Sunday, September 27, 2020

Asking the Tough Questions

 If people could actually see into my brain, I think they would be shocked to learn that what's in there consists mostly of answerless questions.  I live alone, and because of the COVID pandemic, I have very little face-to-face interaction with other adult human beings.  (My choice, due to my high risk status for succumbing  to the corona virus should I contract it.)  That means that I don't get out much.  My only means of gathering information, except for a few of my solo trips out to forage for things I need, comes from television and social media.  Since one can only believe about half of what is on either media form, that leaves only my inquisitive mind left to fill in the blanks that are left behind.  I even scare myself, sometimes.

For example, I'll be sitting in the kitchen endlessly/mindlessly staving off the boredom by solving sudoku puzzles on my Kindle Fire, when my mind will flash to something remote and not related to anything going on around me.  It might be a place, a person, a memory, a song, or even a circumstance, and I wonder where it came from.  Did I see something or hear something to remind me of it?  The answer 99% of the time is no.  And then that same remembrance will happen over and over and over again, as if having it the first time created some pathway in my brain for it to come back repeatedly.  I don't worry about my sanity, but I do wish I understood it all.  

Here are some of the questions for which the answers can't be Googled to any successful degree.  Some are amusing; some are not:

1.  When I was a child, I would get disabling headaches that would last for days.  My mother had my eyes checked.  No problem there.  She threw every kind of age-acceptable pain remedy available in those days in my direction--everything from Aspergum, aspirin, Alka Seltzer, Bromo Seltzer, blah, blah, to no avail.  Most of the time, all I could do was go to bed and hope that it would be gone when I woke up.  Sometimes it was; sometimes it wasn't.  Any little bump on the head would set one off.  Sometimes, the way I sat at the sewing machine when I was a little older--tense in the shoulders--would cause one.  Even just the way I slept could make my head explode before I even got up.  It wasn't fun.

Then, sometime in my 20s--almost unnoticed--the headaches stopped.  They stopped so completely that I never even got occasional headaches.  Done.  Finished.  The very next time I got a headache was in 2007, when I was 60, when an aneurysm ruptured in my brain while visiting my sister.  I should have died, but I didn't.  Was airlifted by helicopter to a trauma center with a huge neuroscience department in another city.  Had brain surgery to clip the aneurysm.  Got sent home after a week.  The post-surgery headache after that lasted two weeks, as predicted.  Then I got back to my headache-free life.  

I have read that people can "outgrow" headaches.  That's apparently what happened to me...but WHY?  What caused them to begin with?  What about the growth process changes the proclivity to headaches?  I lived in so many different places, the causes couldn't have been environmental.  Who has the answers?  I'm grateful not to be a headache sufferer like I once was, but who has the answers?  Anyone??

2.  A big chunk of my answerless questions has to do with crime.  Long a student of why people do what they do, I wonder what goes on in the minds of criminals.  I mean, if they were honest.

*Do they consider the consequences but decide to act anyway because they lack impulse control?          *Do they really believe they won't get caught?                                                                                             *Do they ever truly regret what they have done?  Or are they just sorry they got caught?                           *Do they ever learn their lesson and go on to lead stellar lives after prison?                                         *Is the driving force behind their crimes some sort of mental illness?  Are they reacting to voices in their head, or just some perverse gratification to behave outside the law?  (The voices in the head thing also troubles me.  Just because some voice tells you to do something doesn't mean you have to do it.  Or am I being too simplistic?)                                                                                                                             *Is the human sex drive so irresistible that even rational thinking people feel like they have to act on their fantasies?  (I am reminded of people like Jared Fogle and Jeffrey Epstein...even Bill Cosby...who had everything but threw it all away to accommodate their desires to have things to which they weren't legally entitled?  Was it worth the immediate gratification??                                                                  *And the real biggie:  WHY is mental health counseling/rehab so expensive that even people who seek it can't afford it?? 

3.  Who invented or discovered the notion of cooking food?  Did it happen by accident?  Surely it did, since ancient homo sapiens didn't have science to guide them, but when did it all start--and how?

4.  On that same vein, having seen all that it takes to create chocolate out of cacao beans, I wonder who figured this out?  I mean, really?  Was there some mad scientist somewhere that took a bunch of cacao beans and just started messing with them with fermenting and acids, etc., to come up with luscious chocolate?  Also, who was the first person to pick up something as ugly as a lobster or a crab--or even a shrimp--to ask, "Hmmm...  I wonder if this would be good to eat?"  Boggles my mind!  (Just for the record, I love lobster and crab and shrimp--all considered shellfish--but I've had scallops twice, also shellfish, and got sick both times, so I avoid scallops.  But WHY would my body accept other shellfish, but not scallops???)

5.  This is a biggie:  WHY, when I settle on a product that I love so much that I won't buy any other brand, does the company decide to change it or discontinue it??  Offhand, I can think of so many--my Moisture Wear makeup foundation (discontinued), Holland House cocktail sauce (discontinued...can't find anywhere), I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light (changed for the worse), Diet Pepsi (changed to eliminate a particular brand of artificial sweetener...but then, happily, changed back again.  The only success to this story!)  If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

So many questions; so few answers.  I recently wondered what happened to Lazarus after Jesus raised him from the dead, since the Bible doesn't say.  I Googled it to find what "Eastern Orthodox tradition" says.  Unfortunately, tradition doesn't always equal truth.  I'll just keep on asking the tough questions.                  

Saturday, September 12, 2020

The Unexpected Aftermath of 9/11

 Yesterday, the flag of the USA flew at half-staff in memory of the lives lost in the terrorist attacks in America on September 11, 2001.  Each year, we remember, and although it has been 19 years since that awful day, it doesn't get easier.  Americans old enough to think at the time can recall where they were and what they were doing when they got the news that America was under attack.  Of course, none of us knew the extent of what was coming.  Was this a coup?  How many more hijacked planes are there?  Are we safe?  What should we do?  Drastic historic decisions were made, and time stopped as things unfolded so fast that we could scarcely take it all in.  Just when all seemed safe, America had changed.  

At first, we were all about our first responders.  So many police and fireman lost lives.  When relief came from outside of New York, people lined the streets cheering for the buses of those who had come to help.  People hugged each other tighter, realizing the true priorities in life.  Parents sought ways to talk to their children about the event without unduly frightening them.  American flags flew everywhere.  "United We Stand" became more than just a motto.  It was a charge for us to take care of each other.  And we did.  It was many months before even television programming could tout the absurd and profane again.  As a nation, we were too injured, too raw, to even think of laughing or having a good time.  We were grieving our loss of innocence.  

Slowly, we emerged from our funk into a world that had changed forever.  Some of those changes are good.  Some, not so much.  

1.  Flight security tightened up severely.  The TSA was invented.  In order to get through security at airports, people must now submit their carry-on baggage, purses, pocket contents, and shoes to x-ray scrutiny, then walk through a metal detector/scanner in order to pass.  In my travels since then, I have been selected twice for special scrutiny.  It was inconvenient, for sure, but I didn't really complain because it was supposedly for our own safety.  

2.  Muslims were suddenly the enemy because the terrorist attackers were radicalized Muslims.  Anyone who even looked the slightest bit Middle-Eastern--even those who were born and raised in the USA--were under attack.  Nineteen years later, they still are.  One of my colleagues was a naturalized American Hindu from India and planning to go "home" to visit his family during  spring break after the disaster.  I was so very afraid for him.  Thank God, he made it home okay.  (There are also radicalized Christians among us.  This isn't lost to me.)

3.  The Department of Homeland Security was developed.  No one really knows what they do or are supposed to do, even to this day.  But it sounds good.

4.  I think this is the biggest change of all.  We had been a trusting society, and then the lid blew off.  Suddenly, it was "us" against "them", which became a new learning curve.  Get them before they get us.  One of the first flights post-9/11 came with a lecture from the pilot saying, if someone threatens our safety, fight back.  Throw stuff at the attacker.  Do what you have to do to save the plane.  And it made sense.  Changes were made on aircraft to prevent anyone from entering the cockpit, but the inevitable outcome of a hijacking rested with the passengers.  No one could trust the system anymore.  Our collective consciousness was raised to understand that fate is sometimes left up to us.

And therein lies the problem.  Now, America is no longer united.  Extremists have taken over.  There are forces at work to divide us, and it gets worse every single day.  We have become a nation of autonomous entities no longer concerned about us as a country.  It's "every man for himself", and it never used to be like that.

I have grandchildren who didn't ask for this world.  They deserve better than what we have given them, which--because of COVID and other things--they are having to deal with things they didn't create.  I'm ashamed of our leadership.  Donald Trump has sold us all down the river, if you can forgive that race-related comment.  Or maybe I should just be ashamed that we, as a nation, were so naive before the stuff hit the fan.

Please pray for us.  We sure do need Divine Intervention!  

    

     

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

More About My Legs

Last post on this topic had me going to a podiatrist.  Got my toenails clipped, given a blood draw for organ functions, and put on an antibiotic for possible cellulitis.  I was also scheduled for a PADnet test to determine if my poor swollen legs/feet were due to Peripheral Artery Disease.  Bottom line: nope.  Antibiotic didn't change the redness in my leg, and the PADnet test came out NORMAL, as did the blood work.  The doc said she could refer me to a vein specialist if I wanted but otherwise seemed unconcerned.  

This is the story of my life!  Things happen.  I get tested and tested, but the results are always normal, so no need to go back...with no explanation of why what's going on happens.  It's up to me to figure out what to do next.  Most of the time, I give up and just live with the problem, but that's insane because situations don't usually get better on their own.  At least, not at my age.  It's so very frustrating!

I guess my next move is to go back to my Primary Care Physician and ask where we go from here.  Something is wrong.  I want to know what so I can fix it, if I can.  So here we go....

Monday, September 7, 2020

The Selfishness of Giving

 Looking back on my life, I have determined that I had three unwitting goals:  1) to make every place just a tiny bit better for my having been there, 2) to find and provide roots, for me and my family, and 3) to find a way to be useful. 

Goal #1 happened over time and in different locations.  I joined churches and sang in the choir.  I taught children's Sunday School.  I worked as Youth Director, then later became a choir director.  I was on church and school committees.  I became the Indiana Coordinator for an amateur radio disaster network for a major faith-based charity.  I was a Girl Scout leader.  I was in community theater productions, musicals, and church cantatas, and even directed a few plays, myself.  All the while, I was keeping a full time job and raising a child, plus step-parenting two others, while maintaining home duties--cooking, cleaning, doing dishes, laundry, shopping, paying bills.  (I'm exhausted just thinking about it!)  I did it all because that's what I thought all people should do.  I wasn't a hero.  What I found out, years later after introspection, was that I always found ways to make myself the caregiver of everyone else.  Even when I should have been receiving care from others--or when they were quite capable of taking care of themselves--I would find ways to twist things to put myself in charge of taking care of virtually everything.  To this day, I don't know if I was martyring myself (although I didn't really complain to anyone), or if it was a control thing.  It was easy for me to see it in others, but I never saw it in myself.  All I know is that after my divorce, I had one less person to worry about, and the relief was enormous because my nurturing ways totally fit into my then-husband's manipulative ways.  It became a co-dependent, spiraling system that made me crazy!

Goal #2 wasn't even something on the surface of my consciousness.  In my early childhood, we were a military family.  Always one the move.  Sometimes more than was even required.  For instance, Dad was stationed in Danville, IL, once.  We moved there from California, into a rental home that was soon sold...so we moved to another rental home, essentially in a slummy area that kept my mother unhappy...which gave way to our having a pre-fab house built in a new subdivision.  Three home moves and three different schools in the same community in less than four years!  And just as I had made my very first best friend in all the world, we were sent to Japan, never to look back.  

When we were sent back to the States as civilians due to cutbacks in reserve officers on active duty, we settled in Oak Park, IL, a western suburb of Chicago, which is where I spent 6th-12th grade.  That's when I bloomed.  I could make connections and friends and find my own personality.  Prior to that, the only real roots I had--and they were strong ones--was with my mother's parents at the family farm homestead near Streator, IL.  Prior to that, the only stability we had, wherever we were, was with family: parents, grandparents, and first cousins from my mother's siblings.  Home was wherever they were.  Family was my only security, and that farm, my only place to call home.  (That actually shaped my life.  Family became everything to me.)  And when I married a school administrator, things didn't get much better.  Thus, when our daughter was born and he/we changed jobs and locations more often than I liked, I found myself seeking roots again.  Not just for me, this time, but for our daughter.  

Thirteen years later, when her father and I divorced, my daughter and I moved out of the particular community we were in to another nicer one, much closer to the school where I taught.  I left behind the lovely house that my husband and I had bought in the former town, and moved into a rented duplex in our new town.  A few months later, I was prepared to buy a small bungalow, with help from my dad on a downpayment.  I was bound and determined that, just because my husband had left the marriage didn't mean that our daughter should suffer living in rental housing where she couldn't have her cats.  We succeeded.  My daughter bloomed in Plainfield, IN.  She was in plays, musicals, and the highly-respected/award-winning show choir.  And she/we could finally keep her cats!    She graduated from school and went on to find and make her own roots.

I still live in the little house-on-a-slab that I bought in 1992.  Slightly over 28 years, and counting.  It's the longest I have ever lived anywhere in my entire life.  'Tis a tiny house by most standards, and I have made many major changes to it over the years, but it's mine and it's paid for.  Finally, roots!      

Goal #3 was easy, at first.  Married-teachers-turned-single-moms never lack for ways to feel wanted and needed.  There were days when I longed for respite from responsibilities.  Then, suddenly, my daughter was grown up and started a family of her own.  When my grandchildren came along, and their parents struggled financially, as most young families do, all of my non-teaching attention and every spare cent went to them.  They never really asked for help, and I didn't ask for anything in return.  I just did it because I loved them, and could.  It made me feel good.  I bought groceries and furniture and child items and entertainment.  And gave time.  Lots and lots of time.  I think I got more out of it than they did.

That marriage ended.  My daughter and grandchildren moved in with me with no warning.  We did the best we could, then made some major adjustments to the house to provide for everyone.  I was needed even more as Megan got a job and took college classes, all the while caring for two young children.  We were a team!  A year or so later, my daughter met an international student online.  He was going to Indiana State University, about 1 1/2 hours from us.  She was smitten.  A lot of crazy things happened thereafter, not all of which I care to talk about here, but the bottom line was that they married, moved to the West Coast, then back to the Midwest, then to the Pacific Northwest where they are now, half a continent away from Mom/Grandma.  I retired just before all of that happened, so my income dropped considerably.  No longer could I help--physically or financially.  

Truth be known, they don't need my help, physically or financially.  My son-in-law is, what we call in the vernacular, a kick-ass provider.  I am, what we call in the vernacular, a disabled old lady, stuck at home in a pandemic.  Thank God, my house has been paid off for a couple of years now which frees up a sizeable chunk of my income...but I'm still not anywhere close to rich.  I have to pay for things that others can still do for themselves, and it kills me!  When did I get old?  How did this happen?  I have worked so hard all my life...is this my reward?  To sit in my house all alone and rely on the rest of the world just to get me through the day?  And what is down the road for me?

Me, me, me.

Almost two years ago, my house needed a new roof.  It was old and had moss growing on it, and the company that carried my homeowner's insurance threatened to drop my coverage if I didn't take care of it.  I had a deadline in April of that year, so I got busy.  Got estimates; went with the lower one; procured a loan from my bank; and got a new roof within mere days.  Whew!  And then the miracle happened.  When the first loan payment was due, I got some weird email from my bank indicating that I didn't owe anything.  Thinking it was surely an error, I called the bank.  The rep told me it was no mistake.  Some anonymous someone had paid off my $5,000 loan.  I couldn't believe it.  I made the woman check again.  She did and was almost gleeful about verifying that the loan was paid off.  She would only tell me, as I quizzed her, that it wasn't my daughter, and my sister says no, as well.  Do you know what that does to a person?  If someone was willing to bestow a $5k gift to me, how much more should I do for others??  

 One day a few years ago, a former student said something on Facebook that caused me to ask, "Do you need help?"  She did.  That started a partnership, of sorts.  I discovered that I could buy $100 worth of groceries from Aldi that would make a difference in her family without denting my own larder.          *Another former student was going through some really rough health problems.  I provided some meals and some support, some groceries and some cash.  Guess what?  I didn't starve as a result.                  *Yet another former student complained that he probably wasn't going to get a Thanksgiving dinner because of his circumstances where he lived with his father.  He and I went out and bought the fixings for the entire feast, and then some, for $150.  My bank account survived without the lack of a Thanksgiving feast of my own.  And later, when he had a change of living accommodations, since he had no income and no way to help with his own support, I took him to a local food pantry once a month to help him have something to contribute to his new household.  All I spent on those trips was for gas.  We also took a shopping trip to buy him some clothing when he outgrew what he had.                            *Most recently, I took on a deal that just came to me.  Someone who helps me a lot and for whom I care deeply has been struggling to figure out how to repair her second vehicle that has been dead in the water at her home for two years.  There is a second car that she and her live-in son share, but it gets tricky.  With her permission, I had the dead vehicle towed to my favorite mechanic.  We're waiting on the verdict now, but all she could do was cry.  "No one has ever done anything like this for me!" 

Oh, sweetie...I'm not doing anything for you.  I'm doing it for me!  I'm trying to justify my  own footprint on the planet.  It isn't enough just to live and breathe.  There has to be a reason to exist in the world:  give to it or take away from it.  My contributions to my friends and neighbors are in dribs and drabs, but I do what I can.  I still want to be useful to pay back for what I have received so many times over.  Please, please...don't think for a second that what I do makes me some kind of saint.  I give because I am selfish!