: Half Omen Half Hope by Joanna Klink
When everything finally has been wrecked and further shipwrecked,
When their most ardent dream has been made hollow and unrecognizable,
They will feel inside their limbs the missing shade of blue that lingers
Against hills in the cooler hours before dark, and the moss at the foot of the forest
When green starts to leave it. What they take into their privacy (half of his embrace,
Her violence at play) are shadows of acts which have no farewells in them.
Moons unearth them. And when, in their separate dwellings, their bodies
Feel the next season come, they no longer have anyone to whom
To tell it. Clouds of reverie pass outside the window and a strange emptiness
Peers back in. If they love, it is solely to be adored, it is to scatter and gather
Themselves like hard seeds in a field made fallow by a fire someone years ago set.
In the quiet woods, from the highest trees, there is always something
Weightless falling; and he, who must realize that certain losses are irreparable,
Tells himself at night, before the darkest mirror, that vision keeps him whole.
On the verge of warm and simple sleep they tell themselves certain loves
Are like sheets of dark water, or ice forests, or husks of ships. To stop a thing
Such as this would be to halve a sound that travels out from a silent person’s
Thoughts. The imprint they make on each other’s bodies is worth any pain
They may have caused. Quiet falls around them. And when she reaches
For him the air greens like underwater light and the well-waters drop.
They will see again the shadows of insects.
They will touch the bark and feel each age of the tree fly undisturbed
Into them. If what is no longer present in them cannot be restored,
It can at least be offered. Through long bewildered dusks, stalks grow;
Rains fill and pass out of clouds; animals hover at the edges of fields
With eyes like black pools. For nothing cannot be transformed;
Pleasure and failure feed each other daily. Do not think any breeze,
Any grain of light, shall be withheld. All the stars will sail out for them.
QUOTE: "When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
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