Untethered…

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I am not alone in feeling confused. How is it possible that almost two years of our existence have been lost to Covid? It really does make me wonder how much of life has been disrupted for young people who were essentially about to embark on the discovery of who they were? I return in my mind to the days when I was a high school graduate. That was an unusual year. The Nixon scandal was unravelling and I skipped school in order to watch the proceedings on television. I missed so many days the nuns warned me I was in peril of not graduating. When I heard that, I panicked and decided to attend all my classes. Imagine if my parents had found out I was skipping school to watch Maureen Dean sitting stoically behind her husband as he testified? I don’t want to image that!

Life was very different back then. We had adults telling us what to do all the time. We more or less took it to heart and were pretty good followers of rules, at least I was. Today’s young people (rightly or not) are cut from a different cloth. They have experienced so much in their lives, growing up too quickly but not maturing properly in my opinion. The mediocrity of our society is not their fault but they are inheriting it and in their rage are not really helping to make things better, just kind of delaying the inevitable.

I am feeling very untethered and unsettled these days. The last couple of months have seen me taking care of my daughter’s cat and as a consequence of having a schedule to work around with him, I have excused myself from getting on with my creative writing. I know that taking care of him has had nothing to do with my personal procrastination. And yet, I have been finding it difficult to sit and just continue to work on my story which, truth be told, has me very eager to complete. I have created lovely characters, my writers’ group has kindly bestowed positive feedback and is willing to hear more. I try not to disappoint, after all agreeing to belong to a group confers an unspoken commitment to share our work. I am pleased with where my story is going but I can see elements of procrastination and a lack of formality when I do sit to write. Suddenly the cobwebs beneath a table or chair become priorities. How silly.

I believe we are living in an age (despite all the opposite proof) where women really can achieve a lot more than say 60 years ago. That being said, I also believe we have not made the progress one would have expected by now. We are not showing kindness or solidarity to one another (I am referring specifically to women) and that has been the major contributor to our status quo. I have always wanted to write. My blogs are not exactly what I mean by “writing” but they at least force me to sit for a while and try to get out an essay for the “bots” to peruse and send to the cybersphere. I know my writing will never “go viral” but I am content for now with where I am. After all, I have yet to sit and write what I would consider a “viral-worthy” post, but I am working on it. As long as I consistently blog, improvement has to happen.

2022 Approaches

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It is unreal each Friday how quickly the week has passed. Mondays are very busy days for me, they are a total contrast from the “boring”, quiet Sundays that have become the norm in my life. I made my Mondays the day that I schedule to do a huge amount of domestic chores. It has been that way ever since my children were born (30 years!) because as a stay-at-home mom, I knew there was an immense danger of becoming glued to the television and waiting until the weekend to do laundry, etc. I didn’t think it was fair to my husband whose generosity (and good income) made it possible for me to stay home (my choice) to ask him to help with laundry when we should be spending the weekends enjoying family time.

I remember looking around on Mondays in the laundry room of our apartment complex and realizing that no one did laundry on Mondays. Since I was completely against hiring household help or letting anyone take care of my infant son, I took him everywhere. I like to remember my children as perfect angels who never cried in public or made scenes begging for those highly visible, enticing goodies that were displayed at the cash register. Alas, I know they were really well-behaved but it would be untrue to say that they never, ever embarrassed me. I sympathize with parents everywhere, especially those suffering confinement in Covid times. Better days are coming and if the numbers in my neighborhood are any indication, they are coming soon!

As an older mother, I was more inclined to be patient and explain everything to death in that condescending way we have when talking to someone who isn’t quite as savvy as we are. Every once in a while, a young person will try to explain something to me using that very tactic and I admit it does not make me feel good. I notice it whenever I take my computer or printer or phone for repairs or to purchase supporting hardware. In their defense, I am old (66) and I don’t look the part of the technological expert that I have (honestly) always been. Technology fascinates me, it rarely stumps me but the kids selling computer things don’t know that and are usually quite taken aback when I easily go from one app to another without losing a phone connection. If I weren’t so busy trying to get back to the job I want done, I would probably enjoy the experience. But I digress.

I am truly retired now. My commitments to the community all concluded and as much as people said they would miss me and would not be able to get on without me, they seem to have forgotten my very existence. It has been about 4 months and not a single one of my colleagues has even checked in with me. I used to have a monthly e-publication that I stopped publishing 4 years ago. When I am out and about and people see me, they will come and say hello and add “We really miss the publication, you should start it up again.” My ego bursts with pride and my crazy mind latches on to the possibility of getting back into it. Then I look at my husband’s face and smile at the absurdity of such a thought. He witnessed what it took for me to publish the magazine, celebrating when it was over and I could relax all the days of the month. Between then and now, I have had closure on many more projects. Now I want to devote myself fully to my writing which I am happy to say I have been able to do more frequently. I have five blogs that I am committed to writing in weekly. I don’t always make it, but I make it most weeks. My modest subscriber list is growing and knowing that I am reaching people from all over the world truly makes me happy.

Chores will always be there, they can be done any day of the week when one is retired but I am very comfortable with a scheduled routine that allows me to work like crazy one full day in the week and then take my time doing everything else I want the other 6 days. I have been a very fortunate person and I don’t take that fact for granted any day of the week.

MyFitnessPal

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On July 18th I read a blog (Cheryl Richardson) that encouraged me to look into the app MyFitnessPal for help with losing weight and getting in shape safely, etc. By this time if you are a regular reader of my blog you are aware that weight issues have plagued me to different degrees my entire life. Although I did have a good 25 years of maintaining an important weight loss, the pounds started have creeping up on me about 20 years ago, and now at age 66 (well, I did start at age 63) I realize that if I want to live to 100 (which I do) I need to lose at least 40 lbs. but I will start with 20! A 40 lb. gain in 20 years works to only 2 lbs. per year but it does add up.

So, on July 18th, I decided that if Ms. Richardson was successful and happy with the app and I have followed her for about 20 years, why not give it a try? The app offers a month free trial which was a mistake for me, I wanted to dive right in with all the premium bells and whistles, that’s how committed I felt. Knowing that I had a month to try it out and possibly change my mind was not a good thing because it kept me kind of in “trial mode”. I gave all my credit card information (a story for another day) and set up my account. I read articles and generally psyched myself up for the trial month but I could tell that my real motivation was not going to kick in until I my card was actually charged which would not be until August 18. It makes no sense to me but I have decided to accept this reality and just move on.

August 18th came along. The money was charged and off we went. I weighed myself and logged all my information but I confess I could not declare my real weight which was difficult for me to accept, I logged 2 kgs. less because in pounds it translated to a number I could more or less accept. These numbers are private, I am not sure how my mind was working. After about six weeks of Intermittent Fasting (IF) plus MyFitnessPal, I still weighed the same as I had logged in. I was so disappointed because I was being “good”. Then I started to think a little deeper and realized that I had in fact lost 2 kgs and was now truly weighing what I originally logged in (which at the time was not true). How silly. I went back to the beginning of my history and changed the numbers to reflect the correct weight I was when I began and the weight I am now, which is 2 kgs (4.4 lbs.) less. I had to face the fact that I had been playing a mind game with myself. I can’t explain why and like the criminal who finally comes clean, I feel so relieved to be working with real numbers.

I had never done that kind of thing before, so self-defeating and stressful. I will continue to monitor my weight daily for a while simply to keep track of where I make my mistakes. I am not concerned so much with dieting now but with actually eating mindfully and accepting the outcome of my behaviors. I have eliminated all alcohol for the time being because I look forward to enjoying a cocktail in the future, perhaps in celebration of renewed reunions once these Covid restrictions go away. It might be some time yet but in the meantime, I can muse on the craziness that goes on in my head when I think about my weight, which didn’t use to be all the time but seems to be now.

I am happy that my weight has never stopped me from enjoying getting dressed and it has never stopped me from participating in a variety of activities during my life. I was able to enjoy life to the fullest the years when I was normal weight and that is good because those were the years when my children were young and people in our circle were very judgmental of the overweight. At age 66, a retired, happily-married empty nester, no one gives me a second glance or thought. It is quite liberating actually, if lonely at times.