My Mid‑80s Crisis: Retail Therapy and a Pot of Living Stones

Feeling like you’re running out of time isn’t just for the young or the old—it hits most people eventually. When Jean’s youngest niece admitted she feels it too, it sent Jean down a rabbit hole of time anxiety, grief, retail therapy, and a surprising new obsession. Between missing her husband, worrying about the state of the country, and trying to make peace with unfinished goals, Jean found herself unexpectedly comforted by a tiny plant called a Living Stone that could easily outlive most of her readers.  AI…..

My youngest niece asked me a question that startled me. “Do you ever feel like you’re running out of time?” And before I could answer she went on to say, “I do. There’s still a lot of things I want to do.”

“Welcome to my world,” I replied, “but you’re too young to start feeling that way.” I didn’t say it out loud but I briefly considered checking her hands for liver spots.

We are twenty-one years apart in age, but she and her husband have both had health scares in the last few years, so I suppose it’s natural for her to experience a feeling I assumed was only common among my peers. If it’s even common in people in their 80s. I never hear anyone talking about it here in my continuum care community, but then it’s rare when a serious conversation ever takes place other than with my Tuesday night dinner group. And I miss talking in depth. I had that with my husband, and I seem to be missing him a lot right now. He’s been gone for eleven years, and you’d think missing him would get less intense rather than more. I’ve been dreaming about him, too. But it’s the anniversary month of his passing so—duh!—maybe this acute missing him will lessen when the calendar page turns. If not, I’m going to start charging him rent for waltzing around in my head.

Back on topic: I sure feel that pressure of running out of time. Every day. It’s like a wild animal chasing me into a dark forest. Google’s AI says, “Feeling like you're running out of time, or time anxiety, is common and stems from stress, pressure to achieve, or feeling overwhelmed; it can be managed by prioritizing, setting boundaries…” etc., etc.

Prioritizing. Set boundaries. If only it were that easy. Back in my prime I could time‑manage and prioritize the crap out of any job, and I didn’t need to set boundaries because I really thought I could do it all. After all, I was young and had all the time in the world to reach my life goals. But I no longer have all the time in the world, and 95% of the time I've made peace with the fact that some of my life goals have to pass me by, unfulfilled.

And maybe someone out there in cyberspace can tell me how you manage your time when you don’t know how much you have left before you kick the proverbial bucket. Do I start that quilt I know will take two years to complete? Do I buy that new storage cabinet I’ve been lusting after, knowing I’m adding to the job my nieces will have to do when I die or get downgraded to assisted living or memory care? I can almost hear them muttering, “Why did she need upgrade that light-weight plastic storage cabinet for this wooden one that weighs a ton?”

It doesn’t help that the universal values I always took for granted about our country seem to have evaporated, forcing me to feel like I have to join the fight to get them back in place before I die—adding one more goal to the pile I’ve already heaped on myself. The past two weeks my restlessness has reached new heights, and I’ve done what I’ve rarely done in the past to combat the anxiety of running out of time: I did what Dawn over at the Bohemian Valhalla blog calls “Retail Therapy.” That’s when you buy stuff you don’t need but you buy it anyway because it temporarily fills a hole and/or improves your mood. Can we all agree that it’s probably cheaper than traditional therapy​?

And what have I over‑indulged in shopping for? It started with one $10 plant—a Living Stone—I found at a local garden center. Before I knew it, I was ordering two pots of these South African odd little things online. They can live 40 to 50 years in the same pot, if you don’t manage to kill them with kindness. I’ve become obsessed, and by the time I bought the succulent soil and pumice to amend it, the right size pots (they need to be six inches deep to accommodate their tap roots), and a cute little succulent tool kit—plus some other succulents I fell in love with along the way—I’d spent nearly a hundred dollars. That was my wake‑up call that it was time to rein myself in, and when I realized some people might thing It’s odd that I was buying plants with a longer life expectancy than I have. In the meantime, I get to watch my latest (and hopefully last) purchase travel across the country during the coldest snap of the season and hope the plants doesn’t die of frostbite along the way.

The photo at the top is the way my Living Stones look before I repotted them into their homes for the next half‑century—assuming I can keep them alive and I find someone to extract a promise from to take one of these pots when I die. My youngest niece likes succulents, and I’m giving her the bottom pot. 

I was showing that photo around the farm table last night at dinner, and one of the ladies was strongly hinting that she’d like one of my “stones.” I was playing dumb and not picking up on the hint. She was offering me a couple of leaves off her Aloe Vera plant to root in exchange. But I’d just spent the afternoon transplanting them—see the photo at the far bottom—and I figured they’d been through enough. Those poor things were probably travel traumatized after getting shoved into a dark box then having to leave a warm nursery and ending up in Widowland during single digit temperatures where I ripped them apart from their buddies.

Anyway, if you’re still reading this, you’ll be happy to know I think the retail therapy worked. Buying Living Stones is like planting a tree you know you won’t live long enough to sit under. And that’s okay. I may not be able to leave behind the same kind of democracy I was born into but, by golly, I will leave something good behind.

And just in case you’re wondering where the expression “by golly” comes from: in the 1770s a writer named Gilbert White noted that working‑class people were using it as a euphemism for “God.” Now, aren’t you glad you read to the very end to learn that useless bit of information? If nothing else you can use this tidbit on trivia night.  ©

 See you next Wednesday. 

 Living Stones in their natural habitat in South Africa. 

 

Living Stones don't get any taller than one inch but they also "climb" on top of each making them look taller. They also spit open and will produce a daisy like flower on a short stem that last from 4 to 6 weeks. 

My Living Stones after I repotted them.