In the hustle and bustle of leaving for my sabbatical this LBC post was scheduled wrongly and did not get posted on Friday the 5th inst. when I left home for Chennai. I offer my LBC colleagues my sincere apologies and take remedial action by publishing it on my return today.
“All changes …. have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
~ Anatole France.
I am not surprised that having recently experienced a major life change, Shackman thought of this topic for the weekly Friday LBC blog posts. His life change has been quite a major one and I eagerly look forward to reading his take on this.
Lin, the other regular LBC blogger on the other hand, to the best of my knowledge has not had any major life changes in the recent past and hers therefore should be different and I look forward to that too.
I restrict my own major life changes to the most important turning points from my middle ages. The first one was my quitting an employer with who I had worked for half my then life in 1990. We moved to a permanent home for the first time since our marriage in 1968 and putting down such roots with financial commitment was a major change.
I retired from active employment in 1995 to enjoy retirement all but briefly as my attempts at being a Consultant took me to full employment with three different organisations on three different periods of my later life and each had its own challenges and dislocations. So, four more major life changes to which both my late wife and I had to adjust. We came out of all those challenges stronger and better equipped to handle life except that multiple cerebral and cardiac infarcts felled my wife who became semi invalid and I became a full time caregiver for seven years.
Towards the end of those seven years, my late father became homeless and I took him in too to provide care for him too for four more years. Within a short time of his moving in with us, my wife died leaving me to cope with a home of three bachelors as my divorced from his first wife son also was then living with us.
If I had to pinpoint one particular period of stress during a major life change situation, it was the four years that my father lived with me. I survived that successfully and since his death in 2012 have lived a relatively peaceful life.
Another major life change was when my son got married again two and a half years ago and after a long time a lady of the house came in to take charge of the household which was an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed and continue to do so.
Recently I have had some health issues and for the first time ever, have been put on a regime of daily medications which is taking some time to get used to. My friend and physician cheerfully explains the change as part of the aging process and suggests that I now understand that I am now a very senior citizen. And that, friends, is a major life change by itself!
You have had to adjust to so many major changes. They seem to speed up as we age, don’t they? It’s great that we’re also granted more perspective and, hopefully, equanimity with which to weather those changes. Sometimes. I find that I’m chugging along on an even, well-paved road, congratulating myself on the great emotional scenery I have chosen to visit, only to find that I am faced with a great hill or swamp that has to be unexpectedly and disappointingly navigated. I cheerfully picked out a cane when an illness rendered me a bit unstable on my feet and myself insisted that we sell my cute little red car since I didn’t drive enough to warrant the upkeep. Neither of those changed that emotional scenery that I thought was permanent. However, in the privacy of my own home, I sometimes throw a toddler’s tantrum when a new diagnosis forces me to add another pill to the regimen. It’s funny which obstacles will be mountainous and which ones are just a little bump in the road. That perhaps differs for each of us.
I remember how stressful you found it when your father was living with you, as he could be quite cantankerous.
I think my major life change was moving in with Jenny after many years living on my own. That took a bit of getting used to. My next major life change will probably be when I finally stop working. I’v enjoyed working and I’m not sure how I’ll fill the time when I stop.
That used to be a troubling thought for me too till I actually retired and then events simply unfolded and I found enough and more to do. I am sure that you will too.
you know my story by now… through the peanut.
my latest life change would had to have been in 2005 when I retired.
and i’m loving it so! WHO KNEW! the days just fly by for me and I’m never bored. I love having TIME to do just as I please. it’s heaven.
and like yourself… the past 5 years have been filled with health related issues. but que sera. it’s an ongoing glitch. sometimes good sometimes not so good. but it beats the alternative as they say. 🙂
i’m so glad you’re BACK HOME rummy!
it’s like matt dillon riding back into dodge.
the marshal just shouldn’t leave! LOLOL.
snoopy hug dear sean!
Thank you Tammy, This Marshal is very happy to be back in Pune though not yet back in his own home due to work still going on. Another couple of days and the hotel stay will come to an end.
dear ramana,
(and others involved in this page)
How can you make a statement about me, and what has happened in my life in the recent past, when we have never met?
If you read my blogs,
(Dunnasead.co, and, until August 2015) Dun-na-sead-rising.blogspot)
you can see the tip of the iceberg of what I have been through. the rest is no one’s business but mine.
And since I intensely dislike whiners and whingers, you won’t hear it from me.
What you will hear, is how I am managing, handling, moving on. And the joy of the many friends I have, about 99 percent who are NOT on facebook or blogging,
and the music I do, my belief, and the humor i find in all things in life, since humor is a major part of joy and the divine.
The absurd, to me is sublime, the energy linking all things divine and to be respected.
I also do not take part in gutter level scrapping and ugliness for the sake of promoting discussion. Special greetings here to the bitch on the blog, who has sent me several notes that She and Ramana are of the opinion…..
The opinions of God, my family, and my dear friends, in that order, count. And occasionally someone I talk to face to face, and VERY rarely, on the internet, if what they are saying is goodness oriented, and makes sense.
Note to those reading my page: pass on joy, happiness, encouragement, or ask for specific help. Pulling someone down does not make them a friend.
I will do the same for you.
Oh, and PS If I lit a candle for every person who was important to me who died, or is in trouble, it would set the chapel on fire.
To know that an area is lacking in basics, and joy, and happiness, is to fix it. Not to move in.
Dun-Na-Sead recently posted..And Gutenberg Lived Here: The Other Valentine’s Day
My comment was not meant to offend Lin, and if it has, I offer my sincere apologies, I simply did not know enough to say one way or the other due to, as you point out, not having met you, Your comments here clarify quite a bit and I thank you.
what we see or don’t see with major changes – is the understanding that others never will see a change – major or minor. Although I have been blogging some years, & online since late last century…there is has been a lot of water under my bridge or should I say bridges as I think I may have snapped a few in half – here and there…
some of those changes have been bad at time, some have allowed me to find a new and better pathway, some are still around – whether a memory or in my face…
I was considering today “my current clothing” and remembering some of the now tatty and elderly pieces [homewear only] and thinking some of them could really leave home…even though they hold memories of a time before. I know I could take memory pictures but then again a lot of other clothing has already been consigned and they are just as memorable without a picture…
The changes that others see will be restricted to the external. Quite what happens to us internally is strictly our own business,
Welcome back! I missed you.
Cheerful Monk recently posted..Dancing
Thank you. I am happy to be back though still not at home as work is still going on there. It will be a couple of days more before I move back into my own home from this hotel near my home from where I am now writing this response.
I was thhinking aboutyou today and thought that was probably a good thing for you to do. Good luck in getting back home soon.
Cheerful Monk recently posted..Dancing
You have certainly been through some major changes Rummy, non as trying as dealing with your father. I understand the issue of medications, yuk. Hopefully, your health issues aren’t serious.
blessings ~ maxi
As per my doctor, no it is not serious but for me who never had to take medication other than vitamins, it is a niggling problem that I am now forced to be medicated every day at least for some more time.
“They”, whoever they are, say that it’s not the change that’s important, but how you handle them. Looks like you have managed your changes successfully, and have maintained good health. That is no small accomplishment!
Still the Lucky Few recently posted..Defeating Ageism—Are Boomers Taking All the Credit?
Thank you.