I’ve always fought depression, and not always won. It’s still there. The momentum that comes with having a big family often was what kept things moving here. With the kids out of the house now, that’s slowed down quite a bit. They’ve come to visit these holidays like a hurricane and leave the house with wreckage from their time here , their friends here, and leave a quiet and a gap too. It’s calming, depressing, relief and sadness , all combined. I miss them , yet wonder how I possibly kept up with them all. I guess I didn’t. Just moved along.
We’re at a flux about the next steps. Some things we had hoped would happen have not. We need to revise plans, take in new developments, and we feel sharply what we will be missing and it hurts. It’s scary too. Also, even with the tuition train having pulled into its final shop, financial needs never stop happening. That huge windfall didn’t happen. A lot of it our fault. We eat out more now, a bit more careless with spending. And the kids still have needs. Getting them set up, paying for plane tickets home, visiting them.
I ignored this getting older thing because I was too busy. But the lightning bolts are hitting closer and closer. I cried for days when an old dear friend; we had our first babies close together and they were first friends, died suddenly. Heartache. No warning. Another had a strike and is doing poorly, a once vibrant and active woman. A notification that a former classmate;— I can see her now in my mind’s eyes, died. I still see her as 21. My chest hurts when I see Forever 21. My husband has lost colleagues these past years. And the funerals… the older generation has brought our family together many times in the past several years. Didn’t anyone ever die all those years ago? Did we skip those funerals? We have to stop meeting that way.
My eyes have spots in them, and nothing can be done because the risks outweigh the possible gains. I know I don’t hear quite as well as I did though I don’t ask “what?”, all that much yet. My gums tingle at times. When I pulled a shoulder, it took months to recover.
My husband is suffering from arthritis in his knees and shoulders. Knee replacement likely in his not so distant future. A sleep apnea mask recommended for him after a sleep study. A DVT scare makes long car rides longer as we stop for a walk about break every two hours. He monitors his blood pressure and some meds and diet change have been recommended to someone whose health number were all well within healthy limits.
This growing old has been happening to me but I didn’t really pay attention, but now it’s really grabbing me. The gray streaks here and there are now taking over. Do I want to have white hair with black eyebrows. Maybe a little Botox will help my face that is beginning to melt like a candle. I seem to be getting a paunch—am I eating that much more?
It’s a new phase of life that we’ve slid into, awhile ago but until certain things catch our attention we may not have given them much thought. I realized this holiday season that I look at a lot of the young people, my children’s friends as kids, frozen in time from years ago, as I do a lot of my own friends. It’s startling to face the reality. And scary.
So welcome to this aging process, or the awareness of it. There are some nice things about it too. But certainly it has very scary jagged edges that have always bern there but not quite so prominently in our paths as they are now.
I sometimes think that therapy is more of a way to medicalize deep sadness but I"m a cynic. And I am totally going to drink more by myself in dark bars…i’m not being sarcastic…I mean, why don’t I? (and it helps me to hear that there are other women doing so…it’s not like anybody notices me at all anymore…I was in a duane reede the other day and there was a long line and i thought, “i could walk right out of here with this stuff and nobody would stop me because not a single person has even noticed me since I walked in the store.” ) .