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When I was 17, it was a
certain thing that my understanding of all things was in place. No
discomfort within my mind existed over any situation, goal or vision. Youth
in its love of life has no time to think about anything that isn't of the
most pleasant journey in walking along toward wherever one might wish to go.
Time didn't glare at me from around a corner when I was young. No amount of
warning could bring a worried concern over anything. Suddenly we become
mature. Those of our elders begin to drop and disappear from our world. This
is when I erroneously catch myself beginning to think more about the
inevitable day when our loved one must leave. The day when they do go
everything seems to change as soon as their breath goes forth. Through the
formality of burial I most usually have deep regret over the way we
conducted our self while our loved one was slipping away and, indeed,
finally gone. Why didn't I just enjoy the minutes, days, years? Of course,
hind sight is better than foresight. Why can't I learn this very simple
thing?
The insidious pushing in upon
my peace and joy of family, hearth and home is something akin to a sneaking,
chicken thieving, fox. Laugh as we do about the fox in the chicken house the
little beast's work is less funny when our chickens begin to disappear. In
my case the chickens are only symbolic of an attack on my education in the
house of knowledge where I studied home economics. Mother began that journey
for me when I was only a child of six. The Four H club kept me learning as
if by rote the values of a homemaker when my entry into the fair were tea
towels embroidered with a chore for every day of the week. Washing on
Monday, Ironing on Tuesday, mending on Wednesday, baking on Thursday and on
and on until every day of the week was scheduled even into an era when
washers and dryers, inexpensive clothing, and Wal-Mart bakeries made these
personal chores unnecessary. So, in this way my balance and understanding
about what must be done, is stolen from me.
Another thief is the way one
deals with the emotional ups and downs of life. New names and titles are
given to what we once called the blues, monthly miseries or lovesick
scenarios.
Now we must give in to a
whole new vocabulary regarding words like manic depression, PMS, or
separation anxiety all of which sound too threatening just within
themselves. Please don't let me forget how we curled up with a good book
bringing our mind to wherever we wished to go, an apple and the phone off
the hook so that the blues was brought into submission within no-less time
than a week-end way before the thing could get a toe hold into our world.
Probably if we did that in this world we would be suspect of something or
another, God help us, even manic depressive.
I laugh now, at just the
thought of a neighbor groaning through the pain of my cycle with me as she
sympathetically advised, “Just take Alka-Seltzer, it cures everything.” The
thought that we might be allowed to be a little nutsy was sort of like a
badge we women shared with each other. We were soldiers who marched through
all the muddy, fearful journeys together. As a matter of fact, lovesick
situations were dealt with, in the same way. We locked arms and boldly
stepped through the aching heart with not a look behind. We learned that men
were not the enemy but just weaknesses in our lives, that was as old, as
Adam himself. Quiet, night time parties while we all huddled together over a
pizza and cokes smothering the tears and heartbreak of one or another of our
sisters while we made snide remarks about the male in our world who had
mistreated us. At the end of the meetings all the sorrows, statements of
hurt and shared tears, were buried forever and politely forgotten never
mentioning or discussing them again and we were healed.
These are the things I must
think about when I do battle against all the pushing in upon my world by
this group or that who have taken it upon themselves to save the world. To
remember the skills of years of training to go into establishing of a
microscopic feudal system, that is my own world, takes more than just
technique, but must have downright, serious, thinking ability. Nevertheless,
this is okay, too. The reward comes to me with understanding of great
leaders demands who in their jobs, ultimately have to singularly take upon
themselves a lonely battle for this or that decision. The difference, of
course, being that I lack their greater intelligence. To make up for this I
bring myself in humility before a Higher Power in prayer.
Who would have known that age
would not bring serenity and a golden era but, instead, a time of more
demanding decision making, lonelier vigils, greater numbers of
responsibilities regarding extended family who are our loved ones. This Don
Quixote castle is necessary to a greater number of people, who are
struggling against issues of their own. We continue to fight just to
maintain. Yes, for this, I need prayer so that I may not succumb to the
sadness of those who come to us for aid in no other way than just for a
quiet refuge. |
