Sunday, September 19, 2021

 Sunday, September 19, 2021

 

 On my morning walk, I ran into Julie and Vince together. The other day I ran into them separately. Vince complained that he couldn’t get Julie to move. He says her doctor encourages Vince to push her. A little later, Julie came along. She said Vince wants everything his way and won’t wait for her. They do have different schedules. Vince likes to get up a 2 am. He spent many years as a professional fisherman. He goes to bed by 6:30. Today, he told me he’s full of energy in the morning and only good for watching TV after 1 pm. It sounds to me like Vince is bullying Julie.

   Julie lagged behind while Vince trudged on. We talked about beliefs in the soul and God of all things. It was triggered by Julie talking about YouTube presentations she’s been watching on psychics. 

    I worked on my updates and house cleaning and took a nap. As I woke, I thought I needed to get up, hit the road, and call Darby. I make a point of walking when I’m on the phone. As I was about to sit up, the phone rang. It was Darby. We must have talked for about an hour. She wanted to know how to tell when Mei was home. She was confused by all the cars. I explained that Mei is running a Turo business with 15 SUVs. “Oh!!!! No wonder I’m confused!” Darby and I also talked at length about the progress we’re making with our bodies. We both suffered setbacks and are working on regaining strength and mobility. Our attitudes are the same. We both celebrate the small victories. Not everyone agrees with our philosophy on the role of the individual in the healing process. Many people would prefer to be passive and let the healing process be the job of the professional who provides medications or surgeries. Darby and I are not on that page.

    Brian called. At first, I was concerned, but he was fine. I think he started calling to say hello. Brian was excited to tell me that he was flying to Carolina (one of them, I think) to help his daughter move into an apartment. She’s in her freshman year of college. He hasn’t seen her since she was four- a very acrimonious split with her mom. But the girl has grown up, and Brian is a different person than he was back then. He has become a wonderfully supportive person. I think he likes who he has become too. He’s doing better with all the members of his family.  

    I finally looked through the old credit card bills from 2019, which I ordered from the credit card company for a fee, to find the name of the termite company that tented my house in 2019. It was easy to find. I don’t make many payments in the thousands of dollars. 

   Shivani called. She’s considering coming for Thanksgiving but is concerned about Covid. Sidney is four and a half and unvaccinated. I would rather they erred on the side of caution. I don’t need someone here visiting me that much at any point.

  I unpacked the weed whacker with plans of assembling it. The instructions are limited at best. I did figure out how to charge the battery. There’s this large object. I looked it over carefully to find where to plug in the charging cord. No luck. I finally figured out the battery had another piece I had to attach. It was that piece that had the outlet for the charger. I plugged it in.

   Then I sat down to figure out how to assemble the rest. Forget it. As I understood the instructions, it started with, “Make sure the machine is turned off.” 

I texted Scott to ask for help. Casey will be here on Thursday for yoga; he and Scott can probably figure it out together.

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Musings:

The nature of love:

There are desire-driven love and satisfaction-driven love.

 

I think when love is desire driven, what we really desire is something within ourselves. We believe the other person will fulfill a need or help us become something other than what we currently are. They will help us be something or experience something. For some reason, people love feeling desire. I’ve been there. I like some wanting but not that type of desire that takes over your life and becomes all-important. That sounds more like an addiction. We want something we can only hope to achieve with the help of another or some substance.

  Then there is love which is driven by delight. We’re just thrilled with the person the way they are. We are delighted by their presence and by small acts. We are filled with the desire to express that joy, that satisfaction. I was so lucky to experience that with Mike. I loved being that person.

It’s not that I didn’t want to be more than I was or, on occasion, feel more than I did, but that was on me, not on him.

    I remember a comment a college classmate made. “We always desire passionately. If we could only accept passionately.”