Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

    I went to bed around 9:30, read briefly, and fell asleep. I woke up around 3 and found it hard to fall back asleep. I calculated I had slept soundly for six hours. That was not bad. Then, I suffered from waves of anxiety or fear. I worked on sitting with it rather than trying to outrun it. Outrunning involves a lot of conceptual thinking. Sitting with it involves just observing the feelings in my body and my head- calmly.   The work I did with Shelly last week may have reduced this fear state enough so that I can handle it on my own now. It wasn't pleasant, but neither was it overwhelming.   Deep grief hit me when I got up for the day. Nonetheless, I had things to do, people to see- thank God.

    Today I got Wordle on the fourth try. I had enough information from two of my three test words to try. 

   I called the dentist before taking Elsa out for our first walk. I discovered a rough edge on one of my lower front lower teeth the other day. At first, I thought, "Ah, I cracked another tooth." I noticed an area in my mouth that is often irritated. This may be a problem. I want to get the edge smoothed so the inside of my mouth won't be irritated.

    I found an Easter card in the mail from my friend Carol. We met close to twenty years ago when I started teaching at Licking Heights. My first placement was with middle and high school students in a newly opened building. I taught ESL, and Carol taught middle school English in a room across the hall from my class. She asked for help with one of her students, and we became friends. Now, she lives near one of her daughters, and much of her life involves ferrying her three grandkids. She loves it. We speak periodically. She is very supportive.  

   Carol and I are extroverts; we talk to anyone anytime. Mike found this unnerving. Carol said her own kids asked why she had to do that. Judy is like me too. Love being around people who are like me in this regard.

  I had a productive day for chores. When I got up regularly to get movement in, I went out and did some weeding. I trashed the old tax receipts sitting in a box for several years. I only had to cut out our social security numbers on the tax returns. No single account was listed in the return that was still active. I also did some dusting. 

  In the middle of all this, I designed my own gravestone. I bought Mike and me two 12" by 24" granite slabs. I shipped both to Oahu because there is no stone engraver here on the Big Island. I used Sandor's design for the box that held his ashes for Mike's gravestone.

         I finished the book High Conflict. At the end of the book, the author made one comment that sometimes high conflict, a win/lose outcome, is called for. I called my friend Melissa. I promised her the book when I was finished. She was in the middle of a book about the Spanish flu. She said we made all the same mistakes with Covid as they made back in 1918. When I told her about my planned THR surgery, she asked if I would be getting daily shots to prevent blood clots. Yikes! I didn't know. Melissa knows of what she speaks; she is a surgeon, trained explicitly in obstetrics.

    I also told her I would be sure to get the second Covid booster from Kaiser. She told me she had just tried to make an appointment; the earliest was on April 28. Whoa! I called the moment I got off the phone. The earliest appointment in my local Kaiser clinic was on June 27. Yikes! The receptionist asked if I was willing to travel forty-five minutes to Waimea. You better believe it. I got an appointment for April 19, 2022

   I got an email from Mike's niece Shivani. She found out I was scheduled for hip replacement surgery. She read about it in my updates. I scheduled it for June 2 rather than May 17, the first offer, after her scheduled visit from May 24 through May 31. Amazingly, she offered to change her travel plans so she could take care of me during my recovery.   I have been very fortunate. I had a lot of support. Paulette offered to stay with me. Judy said between her and Paulette they could do it. When I called the church, TJ said they could find someone to help me out. None of this makes up for Mike not being here. I also realized this was my first time living alone since 1965.

   I had my own apartment for my first semester in grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since then, I have lived in group homes in grad school, the commune, and then with Mike for forty-five years. Having no one in my shared space is hard. People have encouraged me to get a housemate. However, I need someone I can live with harmoniously, not someone who moves through my home, avoiding all contact. I don't need someone who does everything with me. I didn't live with Mike that way. We ate together each night. I loved walking into a room and finding him there reading or napping. I loved living on one floor. He was always on the same level as me. I need presence. I don't need constant conversation. I have people who call and visit. Each time they do, it is an endless conversation. When the conversation is over, the call or the visit ends. I love a harmonious presence. If not downright happy, someone comfortable to have me in the space while they do their thing and I do mine. Worse than being alone is someone who avoids contact with me, hiding in their private quarters as much as possible. 

   I met with adolescent D. His memory of the words in the text improved slightly. We always started with the first item on the Driver's test. Today he made it through to item #6. Pretty good, but there are something like one hundred seventy-seven items. I'm sure some words will be repeated. This poor kid has such memory problems.