The Winds of Change - Widowhood Style

 

This first paragraph below is borrowed from a post I wrote eight years ago titled Choose Your Change:

“People in the blog community occasionally feed off one another for inspiration or topics to write about. That’s what happen to me recently when I read a post by the Awkward Widow titled Sexagenarian. She was sharing some advice from Nancy Alock Hood, a woman who got married for the first time at the ripe old age of 82 years old. Nancy is quoted as saying: 'Change happens, so choose your change.' Simple but profound advice, don’t you think? She was talking about embracing change and planning what you want your future days and years to look like in retirement but it could just as easily be applied to the changes that come with widowhood, divorce, disability or the loss of a job. ‘Choose your change,’ ---that’s going to be my new mantra going forward. I don’t want to be a victim of life just drifting along, I want to be walking to and working towards something besides the grave.” 

Change is hard. Change is scary, especially when it wakes you up in the middle of the night with self-doubts. Am I doing the right thing? Did I wait too long to move into this new chapter of my life or not wait long enough? As we age we fall into a pattern of fearing change but fear alone should not determine our fate. By learning to control our fear we get to pick our change instead of just letting it happen whenever, where ever the chips might fall. It’s akin to replacing a bald tire on your car. It’s just a matter of time when a bald tire blows. It could happen in the middle of rush hour on a six lane expressway or on a quiet street within a stone’s throw of your house. We're picking out fate when we replace that tire before it has a chance to cause an accident that could kill us and/or others or at the very least make us late for something we've been looking forward to doing. 

Humans are like tires, we get old and weak and it’s foolish to think we can be as independent at 80 or 90 as we were at 40 or 50. Planning that last chapter our lives makes the same kind of sense as planning for our college years. My plan---moving into  a continuum care campus---is me putting my last chapter plan into action, and once I'm there I can party like there's no tomorrow. "Adulting" will not be required and tomorrow isn't promised to anyone so why not revert to the carefree, silliness of my youth? 

So, what have I been doing these past eight years since I first wrote about picking my change? I started by going on a quest to find friends. It took two years but it turned out good until the pandemic ended our bi-monthly luncheons with a group of six. I also spent a year or looking at smaller, stand alone houses, condos and apartments in continuum care complexes up for sale. It was a causal search, in a gathering information mode with no pressure to carry through and it was a valuable learning experience that made it possible for me to recognize what a good deal I'm getting with the non-profit CCC where I'm moving. It took an ice storm and being without heat for nearly a week in the middle of the winter to get my attention and admit that somewhere along the line I had became one of those vulnerable seniors that the newscasters tell everyone they need to check on. If not for the son of one of those friends I’d lunch with, who drove over to check on me, I would have died of hypothermia. And that's not hyperbolic. 

At almost 80 I still feel young inside my head but no one can see inside there but me to know that I’m delusional on that topic. To the rest of the world I’m a plump, white-headed senior with a bad wardrobe and a split fingernail she hasn’t been able to grow out for 4-5 years which explains why I never give anyone The Finger. I hate that nail and I hide it from the world! Just kidding, though, about why I keep my middle finger folded in my hand. I may let a few swear words slip out but rude hand gestures have never been my jam as the cool kids are saying these days. Oh dear, I shouldn't try to use urban slang. One side of my brain just informed the other side that I'm using 'not my jam' incorrectly because there is no music involved in flashing The Finger, however the other side is arguing that the phrase has evolved beyond jamming in a band.

So here I am sitting in the quiet before the storm otherwise known as the long-awaited listing of my house going live tomorrow. I’m excited mostly with a little fear thrown in to flavor the pot. All my valuables are locked up including medications because the realtor says it’s a common thing in his business to have meds stolen out of houses up for sale. People addicted to using and/or selling prescription drugs get them wherever they can. I've always kept mine in the laundry room where only my blog readers would think to look. 

Anyway, I’ve chosen my change and I’ve done everything I can do to make it work the way I want. Things out of my control will happen---like the pandemic that put a major stress on my plans---but short of another disaster of that magnitude, like the housing market flipping over night, I’ve got my plans A and B in place to cover unforeseen road blocks that could happen. After the closing and the money is in my bank I plan to sleep 24/7 for a week or maybe spend a weekend at my niece's cottage, then I'll regroup for the packing stage of the game. I’m worn out! ©

Changes in the Boring Lane of Life

I hate minor changes that make major changes in how I’ve been doing things my entire adult life. “Say what?” you’re asking. “Just spit it out? And I will but mind you I feel the need to first state that I understand that in the vast pool of life problems what I’m talking about is a baby goose bump in the grand scheme of things to complain about, especially now when people are dealing with the danger of fires, hurricanes and floods and other truly life-changing events beyond their control. But I can’t write about anyone else’s life but my own. And even if I wanted to write about current events like the death of the notorious RBG and the impending election, what more could I say that hasn't already been said? Huge game changers, both of them.

I’m talking about is a tiny game changer---the city changing my trash pickup day from Mondays to Thursdays. It’s been Monday since I was young enough to still have brown hair and wore high heels and British Invasion style hats during my man dating days back in the ‘60s. (The '50s were my boy dating days, the '70s was my soulmate era of dating.) My Sundays have always started out with a ‘To-Do List’ that never changed: 1) Water the plants, 2) Empty all the waste baskets and gather up the trash, 3) Put the cart out to the street for Mondays’ early morning pick up, 4) Bring in the Sunday Press, and 5) Spread the paper on the floor and read it leisurely while sucking down a couple of cups of coffee. Actually, the 5^th thing on list changed a few years ago. I can no longer get down on the floor to read---well, I could but I couldn’t get back up afterward---and more often than not in recent months the paper goes directly in the recycling box unread. Occasionally I use newspaper for packing e-Bay stuff but my e-Bay days will be coming to an end soon and after I move next year I’m going to say goodbye to the lost cause of trying to support the local newspaper.

I’ve always been a creature of habit and routine and it ticks me off that the trash company couldn’t have held out one more year before changing theirs. By then, I’ll be living in a place where I’ll just have to walk my trash down the hall any day or time I want and I could keep my Sunday ‘To Do List’ intact. It’s a good thing I have an atomic clock that tells the day of the week as well as the time and date. I’m going to be so ‘off kilter’ until I get used to having a Thursday trash day. Oh. My. God! I can’t believe how boring my life is that I’ve resorted to writing about my trash! If anyone is still reading this post, I’ll owe myself a quarter on a lost bid. I did have a mini exciting moment at the grocery story last week, though, when I needed to buy trash bags and I realized that it would be the very last box of 33 gallon cart liner bags I’ll ever have to buy.

Actually, I can write about another stupid little problem in my boring life. I pulled the front storm door closed yesterday and the door knob came off in my hand.  As I stared down at it, trying to make sense out what I was seeing, I mini-panicked thinking I couldn’t get out of the house without a doorknob. I looked all over for a hexagon shaped tool that is needed to get the level style knob to hold in place again. And wouldn't you know it I finally remembered that I sent my husband’s set of hexagon gauges and tools to the auction house earlier this year. If I still had them it would be an easy fix. I have not used those sets in the 19 years I've lived here and isn't that always the way---you get rid of something and that's when you discover a need for it. The door itself is a deluxe style still in great condition, being only five years old, and Crazy Glue comes to mind as a cheat-around to hold it in place. I’d hate doing that, but…

Speaking of moving, the continuum care campus had another event this month that they called ‘Mugs and Mugs.’ It was an outdoor happy hour where we could social distance and they served beer and root beer along with a lots of yummy finger foods. While that was going on a professional photographer took us one at a time to get our photos taken in front of the lake. At some point in time I’m guess the photos will appear on an ID badge but before that day comes they wanted permission to use our photos in promotional advertisements in various media ads. I didn’t give mine. I lived this long without my photo being tagged on the web, that's not going to start now.

For reasons I can’t put my finger on I didn’t connected with the other future residents as I’ve done at past events. I felt like I was on the fringe of most conversations, but not taking a meaningful part in any of them. Several said they were exciting and ready to move, others said they were terrified. Me? I have a foot in each camp---both excited and terrified. Change is hard, even minor stuff like moving trash pickup days and seeing all three floors framed in of my future building where I'll be living this time next year makes the next chapter of my life start feeling real. ©

Christmas Year Two on Widowhood Lane: Choose Your Change!

People in the blog community occasionally feed off one another for inspiration or topics to write about. That’s what happen to me recently when I read a post by the “Awkward Widow” titled Sexagenarian. She was sharing some advice from Nancy Alock Hood, a woman who got married for the first time at the ripe old age of 82 years old. Nancy is quoted as saying: “Change happens, so choose your change.” Simple but profound advice, don’t you think? She was talking about embracing change and planning what you want your future days and years to look like in retirement but it could just as easily be applied to the changes that come with widowhood, divorce, disability or the loss of a job. “Choose your change,” I think that’s going to be my new mantra for 2014. I don’t want to be a victim of life just drifting along, I want to be walking to and working towards something besides the grave. That might be tricky to figure out, though, because I never could decide what I want to be when I grow up. The world is a huge smorgasbord of possibilities even though one might say my ‘dessert line’ was closed when Don passed away.

Last year, my first holiday season without my husband, I had invitations for only two holiday related events. This year I had eight although the weather has already prevented me from going to a lighting ceremony for members only at the sculpture park and a potluck at the historical society. Two other parties I’ve already attended and of the four remaining parties I’ll be lucky if I don’t get snowed out of two because they are both out of town---the two I want to go to the most, my family’s annual Christmas Eve party at my niece’s and a Red Hat Society party.

Sunday I went to a family party on my deceased husband’s side of the family. Aside from the fact that’s its really weird calling Don “my deceased husband” which I’ve noticed myself doing in public lately, I was the second oldest person at the party. Of the thirty-seven people attending only two of us were old enough to collect Medicare. Talk about weird! It was weird looking around the room knowing that half the people there I’ve known since birth and the other half I’ve watched grow up from their teen years. But I feel at home with my husband’s family. They have always been warm and accepting of me both before and after Don died which, sadly, isn’t always the case for all widows. Invitations to in-law events dry up or a widow feels out of place.

On the way home from the party one of my great-nephew’s in-laws stopped over to complete a trade we’d worked out earlier in the week. He drilled a hole in a bookcase for me that I’ll need to pass a plug through when the cable guy comes on Thursday and I gave him a 1975 original watercolor that Don treasured. It was of a wooded scene with a deer standing at alert. This nephew had gone hunting with his dad and Don several times when he was a teen and Don always prided himself on teaching both of them about hunters safety, good hunting ethics and a love of the woods. Then after Don’s stroke the great-nephew became a guide for Don when he took part in Michigan’s first disabled deer hunt and camp. (It’s no small feat to get wheelchair bound guys out in the woods but this group of dedicated volunteers has been doing it for 7-8 years now.) The new proud owner of the watercolor just lost his grandfather a week ago and he had hunted with him for many times as well and his eyes got a little misty when I gave him the painting. It’s a good feeling to give things away that you know will have special meaning to others. Widow’s work like this never seems to end. Just when you think it has, another opportunity presents itself.

For 2013 my mantra for the year was one word---bravery---and I even bought a cowardly lion necklace to wear when I was going someplace alone and scary for the first time. It’s served me well this past year and I think my mantra for 2014 will do the same. Whenever I seem to be floundering and not sure of what I want to be when I grow up I’m going to repeat to myself: “choose your change” until I actually remember that I am controlling my own strings and I can transform my life into whatever I want. What about you? Do you think you can choose your change...or do you feel like the past is still controlling your strings? ©

The Watercolor