For those of us of a certain age (as in old), Sunday Sunday is remembered as a song sung by the Mamas and the Popas. Today is Sunday and the first day of daylight savings time for the year 2008. We sprung ahead. Supposedly we lost an hour of sleep, but for those of us who have no reason to get up the regular time, we just slept in an hour later. Works for me!
My funk of yesterday has fled. Thank the Goddesses. I really don't like being that way, but it does happen so I go with the flow. Anyway, short of a happy pill, which I don't take, there's not much I can do about it.
Happy pills aren't bad things, by the way. In the worst moments of my life, when I wasn't sleeping, was losing weight, could not concentrate at work, and just hated getting out of bed (boy, talk about textbook depression), I sought help. That help was therapy and Paxil, or as some call it, Vitamin P. What Paxil did for me was clear my head so I could think and work my way out of the situations that were causing the depression. A person can't think logically when sunk in despair.
The anti-depressant also helped me understand what I can do to avoid falling into depression in the future, if it should ever happen again.
Depression runs in my family. Looking back on my childhood, I realize that my father was a moody, often depressed, person. Knowing this has made me aware that all the things I thought were my fault -- kids, being self-centered creatures, always think "it" is their fault -- weren't my fault. His reactions to typical kid acts were his problem. Unfortunately, as a child, I had no resources to know that and it affected much of my adult life, but that's another post.
Growing older has eliminated much of the melancholy and guilt I've felt in my life. It takes getting older to appreciate how short life is, to comprehend that we have little control over so many life situations and to understand sometimes it is just the other person's problem. Worrying about things over which we have no control is a waste of time. It takes life experience, though, to figure this out, and it's only the grave, distressing, and adverse experiences that demonstrate to us our lack of power.
Life changes - I have reached a point in my life where I can often -- not always -- not worry about issues that will play out the way they're meant to play out.
ADDENUM TO SUNDAY SUNDAY..
I love my husband. That’s not always a given because we all know people who don’t. They just play at it. We like spending time together and one of the things we do together is walk. This winter has been so miserable that we haven’t walked in months, but today, though the wind chill has made it bitter cold, Ron said he was going for a walk, and I jumped right in.
Our walks usually take us to the back of the property, down the trail left by the backhoe, across the creek, or crick as it’s called, and up the hill to the cemetery. Today, though, we took the truck down the highway a short ride because the crick was too high with rushing water for me to be comfortable walking on the rocks (under water).
The cemetery? Yepper. Cemeteries are good places to walk. The roads are usually even and flat. There’s little traffic. It’s quiet, and it’s usually interesting. I like old headstones and reading the names of people and to whom they were related. Our cemetery dates back to the early 1800s, so it’s very interesting.
I say "our" cemetery because Ron has a long association with it. His father was on the board and Ron is now a vice president. He has innumerable duties from selling plots to digging graves, hence the reference above to the track left by the backhoe. It is all handled with dignity and respect though it puts a whole new spin on reading obituaries!
Cemeteries and death are not new to me. My maternal grandfather, who lived in a big house in Utica, NY, was an undertaker. The deceased were laid out in the front parlor. The embalming room was attached to and behind the garage. I clearly remember being a little girl of 4 or 5 (in the early 1950s) and having to be quiet in the kitchen with my grandmother while a funeral was going on in the front parlor. I have a couple of memories of walking up to open caskets and seeing the person laid out. I was not afraid. Children take their cues of how to react from the adults around them. The adults in my life were not afraid; therefore, neither was I.
Another connection to the life cycle of death is on my father’s side. My paternal grandfather drove a horse-drawn hearse for Baxter’s Funeral Home in Schenectady, NY. He was also the first person to drive a motorized hearse in Schenectady. My dad also drove hearses to make extra money. This was long before I was born, but I heard stories when I was growing up.
I suppose the final connection to death and cemeteries rests with the people I’ve known, loved ones, who have died. Losing someone is difficult, but it is a part of life. Hmmm… To lose someone sounds as if we let go of their hand in Sears and find them in the lost and found. It’s a gentler way of saying death. I think it’s a way of avoiding saying the word death.
Life changes – The thing is, death happens. It is a part of life. The first time it occurs, the pain can be incredible. Each ensuing death does not make the pain any less, but experience with it gives us strength to move on and continue living, with enjoyment even, because life does go on.
My funk of yesterday has fled. Thank the Goddesses. I really don't like being that way, but it does happen so I go with the flow. Anyway, short of a happy pill, which I don't take, there's not much I can do about it.
Happy pills aren't bad things, by the way. In the worst moments of my life, when I wasn't sleeping, was losing weight, could not concentrate at work, and just hated getting out of bed (boy, talk about textbook depression), I sought help. That help was therapy and Paxil, or as some call it, Vitamin P. What Paxil did for me was clear my head so I could think and work my way out of the situations that were causing the depression. A person can't think logically when sunk in despair.
The anti-depressant also helped me understand what I can do to avoid falling into depression in the future, if it should ever happen again.
Depression runs in my family. Looking back on my childhood, I realize that my father was a moody, often depressed, person. Knowing this has made me aware that all the things I thought were my fault -- kids, being self-centered creatures, always think "it" is their fault -- weren't my fault. His reactions to typical kid acts were his problem. Unfortunately, as a child, I had no resources to know that and it affected much of my adult life, but that's another post.
Growing older has eliminated much of the melancholy and guilt I've felt in my life. It takes getting older to appreciate how short life is, to comprehend that we have little control over so many life situations and to understand sometimes it is just the other person's problem. Worrying about things over which we have no control is a waste of time. It takes life experience, though, to figure this out, and it's only the grave, distressing, and adverse experiences that demonstrate to us our lack of power.
Life changes - I have reached a point in my life where I can often -- not always -- not worry about issues that will play out the way they're meant to play out.
ADDENUM TO SUNDAY SUNDAY..
I love my husband. That’s not always a given because we all know people who don’t. They just play at it. We like spending time together and one of the things we do together is walk. This winter has been so miserable that we haven’t walked in months, but today, though the wind chill has made it bitter cold, Ron said he was going for a walk, and I jumped right in.
Our walks usually take us to the back of the property, down the trail left by the backhoe, across the creek, or crick as it’s called, and up the hill to the cemetery. Today, though, we took the truck down the highway a short ride because the crick was too high with rushing water for me to be comfortable walking on the rocks (under water).
The cemetery? Yepper. Cemeteries are good places to walk. The roads are usually even and flat. There’s little traffic. It’s quiet
I say "our" cemetery because Ron has a long association with it. His father was on the board and Ron is now a vice president. He has innumerable duties from selling plots to digging graves, hence the reference above to the track left by the backhoe. It is all handled with dignity and respect though it puts a whole new spin on reading obituaries!
Cemeteries and death are not new to me. My maternal grandfather, who lived in a big house in Utica, NY, was an undertaker. The deceased were laid out in the front parlor. The embalming room was attached to and behind the garage. I clearly remember being a little girl of 4 or 5 (in the early 1950s) and having to be quiet in the kitchen with my grandmother while a funeral was going on in the front parlor. I have a couple of memories of walking up to open caskets and seeing the person laid out. I was not afraid. Children take their cues of how to react from the adults around them. The adults in my life were not afraid; therefore, neither was I.
Another connection to the life cycle of death is on my father’s side. My paternal grandfather drove a horse-drawn hearse for Baxter’s Funeral Home in Schenectady, NY. He was also the first person to drive a motorized hearse in Schenectady. My dad also drove hearses to make extra money. This was long before I was born, but I heard stories when I was growing up.
I suppose the final connection to death and cemeteries rests with the people I’ve known, loved ones, who have died. Losing someone is difficult, but it is a part of life. Hmmm… To lose someone sounds as if we let go of their hand in Sears and find them in the lost and found. It’s a gentler way of saying death. I think it’s a way of avoiding saying the word death.
Life changes – The thing is, death happens. It is a part of life. The first time it occurs, the pain can be incredible. Each ensuing death does not make the pain any less, but experience with it gives us strength to move on and continue living, with enjoyment even, because life does go on.
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