Sometimes it is hard to write. Some days it feels as if my brain is either empty or gone. Today is one of those days. I worked in the garden this morning and the heat and humidity almost made me melt. There was a little bit of breeze but not enough to really help.
We have a big yard. My husband takes care of the lawn and I do the flower beds. ….or more accurately the flower beds do me. It has been raining a lot and things are growing at an enormous rate….that is the weeds, the vines and anything I don’t want. The flowers..not so much.
We are blessed with an enormous amount of vines. Some of them arrived on their own and some I think my grandmother planted. Unfortunately the vines which she planned would be wonderful, have developed a mind of their own and if you stand in one place in my yard for long you may be covered in greenery.
It is a constant battle for me to keep the vines from killing the azaleas which edge our property. I think the vines are winning. I start at one end of the yard and work to the other end and begin again. Two years ago I pruned the azaleas drastically which did help.
Learning to choose the right amount of work to do each day is critical to our well being. If I plan to do too much then when I can’t complete the task I feel defeated. If I plan to do too little I chastise myself for not getting enough done. This is an important life lesson. Many people are called upon to work to exhaustion in their jobs. They are made to take on too much for fear of losing their jobs. How did we get to this point?
We all need good work to do or we are not stimulated and enriched. If the work is overwhelming we become stressed, anxious and less productive. Given appropriate amount of work and we become more creative and efficient. Businesses need to understand that overwork makes us worse workers.
We have to remember this in the things we choose to do also. We cannot take on too little or too much. We have to reach that happy medium.
Life never goes backwards. It continues to move us forward even if we don’t want to. We all have thoughts about what we will be like as we grow older. I envisioned this slim elegant woman. Didn’t happen. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder “who is that person.” I have not aged the way I thought I would. I imagine you have noticed that the picture on my site is one of my basset hounds. There is a reason for that. I always thought that I would age gracefully but it has not worked out that way. My body didn’t cooperate. Who is that person in the mirror?
“You did the best you could” words that we say or think often. Sometimes we struggle to keep going. Sometimes we don’t know what to do. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed and completely lost. So we fall back on doing the best we can. Later we question ourselves. Was it enough? Did we really do our best?
This is the trap we fall into. Life is not perfect. Decisions that we make can not always be perfect but we expect it of ourselves. We have to adjust our expectations of ourselves. Expectations can kills us. We see failure where there is none. We push ourselves too hard. Again, life is not perfect. Things may not be okay at the moment but we can go on. We can tale each day as it comes. We can trust that we tried our best and that is all we can do.
We live an up an down life. At least I know some of us do. Things aren’t perfect. The ability to work through the imperfect is critical to our well being. That kind of strength is what helps us to survive.
We must learn how to cope early and keep on learning our entire life. Each bump in the road teaches us how to handle the next. We learn how to take detours and keep on going. We may suffer in the process but we survive and can use our knowledge to help the next person on the road.
Well, another day has gone by. Family issues have been there for one day. The things that can’t be fixed are still there. There is nothing to do about them. Obsessing about them doesn’t help. Worrying doesn’t fix them. Life moves on and we have a choice. We can move on with it and solve the things we can solve and or just fall down into the dark hole of depressions and anxiety. That really doesn’t seem like a choice.
Life can be strange. So many poignant things happen. So much of it is called a coincidence. Someone misses a plane and the plane goes down and they don ‘t die. You see a car accident right in front of you and your car is spared. Sometimes when these things happen people have survivors guilt. It is easy to feel bad that someone died in your place. There are no answers to why these things happen. I wish that our questions could be answered and we could see the logic but that doesn’t happen.
Families are interesting. I am an only child and so I never had siblings to deal with. When my husband and I married I never thought about how families interact. We have three wonderful children who are married to great people. That expanded out family from three plus us to six +. Now each of them has 2 children which has expanded the family to 12 +. We also have had to work with the in-laws. None of them are bad people but again it added another element to the group.
Some days just don’t go the way you expect. It was a pretty normal morning. ..doing some house cleaning and puttering about the house before getting ready to meet friends for lunch. Then unexpectedly something triggered memories of my best friend who died two years ago. It brought tears to my eyes. It colored my day in a peculiar way. I looked at things differently. As I went through the day I paid more attention to the things around me. I noticed (more than once) what a beautiful day it was. I enjoyed lunch with friends and spent more time listening to them than talking myself. I actually heard everything that was said. I think I was more aware of life around me and how transient everything is.
Sometimes people who are young look at those of us who are older with disdain. What do we know? They dismiss us or not even see us. It usually doesn’t bother me but sometimes I see someone just ignore someone elderly and it makes me furious.
Don’t dismiss older people because of their age. Yes, some people have dementia or fading memory. Some choose to sit in a chair and vegetate but they are not in the majority. My contemporaries are out there doing good works. Don’t dismiss us!
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