Aging

Birthday blues

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Tomorrow is my birthday.

What do I want? Something that can’t be bought in a store.

I want a day of peace and tranquility. Just one day that is problem free. I want an escape from my normal routine.

Every day is the same. I start a couple loads of laundry before heading off to work. I deal with problems at work. Then I deal with problems at home. Sometimes simultaneously. After I make supper, clean the kitchen, and fold laundry I finally get to go to bed. I wake up and do it all over again the next day. Although I enjoy working and keeping busy, sometimes adulting can be monotonous and the responsibility burdensome.

I have to work tomorrow. After work, the kids want to do something with me. All I want from them is peace. I don’t want to hear any fighting. Even when we play games, they constantly tease each other by calling names or saying that their siblings suck. They say that it is all in jest, but I don’t find it very funny.

Paul has play practice on my birthday. I should’ve known to lower my expectations when he got the lead part in the summer play. He doesn’t have time for me anymore. I was hoping that he would go up north with me last weekend. When we got together with theater friends last week, he spontaneously offered to take them sailing this past weekend. So he did that instead. Then he asked me to crew for his race last night, but I was replaced by his theater friends. I was okay with that because I only wanted to be a sub. However, he has been sailing with a much younger single woman (not alone) from the theater that thinks he’s hot. I guess I would care more if she was attractive. I was hoping to sail with Paul for almost a week for our anniversary, but we cut it back to a weekend for play practice. I am getting really sick of it already.

I feel left out. I didn’t know all of the inside jokes. I am just an introvert who wants to feel included, but doesn’t want to go. I feel like no one cares about me. The kids really don’t need me much anymore. Sometimes I don’t really care about me either. I almost got hit by a car this morning while I was out riding my bike. The lady almost went through a stop sign. She slammed on her brakes last minute when she saw me. I didn’t get angry like I usually do. I didn’t really care. Hey, I’m still here!

Although my best friend Lisa moved home almost two months ago, we have only seen each other twice. I don’t feel like running with her. I would rather be alone.

When I was a kid, my mom made a very big deal out of my birthday. It was the one day of the year that my life wasn’t all about my autistic brother. I think because of that I have high expectations of how that day should go. Every year it seems harder and harder to get excited. My birthday always signifies the middle of summer. It is going by so quickly this year. I don’t want summer to end and I don’t want to get any older!

Tomorrow I will be 21 (doubled). Gulp! Ready or not, here I come.

Not always out running

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This morning Angel and I will be leaving the waterpark and heading to Milwaukee for my cousin’s wedding. Earlier this week my oldest cousin asked me to go running with him while we were both there for the wedding. 

I told him that I don’t run while I am on vacation. I don’t exercise. I don’t workout. I do nothing at all. 

He might have talked me into it if I hadn’t left home already. 

To save face, I told him that I was going to get my workout on the dance floor. 

When I am on vacation I lighten up a little. I have that extra beer. I eat the french fries. I might even dust off the wallet to buy a souvenir or two. But it don’t exercise. 

Yesterday after spending 10 hours at the waterpark, I was getting tired. We must have walked 20 miles. We climbed a skyscraper’s amount of steps while carrying heavy tubes. My 17 year old daughter questioned why I was feeling tired. Me, the great marathon runner with boundless energy. After 10 hours, why can’t I keep up with a 17 year old?

Tonight I will be tearing up the dance floor. 

But I don’t do anything at all while on vacation. I relax. I have that extra beer. I eat the fries.. 

Who am I kidding? I love leading an active life!

A little down

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I think I am depressed. 

One of the signs of depression is losing interest in hobbies. What if you just can’t do the things you enjoy anymore?? 

If I spend too much time at work, type a lot (write), shuffle cards, or work jigsaw puzzles my carpal tunnel acts up. My hands ache. I need to wear a brace. If I exercise with weights, sometimes I can’t grasp them. Several times a week my hands just let go of items and I drop them. I’ve dropped my phone several times. Lately, I’ve dropped containers of foundation or eye shadow shattering them into powder so I have to throw them out. I have problems opening lids on jars. 

Sometimes my acid reflux gives me a hoarse voice and sore throat which makes it very difficult for me to sing, another hobby of mine.

I have enjoyed running and competing in races, but now my knee hurts so much that I might have to cut back or stop altogether. 

It seems like everything that I really enjoy doing to deal with my stress is being taken away from me. 

I feel depressed that my daughter will be graduating from high school in a few days. She is a lot like me. We have so much in common and have become close friends. Now she will be moving several hours away and starting a new life without me. I am happy for her, just sad for me.

My relationship with my other two kids sucks. My son is currently failing all of his core classes. He is angry at us or depressed when we give him consequences. The hard part is that he has a brilliant mind, but is too lazy and unorganized to put any effort into his studies. I have no control over this. My youngest daughter and I have nothing in common at all. She takes pride in annoying me and arguing with everything that I say.

Work is stressful. Running our own business, having employees, and demanding customers takes a lot of energy.

My mother-in-law has terminal lung cancer and at best has a few months to live. 

I am starting to see my own parents age in new ways that worry me.

Every organization that we belong to thinks that they are the only organization that we belong to. Everybody wants our time, our money, a life blood commitment. 

My husband and I have both been irritable and stressed these last couple of months. I honestly don’t know how much more of this we can take. Instead of people helping us through these difficult times, they drain us of whatever we have left.

So, yeah, I guess I am feeling a little down. 

  

Knee deep

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I bet you have been sitting at the edge of your seat waiting to hear how my knee is holding up. Today is the first day this week that I went out for a run. The marathon is two and a half weeks away. I braced myself for the run. Literally. I was able to run 6 miles today without stopping. However, my endurance wasn’t the greatest and it wasn’t completely pain free either. I think the tight brace changes how I run. I feel like I am running on a wooden peg. But the run did go better than the run last week. Yeah, baby steps, I know.

Friday night Paul and I spent the evening at the store getting my prescription drugs and looking at braces. Admitting this, I feel old. I am getting old. I am 41. There now you don’t have to go to previous posts to try to find my age to see if I am really old or not. Well, you could go back and read previous posts if you want to. Lol.

The reason why I was seen out drug storing Friday night was that I had some time to kill while Alex was taking his behind the wheel driver’s ed class. Why did I sign him up to drive on a Friday night?? Well, I called to make his monthly appointment at the end of the month. Why? Because I felt embarrassed to call and set up the appointment any earlier. The previous month my son was late for his driving time. They had to call me and ask me where he was. It kills me be late, although he could care less.

It has been a week and a half of doubling my acid reflux meds. The first few days were pretty bad. I think being stressed out about it made it act up more. But I am finally starting to feel a lot better. Maybe I’ll be able to run my races pain free this summer, well as far as my stomach is concerned anyway.

Today I decided to run wearing my old shoes. I was wearing in new shoes when I ran 18 miles and my knee started hurting. Just to be on the safe side, I decided that maybe my new running shoes were to blame for all the difficulties I have been running into.

I also decided to wear the new wireless ear buds that my daughter bought me for Christmas. They hook up to bluetooth on my phone so I don’t have to trip over wires. The only problem is that I have tiny years. Most babies are born with bigger ears than I have. I have met one other person that has smaller ears than me. It has been a source of vanity for me for many years, until now that is. The ear buds were too big to fit into my ears. Back to being wired I guess. 

At this point, I feel like I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t as far as the marathon goes. I don’t know if I will be able to handle it physically if I run the marathon. I don’t know if I will be able to handle it emotionally if I don’t. I don’t think I will be able to run the race without knee pain. But the knee pain isn’t bad enough for me to drop out especially after months of training. Right now I am praying that if it is not meant to be then it won’t happen.

The only things stopping me now would be the stomach flu or a high fever. A death in the family. Possible, but not wished for. Or the race could be cancelled for severe storms. One year they did cancel the race because the heat index was incredibly high and people were dropping like flies. However, we have had a really cool spring so a freak snowstorm would be more likely.

All I know for sure right now is that I am in this knee deep.

Patching things up

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I live in a house that is almost 20 years old. Everything is starting to show its age, but few things need major repair. The carpets, flooring, and counter tops are showing signs of wear. I understand the feeling.

We live in an air tight house which does have some advantages. We never have high heating bills in the winter. However, we have had some major problems with condensation on our windows. On freezing cold days, it rains inside our house. Water pools on our wooden sills.

After a decade and years of condensation issues, our windows frames and sills are rotten. Black mold is growing on the woodwork. Years ago we had an air exchanger installed to pull in the dry air and expel some of the moisture from our house. But the years of condensation have taken its toll. There are a few windows in our house that I am afraid to open because I fear they will fall out.

We have known for awhile that our windows need replacing. But it is a very expensive project. Something that we do not have the expertise to do ourselves. We could’ve hired our next door neighbor to do the project, but decided to go with someone else.

This is one lesson we learned the easy way because someone else learned it the hard way.

Lesson learned: Never hire a friend or neighbor to do a big remodeling project for you.

My parents live in a brick house with a mansard roof. Basically, their roof slopes down to cover the second story of their house. At one point, they needed a new roof for their house. Luke suggested that his friend and his friend’s father (a neighbor) put on a new roof. My parents hired them to do the job. What they didn’t know was that they didn’t have any experience working with a mansard roof and they didn’t know what they were doing.

One stormy evening my parents visited our house. That night after they returned home, at about 11 PM, I received a phone call from my mom who was crying. Who died was my first thought. My mom called to tell me that it was raining in her house. Her things were getting wrecked and there was nothing she could do about it. She felt sick to her stomach.

They found out with the first torrential downpour that their new roof leaked. They had out every bucket they owned, but it wasn’t enough to contain all of the water coming through their roof. The next day they had to rent a dumpster. I helped them haul out all of the items that were ruined from the flooding.

Their new roof leaked! It also looked like crap. Shingles littered the lawn every time the wind blew. It took them months to come back and patch things up. My parents spent a lot of money on the roof. They were thinking of suing the people that did a shoddy job. But they were neighbors. Not to mention that Luke was a good friend of the guy who did the work. They stood up in each others weddings. This caused some bad blood between the neighbors. This also caused problems with the friendship that could not be easily patched up.

Every time my thoughts stray to hiring our neighbor, Paul reminds me of what happened to my parents. Sometimes being a good neighbor is asking someone else.

Thankfully, my parents ended up getting a new roof a couple of years back from someone who has a lot of experience with mansard roofs. It looks absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately, the friendship did not patch up as good as the roof.

Now we are just waiting on a price quote for the new windows. Yikes!

Feeling my age

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Today it started. I am starting to feel old.

I had my yearly physical today. This year I didn’t even need blood work, pap, or mammogram. Easy breezy, right??  I have always had low blood pressure and cholesterol. I have the cholesterol levels of a runner. So does my dad, but he never ran. So I don’t think my heart will be failing me anytime soon. My blood work was so good last year that they didn’t even bother checking it this year. 

The doctor asked if my parents were still living. That was one of the scariest questions she asked.

One little thing that I didn’t tell you about my 18 mile run on Saturday was that my knee started hurting again. My endurance was great. I didn’t have to stop and walk. But with endurance and speed comes knee pain for me. It was the same pain that I felt during my first marathon, just not as bad. Besides wearing my knee brace, there is not a lot that I can do. I am worried about the marathon next month. I can clearly see the writing on the wall. The doctor asked me how badly I wanted knee replacement surgery. I told myself and her that if I have knee pain with this marathon, this will be my last. 

I feel like my body is failing me. 

Then I was hoping to decrease my acid reflux meds and instead my dose was doubled. Apparently after treatment I was not supposed to have any acid reflux break through at all. Supposedly, I should not have to take massive doses of Tums and liquid antacid on top of Prilosec. So she doubled my dose and said that if I am still having symptoms in 6 weeks that I will have to be scoped. 

I don’t want to take medicine. I don’t want to get old. I want to have some control over my body. I don’t want my body to control me.

Remembering to forget

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I love writing a series about the past, but I don’t like that it prevents me from talking about the present. But then I figured it is my blog, I can write about whatever I want to.

I remembered so much over the past couple of days just by thinking and writing about things that I haven’t thought or wrote about in awhile. Things that are very elementary, like grade school. I remembered that Matt used to stand by the school and flap his hands. I remembered how he used to laugh after attacking someone. I even remembered the signals of his agitation before he attacked someone. His pupils would constrict. His eyes were wild. His teeth and fists would clench. His face and ears turned red. 

Sometimes I think that we have to remember things in order to be able to forget. It’s a strange concept and I can barely grasp it.

A couple of days ago, my mother-in-law Martha turned 67. It was a warm day that promised evening storms. Arabella and I went to see Cindy’s son perform in a middle school play. While I was at the show, I felt a strange mixture of emotions. I suddenly felt like time was going by very quickly, quicker than it should. While I was at the show, I found out that Martha’s brother died (on her birthday) from lung cancer, the very disease that will eventually claim her. Rain came down and thunder cracked like the striking of a big clock. It was pouring after the show ended and lightning zigzagged across the sky. I ran across the parking lot in the pouring rain in search of my car laughing as I was getting drenched by the cold rain. 

I drove 20 miles home in a steady downpour. It wasn’t raining cats and dogs, but it was sure raining worms and frogs! Arabella was angry with me for not stopping for ice cream. It was late and I wanted to get home. I wanted to make sure that Paul was okay after hearing the news of his uncle, although they weren’t very close. Arabella argued with me. She told me that I was old and I couldn’t relate. She said that my life was boring like an old black and white photograph. I have done my job right, she knows nothing about my life. Someday she will read this and understand.

Last night we took Martha out for her birthday to see Paul and Angel perform in the musical. Yesterday was the first time I saw Martha without hair. She looked very gaunt, frail, weak, and tired. But she was not coughing, gasping for breath, or wheezing at all. Next week we will find out if the combination of chemo and radiation did anything to shrink the cancer in her lungs that spread to her brain. Martha kept saying that she was going to fight it, but said good bye like it was the last time she was going to see us. 

The show itself was great. Angel was able to do her high soprano singing this weekend since she was feeling better. Paul danced around on stage like he was a young man in his 20’s. Everyone found it hard to believe that he is pushing 50. I married a man that is 6 years older than me. He always tells me what I have to look forward to.  Isn’t that wonderful? Lol. Soon I will need to wear glasses to read things and I will probably lose my hair. Geez, I hope that I don’t experience age exactly the way he does.

I am getting excited that the marathon I am running in is a month away. I ran 18 miles today and feel great. I put on a total of 30 miles this week. I feel strong. I feel ready. I feel sore.

That is about it here. Tomorrow I am going to get back to the series.

Life times 

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I had every intention of writing yesterday, but things don’t always go as planned. After today, I am done with my spring cleaning. Now we are just waiting for spring. Usually in the middle of April, spring turns on like a light switch. I plan ahead to have my spring cleaning over and done with before it is nice out. 

It has been cold this past week with more days of snow than without. Some patchy snow remains on the ground with another inch of snow and sleet expected this afternoon. Friday afternoon thick snow flakes fell to the ground. Please don’t tell anyone else in WI that I am saying this, but it was very beautiful. Saturday morning the sun glistened making the snow sparkle like diamonds. But now it is bleak and cloudy. All of the babies cried in church. They seemed to take all of our repressed feelings towards winter and let them spring forth like the wailing of the wind that cries out to us today.

Yesterday, I went to the bowels of Hades into our little crawl space to peer into all of the bins and boxes. I was hoping to find the letters my mom wrote to me the summer that she spent out of state in the hospital with Matt. I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. I’m afraid that I may have accidently thrown them out with all of the high school notes that I found. My old school texting! LOL. You know, the notes that I didn’t want my parents to find and now I wouldn’t want my kids to find. LOL. It makes me sad, but maybe they will turn up somewhere yet.  

Also, I was looking for pictures to display for my daughter’s high school graduation next month. Since more than half of my childrens childhood was before the digital camera era, I have 4 big bins and multiple boxes of unorganized pictures and memorabilia. I started to feel stressed that my display of her life would suck. I hate to be unorganized with this since organization is a strength of mine. So I decided to make a display of pictures from all of the shows my daughter performed in along with a couple baby pictures. Then next winter, instead of working puzzles, I am planning on going through all of the pictures. I am going to work with my mom to take all of the old family pictures and back them up online. After my kids are settled as adults, I am going to gift them with a bin of their most precious childhood moments. 

Yesterday we had my parents and Matt over for supper last minute. We spent several hours watching the old family videos that we had uploaded to a hard drive. It was so strange seeing my brothers, cousins, and myself as young children. Then we watched my kids as young children. It was so strange seeing the progression of time all in one day. Time sure flies. Enjoy every moment while you can.

Training like a warrior (oops, I meant worrier)

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The dishes are done. The laundry is folded and put away. I just put on my pajamas and am sitting on the recliner with my feet up. Lazy? No way, I took a half a day off of work to run 20 miles. I did it and it went better than I expected. The last couple of miles were dreadful, but I did it. I admit I was a little worried. This has been the most miles that I ran since the marathon last summer. My endurance hasn’t been what I wanted it to be lately. I almost feel out of shape. Treadmill running is tough, but I am satisfied with how I did today. I was wondering if I don’t have what it takes anymore. I am not getting any younger.

I thought that after I was done running that I would feel better, but I don’t. I feel edgy, worried. I feel like the pattern is off. Some detail is out of place, but I can’t figure out what is wrong. I feel like something bad is going to happen. Call me crazy, you wouldn’t be the first. Maybe it is the rain. It hasn’t stopped raining in days. 

Or maybe I feel a little self-conscious about opening up to you. Things are getting a little too personal and I want to step back. I want to pull away. You are starting to find out who I am. Maybe you won’t like the real me. Sure, I can tell you a lot of good things about me. I could tell you stories of how I like to save birds or give people their lost wallets back. But what about the bad? I feel vulnerable and afraid. I am not leaving, but sometimes I want to.

Or maybe I feel edgy because this morning I got a text from another mom warning me of a new potential threat. We just severed Alex’s ties to his druggie friend last week just to have another come walking through the door. If my son wants to do drugs, there is nothing that I can do to stop him. I wish I had full control. I like to play God instead of trusting Him. 

I need to relax…Grrrr.. Tomorrow I made lunch plans with my mom. Then we are going to get a massage. I thought that it would be great to get my long run in today so the massage tomorrow will feel even better. I am not in a lot of physical pain, just the normal aches and pains of a long run. No knee pain which is great. Then tomorrow night I will be watching Angel perform in her last high school play. I am so proud of her, I always have been. She got straight A’s this quarter. Paul and I always told the kids that if they got straight A’s we would take them out to a restaurant of their choice. It has been close, but this is the first time it happened. Finally some good news!!

P.S. I decided to make some split pea soup with the leftover Easter ham. I put yellow split peas, carrots, and potatoes in the slow cooker all day along with the rest of the ham on the bone. It was the first time I made it in the slow cooker. It was the best batch that I have ever made. It was more soupy than thick. Yum. I didn’t eat much all day with running so I had two bowls. I hope I don’t regret that tomorrow. 

Easter, turning 40, and candy in the light fixture

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Now I officially feel old. This last week my younger brother turned 40. 

I don’t remember feeling old when I turned 40. Maybe it was because I spent the first few waking hours of my 40th birthday in the ER. Having a sick child really took the little joy left out of turning 40. Everyone took turns staying with Arabella so I could have my special day. I felt a little selfish about that. 

I bought a 1970’s vintage outfit that I was going to wear out for my birthday. I had to go all the way to Chicago to find something exciting to do on a Monday night. There is certainly no nightlife around here on a Monday. But with a sick kid and other children that refused to go anywhere with me dressed like that, I wore normal boring clothes. I am such an embarrassment. Seriously, it wasn’t as if I was going to go out wearing my birthday suit.

My friends did take me out a couple of weeks before my birthday. I didn’t feel old. They convinced some people that they were taking me out for my 21st birthday. It was kind of funny when people came up to me and asked me how it felt to finally be old enough to drink. Really? What are you talking about?? Believe me that looking like I was 10 when I was 16 really did pay off later. LOL. 

But now I feel old. I ran 15 miles the day after Matt turned 40. It was really difficult for me to do. My inner voice kept telling me how old I was and doubted I could do anything. Sometimes I want to tell my inner voice to shut up and summon my inner child instead. 

How does Matt feel about turning 40? He feels great! Being autistic, he really has little concept of aging. He is starting to get the tire around his waist like all the older men in my family seem to get. Still he has no worries about his weight. There was a time in his life when we worried. At 5’7″, there was a point where he barely weighed 90 lbs. He was very sick to the point where we thought he would die. So a little gut is not that big of a deal.

 Yesterday the whole family went bowling for Matt’s birthday. Matt loves to bowl so we go every year for his birthday. I really don’t like bowling. I find it boring and I suck at it. Matt loves it though and he even beat my score. We bought him a huge balloon bouquet that was a lot harder to fit into a car than you might think. We almost got it tangled in the ceiling fan when we got to the bowling alley.  

After bowling, we all went out to eat. My dad went somewhere else. I am not sure if that had to do with senility or miscommunication. After supper, everyone wanted to come over to my house for games. My dad started driving home until my mom reminded him he was coming to my house. Then he turned the car around after swearing a bit and came to my house. He dropped off everyone in his vehicle and sat out in the car. 

Today my whole family met up at church for Easter with the exception of my dad. My mom is a devout Christian and my dad is an atheist. No, it doesn’t work well. I was surprised to see my brother Mark in church and dressed up to boot. I thought that the only time that I would see him go to church was on his wedding day. Boy was I wrong. His new wife said that she wasn’t going to church by herself. Now Mark is a church goer. Maybe he thought a little about all the times that my mom went to church alone. I was happy that he went. He always sided with my dad. I was wondering if he would choose to go to church with his wife or stay home with my dad. I was surprised my dad didn’t give him a hard time.

The church was having some issues with its organ. Apparently they asked my dad to come fix it. My dad said that the last time he went to church it was working okay. I said it was true that the organ was working just fine in the 1980’s. I told my dad that it would have been nice if he came to church today with his family to at least view the condition of the organ. Oh well! At least he was wearing clothes today. He wore red plaid pajama bottoms with a Packer shirt. He didn’t match or even shower lately, but at least he wore clothes. Baby steps!

After eating ham at my mom’s, everyone started their journey back home. Mark and Luke live several hours away while I live nearby.  

I had the kids do some work while I hid their Easter candy. Alex is good at finding things. He found his sisters candy before they did. So this year I hid his candy in a very difficult spot. I unscrewed the light fixture, then hid his candy there. Brilliant spot, he did find it though before Arabella found hers.

I hope everyone had a great Easter!