Routines, Personal Foibles and Balance Class

Morning Routine: After getting up and using the bathroom, I walk through the house opening the blinds and pulling the shades up. Then, in the kitchen I’ll wash my hands a second time in hot, soapy water just in case one sleepy morning I forgot to do it before leaving the bathroom and those shades and blinds have some yucky-do germs on them. As a personal foible, that’s harmless enough. I’m not a total germaphobic but I do wipe down shopping cart handles during flu season with the store provided anti-bacteria wipes and I am afraid of those shade and blind controls. No one ever washes those wands and knobs. No one. Nowhere. Including me.

With that ritual out of the way, I take a cup of water out of the refrigerator (that I measured out the night before---foible #2) and I pour it in the Keurig coffee maker then turn on the TV and the computer while it’s brewing. With my coffee in hand, I’ll check my blog and others in the blogging community first, then I’ll see what’s new at the political debate site where I frequently post. Eventually I’ll get around to Facebook and email although often these will have to wait until evening if I get too wrapped up in my earlier cyber stops or I’m working on a new blog entry. 

The dog has his own routine. Levi gets up earlier than I do, moves to the library where he can watch for pee mail deliveries from our four legged neighbors going by the house, then he goes back to sleep again for a few hours. But he thinks the blender is an alarm clock so when I pull the second cup of water out of the refrigerator to make a protein shake, Levi comes out to the kitchen to get a few pieces of fruit. Next I’ll get his feed and fresh water ready and while he’s outside doing his morning business I’ll be drinking my breakfast. Mid-morning it's back to the bathroom to get a shower or sponge bath in preparation for whatever in written in my day planner. The dog parks himself on the end of the bed where he can watch me in the bathroom doing all that. He’s either a pervert or sad because he knows there’s a chance I’ll be leaving him alone soon after.

The dog and I might live a boring life filled with routines and foibles but ‘boring’ is a good thing when compared to the perils of living in a world without the opportunity to develop them in the first place. People don’t grow up aspiring to be Syrian war refugees, for example. Circumstances beyond our control can change the trajectory of our lives in the time it takes to spray paint the word “Boring!” on a subway wall. Don’t do that, by the way, I doubt you’re young enough to outrun the graffiti police. The point is no matter how pedestrian our lives get we should never forget to be grateful for that. End of mini sermon; yes, I’m writing this on Sunday. Below will be written on Tuesday after balance class.

I put off doing my homework for balance class until the last minute. When I finally did it I suppose I was in the Scarlett Club of Denial because I thought I was too young to be asking myself if I agree or disagree with stupid questions like: 1) Falling should be accepted as a natural part of growing old, or 2) If I report a fall to a doctor s/he may think that I can’t take care of myself. Already I’ve learned to use a pencil when checking boxes in the workbook because if you don’t answer “correctly” the workbook asks you to write an essay on how you can change your mindset. It’s like the workbook was trying to yell, “Pay attention! You know damn well the next fall could put you in a nursing home!” But all I really heard was a condescending blah, blah, blah. Foible Alert #3: Yes, I can be stubborn when I think a workbook is talking down to little old widow-ladies like me. Give me a list of ‘dos and don’ts’ and a set of exercises and wish me luck! Good-bye, nice meeting you.

In class, however, when the twelve of us were sitting around discussing our workbook questions and answers I was forced to knowledge (if only to myself) that the whole point of the workbook homework was to get us to exchange our fears with constructive behaviors to avoid falls. Fears, if left to fester, can make our world grow smaller and smaller. 

And while we were sitting in class someone tried to drive through the wall just a few feet away from us, a classic old person mistake of stepping on the gas pedal instead of the break. Emergency vehicles and help and lawyers from the office next door came like a swarm of locust and, thankfully, her car took the most damage---front grill, hood and fender. The steel I-beam inside the wall she hit kept the car out of the building. If she had tried to park just one space over, she would have ended up through a large window and on top of our table. We were lucky! Like I wrote up above, it only takes a split-second for the trajectory of our lives to change forever.  ©