Saturday, May 1, 2021

Saturday, May 1, 2021

 

            I slept well until 2. After that, my sleep was disturbed. I am feeling isolated and lonely. I don't need a lot of attention, but I do need a particular order of connection. I had that with Mike. I am going to have to learn to live without it. Since I've given up on trying to connect with people who are not comfortable for me, this is a particularly lonely period. I hit a point like this at least two times before in my life, no three.

            The first was realizing that 30% overlap between two people is a high degree of intimacy. I started looking for what I did share instead of focusing on what I didn't. It made me more comfortable with more people. I started functioning in societally normal ways.

      The second was in my early thirties. I made my peace that I never would find a life partner. I would have to depend on 'dates.' I resolved to make myself comfortable in these situations where I had never been before. I set limits. I would date any man I didn't think would do me bodily harm. They couldn't call me more than once a week and only one date a month. Mike was my third date. He loved that I was so clear about my boundaries. Sometime after we moved to Hawaii, he told me he appreciated my straightforwardness. He said he didn't have to guess what I was thinking. He loved my transparency.

     The third was when I had to give up on having a decent relationship with my mother. I wrote her a letter telling her I had always been afraid of her. I had tried everything, and nothing had worked. I was going to take time off from my relationship with her. A year and a half later, I saw her again at a relatives' Thanksgiving dinner. We were distant and courteous with each other. I figured that's what it would be like for the rest of our lives. It was sad but the best we could do. I love being loving, freely, joyfully expressing loving feelings. Not everyone is so happy to be a recipient of those random moments of expression. Our relationship blossomed under the new terms. Ten years later, she moved into the mother-in-law attachment to the Princeton house Mike and I  just bought with her help. Was our relationship perfect? No. We never worked out how to hold a conversation, but we could look at each other and smile, our eyes filled with love for each other.

     Now is the fourth time I have to face that possibility of isolation again. It was a risk I took back then. It is still a risk. Will it work out well for me? Nothing but questions. In the meantime, I'm working on creating a life for myself alone.  

        I'm thinking fifteen years ahead. What if we have to sell the house or move? What will I do? Dealing with it at 95 won't be so easy. I don't want to be utterly alone with only a 'caretaker.' I need more human contact. Can I find someone to move in, another elderly person? We would share common areas and share company. I wouldn't want to live with someone who would spend all their time hunkered down in their room.  

            I remember once when I was walking home with Damon and Cylin when they lived in Silver Lake. We passed a building squeezed in between several other buildings. Cylin said, "You can live here, and we'll visit." That was traumatic. I need a space surrounded by nature. That is what I love most about where I live now. I am always in nature. There are no artificial temperature controls here, except for fans. I hate air-conditioning and am not a big fan of heating. I'm thinking of finding some family that will take me in while children and grandchildren run around the house. Of course, they would have to be paid to keep me, but I wouldn't be locked away somewhere.

      There are those whose social impulse is the exact opposite of mine. They burrow down. Instead of moving out more as life progresses, they burrow deeper and deeper. People err one way or another. We all have to grow and change or suffer the consequences. Rather than growth and change, it's probably more like accepting that life doesn't work the way you think it should and adjusting.

    I only had A today. Before we started, his mom announced that he had been moved up a level in reading. The whole family was excited. I don't know what level he was on or to what level he was promoted. I would love to. I also asked his mom if she could use my rapidly dispatched instructions on using long-term memory. She said yes; they used it, and he was much better. I told her kudos to her for having even had a vague clue what I was talking about.

     A and I worked on his sight word vocabulary. He read some of the words on the list faster and with greater accuracy and then got stuck on some words I've seen him have trouble with before. Oh, those were a lost cause. His processing problems get in his way here. Of course, the words are challenging to start with. While her and were rhyme, here and were, which are spelled the same, don't. Then there's there, which also has the ere spelling rhymes with neither here nor were.   OMG! How do I help this boy learn these words? If there is a will, there is a way. 

    At one point, I pushed A to use crossbody blending. I think it was to help him remember the difference between the b and d. "When the line comes first, the letter is b." I finally asked him why he didn't use it. I got an answer- a well-thought-through one to boot. He said he didn't want to depend on it; he wanted to be able to do it on his own. He wanted to be like the other kids. Oh, boy. I tried to tell him he was to use it to train his brain. He wouldn't have to use it forever. Also, he can move his arms under the table across his legs in school. I would have to work with him in our next session on this. Now that I know he is deliberately avoiding the strategy, my role is clearer.

            I videoed the second half of Phase I of the Phonics Discovery system approach. I sent it out to Judy. I wrote to Dorothy asking her if she would be interested in helping me edit this video. She is by far the best editor I've had. She thinks deeply about the material, and she gives honest feedback. She doesn't pull her punches. She is a treasure.

    It rained on and off the whole day. The sky was never clear. The humidity hung heavy in the air. While in the past months, when the weather was like that, I wore two sweatshirts the whole day; the humidity created a dank chill. Today, it was hot and sticky. There was no breeze to speak of either. I was down to a T-shirt. I took a long nap at midday. In the evening, I watched another episode of Endeavor. Boy, what a treat!