Are We There Yet?

I’d like the spiritual journey to speed up and the aging process to slow down.

I’m thinking this whole idea of writing about sobriety and serenity may be a fool’s errand. For me, at least. Because no matter how hard I pursue serenity — no matter how many flowers I grow, walks I take, prayers I offer, shells I collect — I still stumble around in the dark and get in my own way much of the time. Anxiety is the shadow that moves with me everywhere I go.

I sometimes feel like God is moving the ball on me, because I’m trying, I really am. And I know I’ve made progress. But there’s definitely something I’m not getting, not understanding. A message, a direction I’m supposed to take. I can feel it, but it’s right there beyond my reach. It should be obvious, and maybe it would be to someone else, but it isn’t to me.

Probably I should be looking back at my shadow for the answers, instead of constantly propelling myself forward.

God, I realize, also has quite the sense of humor.

After a week like — well, you know, it was one of those weeks — I finally got to go on a long walk yesterday. And when I reached the place in the trail which I call my thin spot — the place where the land dips and the air cools and the spirit is near — there was a giant puddle the size of Lake Huron in my way. No way around it; it was too wet on either side. I could see by looking out at the cove to my left that the pond level had risen considerably, the wind having pushed the ocean water into the brackish pond through the breach in the dunes.

I had to laugh because this was the way my whole week went.     

It started out with searing tooth pain over the weekend. I have a cracked tooth which is supposed to be pulled, but me being me, I rescheduled it, pushing it out another month from now to get past some other commitments. (You know, “a particularly busy time” as I am fond of saying, as if this were unusual). The tooth had been behaving itself and then all of a sudden it wasn’t. It hurt so much that my mouth began to salivate in anticipation of retching.

My lovely dentist slid me into her schedule at 4 p.m. on Monday. Of course, the first thing we discussed was that I’d need to move the extraction date up. And then, to my surprise, she took out one of her nifty power tools and ground part of my tooth flat. This was so that the teeth in front and back of the cracked tooth would take the weight when I bite down — or clench. (I’m a clencher, of course.)

The grinding didn’t hurt too much, but I didn’t realize that my cheek would swell and my gums would throb in reaction to this little bit of trauma. At home I quickly began to look like a Cabbage Patch Doll in a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon — with droopy eyelids to boot since I had to take copious amounts of Advil, which makes me sleepy.

By Wednesday, when I had a 9:30 a.m. coffee with my new boss scheduled, I was beginning to think fondly about the now-extinct “sick day,” when you could actually not show up for something because you weren’t feeling well. I think the last time I took advantage of that was when I had the chicken pox in sixth grade. But I made it through the coffee.

Then Wednesday afternoon, we three (me, husband, Farmer) hopped on a ferry and rushed to our 3 p.m. appointment with the veterinary oncologist in Buzzards Bay. That was fun! Actually the doctor truly gets an A+ in communication skills and friendly demeanor in my book.

Can’t say the same for the next doctor. Thursday was my appointment with the allergist to try to start figuring out the food allergy thing. At least that appointment was on-Island since I waited 25 minutes for what turned out to be about five minutes with the doctor. Next week: three appointments just for this allergy thing (lab work, the prick test, then back to the allergist). And now the tooth is being pulled on Friday. Three deadlines between now and then. I don’t have time for these medical activities!! (Nor does anybody, I know…)

Thursday afternoon, I had the pleasure (well, except for the swollen cheek) of moderating a panel of female farmers at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society. Smart, hard-working young women all of them. So inspiring. I was glad to do the panel, but had what is becoming an increasingly familiar feeling — that of being an “elder.” So odd. How has it been sixteen years since I arrived on the Island and barely knew a thing about farming? And now here I was the moderator. There was a potluck afterwards, but due to tooth and time, I didn’t stay.

Friday morning, my father texted to say he’d seen evidence of mice getting into our duct work in the Delaware house. The duct work is in the crawl space, but the insulation starts showing up in the vents in the house; this happened five years ago and it was a mess. Dad said he had the guys scheduled to come out and look, but that I needed to pay the annual maintenance fee asap so that we don’t get charged the service fee.  

Also, he mentioned that the downpour this weekend will probably cause more leakage into the crawl space. So, he says, (this is my 93 ½ year old dad), “I’m going outside to build a coffer dam to keep water from entering the access well to the crawl space.”

Um, okay, Dad. Be careful, I said. He is nothing if not an excellent caretaker. But I wish he didn’t have to do that. (It did make me smile though; he is something else.)

Normally, I would paddle through a week like this with an outwardly positive attitude and a degree of acceptance when the inevitable insomnia arrived. Which it did. Wednesday night, all night. The great thing is that I used the time in the middle of the night to gather the last bit of my tax stuff together. Yay!

But there was more. At some point in the last week a new “floater” appeared in my left eye. This one is different from the dot that appeared in my right eye during the pandemic and never went away. It is more like a windshield wiper going back and forth – very distracting. Dr. Google says most floaters are age-related, but this one’s disconcerting enough that I know I should pick up the phone and make an eye appointment.

For the love of God, is it possible that years of stressing myself out is now catching up with me? This is just not acceptable!

 

Sure, I know this is likely just an unfortunate collision of circumstances. (And one does have to laugh about it.) I also have to accept that this is life after 60. How many people do I know who are having hip replacements and knee surgery and Mohs surgery for skin cancer? Lots!  

People have much worse things to contend with, too, and none of this (except for figuring out a line of treatment for Farmer) is a huge deal. It’s just time-consuming, which makes me anxious because it squeezes my already tight work deadline schedule.

And there’s that ridiculous — at this point embarrassing — anxiety. You would think with all the tools I have in sobriety that I would have mastered that one by now. But this is what I mean about something being right in front of me that I can’t grab on to.

Also, on some level, this slow-dripping erosion of good health makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the puddle, the message that I am going to have to do things a little differently if I’m going to get across (or around) the water.

In the case of the puddle on my walk, there was no choice but to turn completely around. But turning around so rarely occurs to me. (Maybe not to any of us? We see something that is insurmountable but can’t quickly grasp that’s the case, so at first we are incredulous.) If I can barrel through, I will. Or take the difficult route around. But admitting defeat and retreating?

Nah.

I’m better about saying no these days, but fundamentally, I haven’t changed as much as I’d like to think I have.

To wit, I’m still making wishes:

I wish the spiritual progress would speed up — and that everything else, especially the aging process, would slow down.

🐚