Soulmates, Reoccurring Dreams and one Regret

 

I've had the Winnie-the-Pooh quote at the top of my blog since sometime in 2012, the year my husband died. "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard" made sense back then on a widow's blog but lately I've been think about giving my blog a makeover to better reflect where I'm at in life now. But a quote or meme of a grim reaper peering down my neck would scare off too many people. Except for Dawn, of course, author of the Bohemian Valhalla blog. She has what she herself describes as gallows humor and her images often have me scrolling as fast as my little fingers will go to get past the sculls and other dark-side photos she shares. We live entirely different lives but she's one of my favorite bloggers. 

But I'm getting off track because today I want to explore the idea that maybe I still haven't said goodbye to my dearly departed husband? And do people in the form of their soul-energy stick around after they give up their physical bodies? Enough things happened in the first couple of months after Don died that had me convinced souls to have as much trouble letting go as those of us left behind do. For example I rarely wore my wedding ring when we were married. I kept it hanging on a pin inside my computer wardrobe and Don would remind me to put it on when we'd go out. In all the years it hung on that pin it never fell off…until the day a minister came to the house to help me plan Don's service. After the minister left I found the ring on my keyboard, right in front of the monitor. It fell off that pin several more times under similar circumstances in the first few months after Don died. How could I not believe in signs from the other side after that? It was either believe in and be comforted by the signs or use my sense of logic which finally kicked in and told me to suck it up, that I was slamming the computer door harder and faster for the first time in over a decade and that was causing the ring to bounce off the pin. Still....

In the past few months I'm getting signs again that he's close by and I'm wondering if this is common with widows this far out from Death Day or could it just be common with people who are entering the dying process. (No, I don't have an expiration date prognosis, I'm just feeling old and worn out.) Maybe our dying is more than just the dying of the physical body. Maybe the body and soul parting is a reversal of our nine months in the womb sort of thing? Back when Roe vs Wade was debated in the Supreme Court I followed the testimonies of leading scientists and scholars from the major religions in the world that helped the justices decide the case. None of those experts could agree on when life begins and when a soul enters a fetus to make it human was a big part of the discussion. Scientists have a better understanding on the physical side of the equation now but religious leaders still don't agree and they never will because they are basing their opinions on various ways to translate the Bible. So it stands to reason no one really knows when a soul departs our bodies at the end of life either. And whose to say that it happens at the exact same moment for everyone. 

My dreams about Don are increasing in frequency---almost nightly. But I don't know if that means anything because I'm also dreaming about the dogs I've had over the years as well. I get the dog dreams. In my daytime hours I find myself longing for the companionship of a dog. I watch too many Facebook Short Reels of dogs and I have five dogs living in my building that I see daily from a distance. My next door neighbor has a dog that looks similar to my Levi. He was a Schnauzer and Robbie is a Scottie Terrier. But it breaks my heart that Robbie doesn't like me. To be fair he doesn't like most people but he literally leaves the room when I come into their apartment. Maybe the reason I've started reading romance books again is a longing for the found-your-soulmate vibes you get from those kinds of books? Two people fitting together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, what's not to like? Don't read that as I want another man in my life. No! Way! Jose! Great relationships take time to build and I'm running out of time.

Sometimes when you read a widow's blog you can get the impression that the marriage was all hearts and flowers and hand holding. I call it the 'Pedestal Versions' of the marriages that widows tend to present. And I was guilty of doing that, of writing mostly about the peaks and ignoring the valleys. But damn it, in our defense those of us with Pedestal Husbands found out that when our guys were alive we often took them for granted and all those annoying things we might have complained about simply were not important in the grand scheme. (Let that be a cautionary tale if you still have a spouse.) My husband was far from perfect. He did stupid guy stuff like hold the blankets over my head while he farted in bed. I read a scene like that in romance book last month and I burst out laughing, then I almost cried. Who would have ever guested you could miss a fart! 

But the worst guy thing Don ever did was once he yelled at me (instead of a neighbor) when the neighbor backed his car into my parked car, doing hundreds of dollars worth of damage. “You should have known better than to park directly across from a driveway!” Don shouted. The next day when I called him out on the fact that I was legally parked he said words to the effect that he was just trying to use it as a "teachable moment" for the teens who were helping us paint a house that day. "Sure, Don," I shot back. "You just taught them its okay to raise your voice to a woman, you yo-yo! And for a stupid-ass unfair reason!" Those teens were fatherless boys who looked at Don as a role model. And to this day I regret that I didn't defend myself on the spot and that he unfairly pinned the blame of the accident on me in the first place. I console myself with the fact that for three years we could barely ever leave the house without those neighborhood boys tagging alone and with a few notable exceptions, we role modeled the hell out of them as to what a healthy male/female relationship looks like.  ©

My Eclectic Reading List

Sometimes the reactions the women in book club have to certain things that happen in books make me feel like I was brought up in a brothel or a shack on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, because I'm rarely shocked by some of the life experiences we've read about. And for the record I probably didn't even know what a brothel was until I was in my twenties, I was as naive back then as a few of my fellow residents around here still seem to be. But I am a woman who cut my reading teeth on romance books and over the years I've read all the sub-genres of romance from super straight-laced Victorians to Historicals to erotica to Amish Romances and Rom-Coms. The latter is my current favorite. Quick to read, don't tax my brain, occasionally make me laugh out loud. What's not to like?

The point I'm trying to make is that I'm rarely offended by what an author thinks a reader needs to know to carry a plot forward but when an author crosses over to write gratuitous sex scenes it's pretty easy for me to spot and that can get pretty boring. I quit reading Susan Stoker's military romances, for example, because she included S&M in two books and I don't care how much she tried to justify her characters liking the Fifty Shades of Grey antics in the bedroom, I don't believe they belong in any book marketed as 'Romance.' It's not mentally healthy nor good for women (or men) to be sold a bill of goods that whatever happens between two consenting adults is just fine and dandy. It's not. Don't even try to tell me about safe words and how pain and pleasure are supposedly only a fine line apart. I'm never going to buy it. 

Our book club here on the continuum care campus is reading a coming-of-age book that no one seems to be enjoying and no one is owning up to having picked it for our reading list. It was the conversation at our Monday dinner table and I was shocked to learn that two women in the club were offended by the description of the sexual scenes. One woman quit reading Maame after the first one (Chapter 5) where the protagonist lost her virginity and another lady was considering doing the same after the second one (chapter 7). I was totally confused because I couldn't recall either scene and I when I got home, I searched the book and I found out that neither scene was more than a page of description and rather bland description at that. What did that say about me that I read them and they didn't even register, much less register as something that could easily offend anyone. I was even more confused by the third and final sexual encounter which was a four on a scale of ten for hotness. I was braced for a down and dirty, page after page affair based on the negative comments I'd heard. Didn't happen. But I was happy that the main character finally got some pleasure out of these consensual encounters. All in all it was forgettable book.

Our December/January book club selection (discussed in February) was The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. It was over 700 pages long which is why we allowed two months instead of one to read it. It's a family saga style book that covers three generations and I've never liked that kind of book. Every day for two months I spent an hour in India and at first I was enjoying the expert writing and colorful descriptions of a part of the world and a culture I knew little about. But about three-forths of the way through the novel it felt like I was back in the work force with a quota to make every day. I ended up quitting the book about 125 pages short of finishing. I just didn’t care anymore. The others in book club told me I missed the best part. 

We also read The Book of Lost Names by Kritin Harmel which was based on a true story about a young woman who used her art talents to forge documents for Jewish children who were being smuggled out of harm's way during WWII. I loved that book. I also loved The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christry Lefteri which was about another part of the world I knew little about---the Syrian War, the refugee camps the displaced population lived in and what it took to immigrate to a safer part of the world. In both of theses books the authors were able to make you care about their fictionalized characters. When reading stories based on real events I'm often amazed at what the human spirit can endure and come out the other side with most of their marbles still intact. 

Other book Club sections: An Immense World by Ed Yong is a book that I'm sure I wrote about already and How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith which I'm sure I haven't written about. All I have to say about the latter book is that it's always interesting in book club when we read something that involved black history or a black point of view that our resident Trump fan feels obligated to defend racism. Gotta give her credit for standing up for her beliefs no matter how out of touch with reality and common sense they are.

Other than book club selections I've read three popcorn romances by Pippa Grant---books you read in a hurry and quickly forget. But based on the reaction the ladies in my book club had toward the sex scenes in Maame I'd never share this author's books around here. Reading Pippa Grant's descriptions would put a few ladies into cardiac arrest. ©

 Until next Wednesday.

A Little Bit of Everthing

I only eat at the lunch table here on the continuum care campus on Thursday, Friday and sometimes on Saturday. I love the lunch table. It sets 14 people and they come and go between 11:30 to 2:00 with some people staying the entire time and others eating and leaving for what we call the second shifters to take their places. l usually try to sit near the middle of the table so I can listen to and/or join in the conversations going on at either end of the table.

 Politics are rarely ever talked about at the lunch table but on Thursday I eavesdropped on five known MAGA supporters talk about Kennedy's confirmation to head the Department of Health and Human Services which includes oversight of the CDC and Food and Drugs. A well known vaccine skeptic, Mr. Kennedy has spread conspiracies theories about them to the point that my Liberal Ladies group (who eat together on Tuesday nights) is worried we're going to suffer another pandemic before 45/47 is out of office. Among the other things being cut by Executive Order is funding to any school with a Covid vaccine mandate for staff and students. These five MAGA fans were saying things like, "There really wasn't enough testing done on the Covid Vaccine" and "I won't be getting any more Covid vaccines until they prove they are safe." Thirteen billion dosages of the vaccine have been given to people world-wide! How much more 'testing' do they need?" 

They went on to talk about how Kennedy wants to get rid of all the additives in our foods and by then cynical me was thinking about how much the Republicans made fun of and had hissy-fits over Mrs. Obama's White House garden and her project to teach city people how to grow, cook and eat healthier foods. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an alternate world. It's certainly a tribal world. Ideas are only good if your team is pitching them.

One night I challenged myself to watch Fox News to see how they were covering the demonstrations across the country over firing all the people in USAID and they didn't even mention there was any push back in the courts or in the streets, in fact they were praising Musk for the fine job he was doing gutting USAID and other government agencies and "saving the tax payers trillions of dollars." If that were true why is 45/47 calling for the federal debt ceiling to be raised 4.5 Trillion dollars? Could it have anything to do with Musk getting 8 millions a DAY from federal contracts for his SpaceX project? We can't buy grain from U.S. farmers to send overseas to starving people because that's "wasteful USAID" but there's no oversight what so ever on how that eight million dollars a day to go to Mars is being spent. And what's the point of colonizing Mars---the goal of SpaceX---when we can't even agree on which groups of people here on earth are worthy of getting our tax money.

Another one of our hard core MAGA supporters died this week. He was such a nice, gentle guy. But a man with Pro-life and Trump bumper stickers on his car. Married 75 years. he lived a life devoted to his Church, his wife and large family. He held his wife's hand where ever they went and they never had a meal at the lunch table without praying (out loud) over their food. He was a one issue voter who could overlook all kinds of 45/47's sins in exchange for his promise to "save the babies." I try to remind myself of this couple when I'm about to I spout disrespect and hate towards all MAGA people. They are many things but most of them are not evil. 

Yes, it's very tempting to sit here and write a bitch session about everything that is annoying, wrong or downright scary going on in the country right now. The current administration's bull-in-china-shop approach to governing is destabilizing the entire world. And they are proud of that fact. If I was two years old I'd be that kid who'd be laying on the floor right about now, kicking my fat little legs up and down and crying while the adults do their best to ignore my temper tantrum. But I'm not two years old and in my eighty+ years of living I've learned enough to know that I'm the only person who can hop on the metaphorical white horse and save myself from what ails me. Unfortunately my armor is not shining at the moment from falling off the damn horse too often because I worry too much about things beyond my control.

But I can save myself from my continued weight gain which is  pretty much what my doctor told me last week that I have to do. He did look up a medication that he thought would be safe for me to take, but it requires a daily shot in the belly and he stated Medicare wouldn't cover it. So he asked me what has worked in the past and I made the mistake of being honest, confessing that lots of time spent exercising worked better than anything. He was what I predicted he'd be: sympathetic about how much I hate being fat and I hate exercise but he told me none the less to start walking three miles a day on the treadmill. It's been three days since I saw him and I've been to the gym three times since but I've yet to make it the full three miles. 

He also gave me a prescription for some liquid iron for my blood and a nasal spray for a persistent cough I've had all winter. My blood work showed that my Stage 3 Kidney Disease has not progressed---good news. But something I answered on the Medicare Wellness questionnaire must have triggered an automatic reply because a few days after my appointment I got a list on my patient portal for places seniors can get help with food or housing insecurities or mental health issues. I do not need a list like that but sadly for those who might, many of those services listed probably will get cut by President Musk. ©

Until Next Wednesday…