I called LSW, the company holding my annuity. They had emailed me a document to reassign the beneficiaries since Mike no longer needed the money. They agreed to hard mail me one.
The Bikram class was small today, probably because it was overcast, and no one wanted to get out of bed. I didn't. I had my chiropractor appointment at 9:30 and was in somewhat of a hurry. Obstacles were thrown in my way left and right. The shower door at the yoga studio had been closed already. I had to go around to the front and ask if someone could open the door. When I got to the dressing room, Yvette was occupying the only one available since Crista was doing some painting. She took forever because it was hard to get her clothes on in the humidity. Too sticky. To move things along, I asked the woman sitting on the bench with her back to the window in the storefront lobby to please hold up my towel. She understood what I had in mind and was good with it. I peeled off my sports bra top and wrapped the towel around me. I managed to get myself dry and put on my T-shirt before Yvette got out. Then I ducked into the stall, stripped off the pants, and put on my underwear and street shorts. I made it to my appointment just in the nick of time.
Kim, the chiropractor, continued working on my upper body and my left ankle, which was expanded to my left shin and my left IT band. I thought that I have made improvements in my spinal curvature, but Kim says there's no difference. When I made an adjustment in my ribs, she said that it threw my hips off. Hmm! Not good. I made a different adjustment, pulling my ribs up rather than to the side, and she said that wasn't as bad. I know in the yoga class I look straighter. I'm certainly using different sets of muscles, more core muscles are involved in everything I do.
I'm thinking Mike is still with me always. I don't think of myself of thinking of him because I am never not thinking about him. After 45 years, he's a constant subtheme in my mind. I always knew where he is, approximately at times, but more often than not exactly where he was. He loved sharing schedules. This was part of his campaign to defeat chaos. He was as much a part of my sense of self as the air. I can't imagine him not being around. But as time passes, my sense of where he is getting fuzzier. I don't worry because reality kicks in. Ah, yes. He's just not anymore. No worries.
Damon didn't call yesterday. It did make me sad. I do seem to need that consistency, that commitment. I will ask for it. We'll see. I agreed to be his guardian, at his request, if both his parents died; now, he is my one of my guardians that I have lost my primary caretaker. I am becoming more aware that I have no one who is my default person and for whom I am their default person. I have a good number of people concerned about me and reach out, but it's not the same. Mike was wonderful that way. If he was away, he called every night and sometimes several times a day. We were always connected, even if we were doing different things.
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Musings
I think I finally got what people mean by ego, but I think it is at least an inappropriate use of language. Ego, as it is commonly used, means a person's belief that their way is always right, and that they're better than everyone else.
Aside from ego's function simply defining ourselves: female, first-generation American, 78, recently widowed (my ego is in the process of incorporating that definition), a resident of Hawaii, a joyful, grateful resident of Hawaii. Ego can also be a person's belief that their way is always wrong, and that they are worse than everyone else. The latter is also a definition of yourself, a person's ego-sense. One either has a healthy, functional ego or an unhealthy dysfunctional ego; no, instead, our egos are on a continuum. Some aspects of our egos are functional, and some parts are in use of improvement.
The dysfunctional ego is always judging other people or self by some internal rules, judging others, or themselves as right or wrong. I know when my ego points are hit. As someone once said to me, "if you want to know who you really are, see what you project onto others." Caveat: I believe this means many others. There are always people whose traits we really dislike. I do check myself, but it is still hard for me to see some of the characteristics I see in someone else are in myself, even if I know better. Sometimes, these traits may be well hidden from me and even others, but some piece is stuck in me like a hard to extract splinter. I continue to work on this with my therapist. I find that what is most annoying to me serves as the best key as to what needs to be resolved.
When I was a child, I was introduced to the concept of hubris. My parents defined that as any form of pride, at least my mother did. She saw encouraging any sense in her children that they had done something well or were good people as bad parenting; she thought she was doing something dangerous for her children. (Go figure. She was very, very German. She was a stereotype of a German.) But hubris as I understand it isn't just overconfidence as to one's worth, but an assumption I am better than others, I am elevating myself to the level of the gods, or God. I am holding myself as someone above the limitations of mere mortals.
This is a good argument for believing in God if it prevents us from assuming that we are godlike. Ah, if only this would work. But instead, people seem to think that they are riding to excellence on the tail of their God, who is better than any other god. We are an annoying species.
Also, there is ego flexibility. If there is a change, can I cope with it? If my husband dies and I am no longer a 'wife,' am I still a worthwhile person? Or am I now worthless, no longer a person, because I have lost my status as 'wife'? Mike's mother fell victim to that belief. My mother, who had her own problems, did not. She became heroic in the face of her new responsibilities; mother of two children 15 and 10, and her own mother. She is my role model in this regard. Thank you, Mom.
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