Fear
I am afraid of the future, but I am hiding that fear. It comes and goes. Tonight, in the dark, as I lay in bed, it sits with me and grows like a mushroom in a cave: silent, steady, unseen.
I cannot prepare for the things I fear most. I have to await their sudden arrival. (Loss of work, housing, support, more, etc.) I see small signs of the difficult days ahead that I can't avoid, and feel the worry that maybe I bought these consequences with foolish choices in the past, my lack of preparation. Perhaps, I wove this path of destruction by not being resilient, by being unassertive, by making easy wrong choices. I should have studied harder, become a doctor or professor. I could have bought a house, or been a father. Instead, I sacrifice days to worry, hoping for reprieve against constant uncertainty.
Life, at least my old age part of life, is something that will have to be endured.
Small irrational hopes, like lottery tickets, promise a release of this fear, but I can't hold on to those hopes for very long. I can't believe in them. Instead, I look to distraction in order to help me avoid feeling that fear for too long. It's a weird "enjoy the moment" kind of avoidance that seems positive to those who are secure in ways they take for granted, and absurd to those who know better.
I try to kindle the small flame of hope by trusting to mercy, compassion for myself, while I flee towards knowledge and wisdom wherever I can find it. Comfort is elusive, but insight is a healer.
18 August 2024
Rose Garden Visit
09 August 2024
Shelters
You can't really see it, but the ramshackle collection of sticks made into a rude shelter under the bridge in this picture I have posted fascinates me. It will certainly not survive a water rise, which will occur at some point after a couple days of rain.
I hope it's not being used as a shelter by a homeless person, but that is likely its most probable function. God save us all from the injustice of not having a home to rest in. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
31 July 2024
Foot Pains
After feeling the terror of the future yesterday morning, I went into town and found myself at the park. I walked for five miles. Perhaps physical exercise is a good way to control my emotions. They say that it helps with depression. I'd walk every day if I could. Unfortunately, I have real bad heel pain now. I'm pretty sure it's plantar fasciitis, and it is intense. It will subside in a day or two of walking around gingerly, but I wish I didn't have it. The doctor, when I last saw him, briefly suggested some exercise to help alleviate it, specifically rolling a golf ball around with my foot. (I had had foot pain before, and asked him if there was something to do.) For now, I'm trying that as a 'first step,' no pun intended. I might have to bring it up again when I see him next to explore more options. I am not sure the foot exercise with the golf ball is helping, but maybe I need to give it more time. I really wish the pain would go away altogether.
Getting older seems to be a lesson in accepting unwanted limitations. I can't walk like I want, I can't socialize like I want, etc. I know some people my age and older have more trouble than me. I think that one day society will be more compassionate with everyone and help them better cope with their individual struggles, but we're not there yet.
29 July 2024
Composure Trouble
These are the days of doubt and worry. My exterior calm is a practiced pose, while my inner senses are unsettled by an awareness of uncertain futures, a slow feeling of rising cold water, chilled by the modern realities that are somehow both public and personal, private and societal. The growing realization of my precarious future, mixing with the chaos of public events, has me feeling unbalanced almost daily. I worry I need help, but worry more that there isn't anywhere to find it.
Where will I live? How can I earn enough to support myself? What will happen to my family if the old supports suddenly give way? How can I help them if I am sunk beneath tides of chaos? Debt is a chain, and compassion is being swallowed by serpents.
These past few years have me feeling old and fragile. I know I am not immune to worldly changes. I no longer have the seemingly certain buffer of youth and optimism to fix or repair the mess my life is in. I'm no longer becoming something; I am what I am. No one gets forever. Maybe the comforting illusions are falling like scales from my eyes. I don't know. Uncertainty seems to be the human condition. I know my youthful failures have sealed my senior circumstances to a degree.
I refuse to be specific about my problems, but I do try to name and understand them most days, when the waves of emotion surge too strongly. Poverty is hell. For now, troubled as I am, I have a place to stay, but not much of a plan for the future. No guarantee that my current circumstances will last several more years or even a handful of months, certainly not forever.
Imagine being at a failing company. You work your job like normal, watching your coworkers (whom you have worked happily with for years) go separately into the boss's office, and leave crying because they have just been fired. It's unlikely you'll see them again. Alarm spreads through the workplace, but everyone avoids showing it, putting on a brave face, hoping that a calm exterior, no matter how false, will protect them from being singled out for doom. You feel like a prey animal hoping to hide in the herd and avoid being tackled and eaten by the predator, who you feel at the edge of the group but can't see. Somehow, for weeks, you've avoided the inevitable, but the rising sense of misery and gloom are getting to you. You wonder, as you do your job as before, when it will be your turn? If there is any valid business reason you haven't been sacked yet, or if it is just random chance that your name isn't higher on the list? Will the doomed company survive, or will the final axe fall, and everyone is suddenly out at once? How do you prepare for turmoi? How do you reach equanimity in the teeth of a wolf?
I really don't know how to prepare myself for my personal uncertain future. I am working on it. I know I can't avoid the future forever. I pray God will help me find my way through. I have never been good at making personal decisions and plans, but I don't think I can avoid it anymore. Do I train for a new field? Do I stop worrying about what I can't control? How do I do that if I don't know what is controllable or not? The fiddle playing grasshopper must turn to the ant to teach him the lessons of security, because song and dance can't comfort him any more.
More could be said, more could be explained, but for now, I'll continue to try and rekindle the embers of hope.
Depression is an old habit that sneaks up on me again and again. I can never seem to get rid of him, because he says he's the only one who can tell the truth, and I do like cold truths over happy lies. The trouble is, he can also tell some pretty convincing lies himself. You never can tell.
28 July 2024
Dream the day before
Slept the morning before his funeral, which is tomorrow. I had a small dream. I was in a coastal city packing things, helping my family go somewhere.
Suddenly, a man in a red shirt and athletic proportions comes into the room. He stands at attention behind me. I turn around to look and am surprised to see my biological father. He looks good, very healthy. His skin is tan, has all his hair, which is cut short. He slaps me in a friendly way on my arm. I am a little startled, but I'm also used to his surprised visits, so it is a composed startle.
I tell him we were just going to see him. He tells me, "it's my birthday." (His real birthday is in July.) I look at him, and think about how the other side of his family is doing, coping with him being around now.
And then, I woke up.
01 March 2024
Morning Fog
