Future Perfect?

Frustrating, waiting, vacillating: future full of fears

A curtain of uncertainty, a smile that masks the tears?

Or is it just another gamble made, in this lifelong trip?

A chance to play the cards I’m dealt, bet one last precious chip.

For the first time in my life, I am free to do as I want with no sole responsibility towards anybody anymore and, you know what? It scares the crap out of me. I have always taken responsibility for others (probably because that way I can forget my own failings and needs) and to suddenly think that I can go where I want and do as I please is a mind-blowing realisation. Since I retired 16 years ago following the burn-out, I’ve often gone for the easy option as it’s a nice, simple coping strategy. Equally, I’ve often disliked myself for doing it and thought wistfully of the missed opportunities although I think I’ve always been lazy and unambitious. Adventures in life, job opportunities, situations always seemed to seek me out however and I can look back on some (more than) interesting memories.  I guess, really, that I’d like just a little chance of a few more adventures and I need to take a few small footsteps in that general direction. I know I have to get well first and stop this damn treatment which makes me look like a Michelin Man wearing a sumo suit but I need to start somewhere, even if it’s joining a few local organisations to try and resurrect the few tenuous social skills I once possessed. Fate and the great arthritis god denied Mrs B and I the chance to travel but the world is still there and, for the foreseeable future, so am I. I just need to be dragged into it!

To where would I like to travel? Oh, anywhere really. Obviously, these days, there are many dangerous places in the world full of mad, demonic leaders and trigger-happy citizens but I think the USA is the only one that really scares me :D

Conundrum

I really don’t understand this death malarkey. I mean, I totally accept it’s the one inevitability of birth that neither kings nor commoners can prevent, but what I cannot accept is its comprehension. Every day, I try to rationalise what’s happened. I try to draw parallels with the deaths of both my parents as well as several good friends over the years but it doesn’t work. Mrs B and I were hardly Love’s young dream. We were companions who had fun and many good times together, especially in the early days when she first moved to the coast and we realised that we were more than friends. As time went by, we settled into a relatively comfortable existence of mutual dependence which began to subdue as we got used to each other and, presumably, the tumour began to exert its influence. For many months, it was extremely difficult trying to cope with her increasingly irrational behaviour. For example, she was convinced that there were loads of snakes that hid in the pipes within Bassett Towers and came out at night when she saw them by the dozen. She didn’t seem overly bothered and I almost treated them as imaginary pets with many conversations between us of where they had originated, did they have names etc. That was the acceptable part. Sadly, there was far more which was unacceptable and that stays with me rather than becoming public knowledge. Knowing how I reacted to her behaviour and subsequently discovering that she wasn’t responsible for this is yet another burden to be carried.

Anyway, as I was saying, I cannot get used to her not being here. It’s not a wishful thinking feeling but a total inability to comprehend that she will never be here again: a triumph of irrational thinking over cold, hard fact. Perhaps it’s something that comes with age? As we grow older, I think we all cling to something as our anchor to Life whether it be religion, money, activity or whatever is the most comforting or available. Religion requires faith and I prefer logic, money is not something I have ever had more than a sufficiency and activity doesn’t suit my wreck of a body these days. What then, is my anchor? I guess it is friendship and company although I have lost the ability to be comfortable in such an environment hence my semi-reclusive existence of late. So, by a process of elimination, I cannot accept the absence of Mrs B because that is all I have as an anchor. I have some wonderful friends but I have failed one or two at times over the years and this inevitably leads me to doubt my commitment and qualities to be a friend.

I don’t look at the many things of hers that still surround me and feel sad because I simply don’t think she has gone. Yesterday, for a small period of time, my mind allowed it to register that she was dead and, whilst this opened a huge new world of emotion, I welcomed it as a start of a new chapter. Within minutes though, the window had closed once again leaving me stranded, rather like when you know a sneeze is there but it won’t come. I was so damn’ close to allowing the emotion to come out but, sadly, no cigar.

So here I am, hearing lots of encouraging words from so many friends and acquaintances but not really believing them. Wanting to go out yet it’s easier and more comfortable to stay indoors. It was truly strange coming home last night to an empty apartment but I need to get used to it sooner, rather than later. Usually, when I write these ‘unburdening’ posts, I try not to feel sorry for myself as I was taught that this was “not the thing to do”. Yet another lifetime habit is about to disappear as I totally admit to being a bit of a mess. My body aches from the arthritis and where I hold myself so tense all the time as well as the cancer thing, my mind is tired from too little sleep and too much thinking and my emotions are …. well, who knows where the feck they are?

In so many ways, I want to give up but I know I can’t do that. I have two families to whom I owe so much, I have friends who have been like the proverbial rock and, who knows, one day I might even start to travel once more and see all the places for which my camera hungers.

Perhaps the most significant fact is that I don’t think I have had any cheese for at least a couple of weeks!