The Daughter, the Millennial and the Ladies in Red

The last half of my week was busy with three things penciled on my day planner: 1) The geek-on-wheels to fix my printer that a Windows 10 update dumped off both my laptop and desk top computers; 2) An appointment with the car dealership to fix a recall on my air bag; and 3) A Red Hat Society tea. All these gave me plenty opportunities to interact with people but apparently it wasn’t enough because one afternoon I called someone I hadn’t talked with since mid-summer. Touching bases by phone seems to be a lost art in this age of social media but sometimes we just have to sit down and do it. My timing was perfect because the recipient started crying---heart-wrenching sobs. She said was “losing it” and needed to “unload.” She’s dealing with the repercussions of moving a loved one from a nursing home into a memory care unit with all the stresses that goes along with situations like that---siblings, spouses and the facility itself. We talked an hour and I think I helped. Sometimes just being a trusted sounding board is all someone needs to turn down the heat on a pot full of emotions ready to boil over. For me, it felt good to have someone place a value on my words and listening skills again. That doesn’t happen much anymore in my widow’s world of superficial conversation and causal acquaintances. 

It isn’t often, for example, that I go to a Red Hat Society tea when the conversation is something of substance. Usually it’s the normal chic-chat exchanged about family and who’s been doing what with grandchildren. Not this week. As we all took a place on an assembly line to fill up cellophane bags with Halloween candy to give out to the residents of our adopted nursing home, we got into a discussion of PTSD and veterans in general. All of us had stories to tell about vets we knew/know from WWI to the present day. Shell shocked, flashbacks, battle fatigue, PTSD---different names after different wars for coming back with varying degrees of emotional trauma. One woman told about her relative who during WWII was skilled at sneaking up on Germans soldiers and silently killing them with piano wire. After the war he got drunk and stayed that way for the rest of his life. We had a neighbor at our cottage who was in the Korean War and anytime he’d hear fireworks he’d end up in an ambulance on his way to a mental ward for a few weeks. If nothing else, at least Trump’s poorly worded comment about veterans with PTSD being weak got people around the nation talking about the topic.

It was a good week for conversation. While my millennial geek-on-wheels was here we talked about the election…tipsy-toeing around the subject without either one of us saying who we plan to vote for. Although it sounds like he’s not going to vote at all because---and this is an exact quote---“I’m a white male and will be alright no matter who wins, so I don’t care.” He said he works with two people who are on the opposite ends of the political spectrum and they both get mad at him when he says he doesn’t care. I had to agree with him on one level; he recognizes his white privilege and lack of a uterus subject to new governmental regulations. But on a deeper level I don’t understand not caring about policies and changes that could affect women, people of color and the LGBT community. Eventually, discontentment from any sector of society that’s getting marginalized trickles down to affect us all.

I brought up the nuclear codes and not wanting a loose cannon to have 24/7 access to them. The geek answered that it won’t happen because he thinks Obama will get a third term due to something massive happening on Election Day---major electrical grids hacked that will invalidate the election. Okaaaaay, I’ve heard that conspiracy theory a few times online and all I can say about that is if it actually happens---and I give it a 5% chance---I hope it’s confined to the southern states because it gets cold up here in November without our furnaces. And the moral of that story is we are all capable of having selfish thoughts, so I guess I need to ease up on my self-righteous, higher-horse-than-thou opinion of my geek for his seemingly callous disregard for others outside of his white male peer group. 

Conversations with the daughter, the millennial and the ladies in red this week made me feel good at the time but with a sad chaser. On one hand it was stimulating to be able to have in-depth conversations without having to type them on a keyboard. Real people with meaty words, none of that superficial stuff that often drives me to Boredom Village. On the other hand, when the conversations were over and I was tucked back into my quiet life on Widowhood Lane a mild sense of melancholy set in when I couldn’t regurgitate those conversations up for my husband to enjoy. Without someone to share the highlights of my days---well, get out the violin and play along. You've heard this song before. ©