Saturday, January 17, 2009

Health or is it Wellness?

I always think about health a lot this time of year. I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease on New Years Eve almost 40 years ago and I always have my annual physical and related doctors appointments starting in January. It's an "anxiety producing" time of year for me. Having cancer at the age of 23 definitely destroys your sense of wellness and I don't think it's something you ever can really get back. I know I never have. I've wasted a lot of energy worrying about my health and sometimes I've needed help to deal with my fears. But I have been thinking lately that as a society we are obsessed with health and I am trying to ease up on all this emphasis on the right foods, the latest vitamins and supplements, the best exercise program etc. and think more about ways to give meaning to my life. Health matters, obviously, but it's how we live our lives that really matters and health doesn't define us.

I have been reading this book "Something to live for" by Richard Leider and he says that "having something to live for, beyond our own self-absorption is associated not only with better health, but also with greater longevity." And maybe being too fanatical about fitness and health is a form of self absorption. I need to think more about this...

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Sandwiched Generation?

That's what they call us when we are dealing with aging parents AND children. Right now I think I am more of an open-faced sandwich - at that happy time when my own girls are pretty well established, independent and about as happy as they make their minds up to be. Which most of the time is pretty happy.

But my parents are a different story. Fiercely independent, they have resisted our best efforts to move them to an apartment where they can get more services which would actually support their independence, not thwart it as they fear. But who know's how I would react if someone wanted to move me out of the house I have lived in for over 60 years? So my brothers and I are trying to really listen to them, and attempting to set up home health and chore services which will allow them to stay put a little while longer. Does it matter how we feel about this, or is "what matters" how they feel? Who would really feel better if they moved? Dad will be 88 and he still delivers "meals on wheels to old people" and drags bales of hay to feed the deer in the field across the street from his house. Mother (85) might benefit more from the move - less isolation and loneliness, more variety in meals, more careful monitoring of her health issues - but will she really be happy, if he isn't? I'll be honest - I have a hard time picturing my parents moving anywhere by choice. Sometimes I think it's their generation - children of the Great Depression and young adults of World War II, a lot of things happened to them that didn't involve choice. Contrast that with my life as a boomer, and my children born in the 80's. It's always been about choice with us! Make good choices has been our mantra! We even go so far as to pat ourselves on the back, saying that much of our life is good because we made good choices! But what seems to matter here is that my parents are pretty accustomed to taking what life hands out, without asking for much or expecting anyone to make things better. What matters is that without even knowing it, they have made a choice. And I doubt if they will ever feel it was the wrong choice.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Twelfth Night - January 6, 2009

I both dread and anticipate Twelfth Night and the end of another Christmas Season. I love Christmas but tomorrow we will pack up all the Christmas decorations, and the memories, and wait for another year. I love the traditions - especially the Santa Bears (all 15 of them) who come out of their special hiding place and line the hallway on the Feast of St. Nicholas (December 6) That's N''s patron saint's feast day and we have always celebrated by filling the girls' shoes with treats and surprising them with the return of the Santa Bears. Silly maybe, but always fun for me to thnk of little gifts. I remember the year C wanted an expensive red bra from Victoria Secret (why a teenager would want that, I don't know...) but I bought it and put it on one of the Santa Bears!

And I recall how N, as a little girl was always fearful at Christmastime - she just didn't like the idea of someone watching her, as in "he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows if you're awake." This whole idea really freaked her out. She was terrified by the sleigh bells J used to shake when he put the gifts under the tree. (Usually she was in the bath tub and of course that's when Santa came...)

So I tear up and smile at these traditions and memories and was pleased this year to hear N ask if she could have the Swedish figurines some day. J and I have collected them through the years, since we brought the first one home from our trip to Scandinavia in 1976.

And then there are the creches! Two now - the beautiful Hummels, a gift from my parents once my mother collected more pieces than she had room to safely set out. And this year she and dad gave me a new set - bread dough figurines, no less. We saw them at a local craft/art center in Austin and I fell in love with the set. The detail is incredible ands they are shellaced so thoroughly that they should last for years.

Let me introduce myself - not that I can imagine now who will ever read these ramblings. I am a 62 year old retired librarian, married for 40 years to J my retired high school principal husband ( and high school sweetheart) We have two daughters; N who is married to JN and lives in Chicago where she works for a major University and he works for a digital mapping company; C, second daughter is a RN at a local hospital. She has a boyfriend (JI)who spent the first year of their "relationship" with the National Guard in Kosovo and is now finishing his undergraduate degree.

 
I have been thinking of starting to journal and a blog seemed like a more modern approach. I haven't done this sort of thing since my high school and college "dear diary" days so it should be interesting. I have been reading a few blogs lately but my biggest inspiration is Lemmondrops - a young mother who blogged at this site and recently lost her brief struggle with cancer. I never met her, never even commented on her blog but I was so moved by her life. To me she was a modern-day saint although I am sure hearng that would make her uncomfortable. But she touched my life in a special way - most certainly because I had cancer too as a young person but lived to raise my two daughters and experience life in all the ways she never got to. Her life, and death, remind me of "what matters."