I had coffee with a friend this morning and feel quite revived and perky. It’s funny how it continues to be a little scary to make such plans, and I continue to feel a little nervous beforehand, but then I have a fun time and when I come home I feel happy and I wonder why I don’t go out more often. (Well, and I wonder why I said so many dumb things. But it gets easier to dismiss those as the friendship gets more established.) Also, I smell delicious from sitting in a coffee/doughnut shop.
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I continue to be so, so, so happy with my rainbow flatware. At this point I am so converted to it, and to the idea of owning it, that I think I would buy any set of it I encountered, just to Have It. Paul and I each have a monthly allowance, for things only one of us wants and neither of us needs; the flatware fits beautifully into this category. (Paul generally spends his on cool workshop tools that he wants but doesn’t really need for anything; mine tends to accumulate.)
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I just read Roz Chast’s new book Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
(image from Amazon.com)
I love love love love Roz Chast books and so do the kids, but this is one I think the kids won’t want to read (yet): it’s a graphic (“graphic” as in “graphic novel,” not as in “graphic violence”) memoir of the aging and decline and death of the author’s parents. It is not cheery, but there are a lot of funny parts. It made me feel kind of sad and scared and stressed about my parents, and also about Paul and me, and also about aging and decline and death in general. I realize I am not selling this. But I felt like it was the good kind of sad/scared: an informative, helpful, thought-provoking sort of book—and also entertaining. I liked it. I said to Paul: “I am not sure there could be a book more fitted to my current interests.”
Before I was ever pregnant, I read a lot of books about pregnancy because I was interested in pregnancy and it was something that was likely to be of even greater interest soon. I tuned into things people said about pregnancy and motherhood: real life people, but also people in movies and books; and I was drawn to novels and movies that involved pregnancy and early motherhood. I got a job at a daycare because I was interested in babies, and I asked the moms about their pregnancies and labors and deliveries. I also watched shows like A Baby Story.
I think a lot of times when people say “No one ever tells you…” or “No one ever talks about…,” the actual situation is that people ARE telling, they ARE talking, but it’s hard to tune into things and/or research things before they apply to us. This is where anxiety and what is commonly (and not very nicely) referred to as “over-thinking” serve me well: because I sometimes think (and/or worry) a lot about things before they happen, I get INTERESTED in those things, so I tune in. I don’t think I ever one single time thought “No one ever tells you…” about pregnancy, childbirth, or early motherhood. Things surprised me a little here and there, of course, and other things took some personal experience before I fully understood them, but it was never that sad, betrayed, lonely feeling as if other people could have warned me but inexplicably chose not to. If anything, I thought things like, “Lots of people say X, but really when it happens it’s not so bad.” Like the weeks of bleeding I knew to expect after childbirth: that sounded awful, but wasn’t a big deal at all. Or I worried quite a bit about being naked or partly naked in front of the delivery staff, but by the time things got to that point I was pleased and amazed to find I didn’t care at all. (This is where the anxiety/over-thinking serves me less well: I can spend a fair amount of time worrying about things that are completely fine and/or don’t happen.)
“Parents/us getting old and dying” is something that is happening and keeps happening and will continue to happen. People ARE talking about it; they ARE writing about it and filming it; they ARE telling us about it. My parents are, I hope, quite a long way from that point; I hope Paul and I are even further away from that point. But I’m interested NOW, ahead of time, so I’m tuning in.
I’m trying to draw the line somewhere sensible. On one end there’s “worrying and fretting about things that might not even happen, might not even be issues, and might not be so bad when they happen.” It reminds me of something Augusten Burroughs said in his book This Is How: he recommends that when you or a loved one is seriously ill, you wait to worry about what COULD happen until it DOES happen, because at that point it will just be What Is, rather than The Scary Unknown. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s going into the situation unprepared and unaware, crying out “NO ONE TOLD ME THIS WOULD HAPPEN! NO ONE TOLD ME I’D HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS! NO ONE TOLD ME MY PARENTS WOULD GET OLD AND DIE! NO ONE TOLD ME IT WAS $10,000/MONTH FOR ASSISTED LIVING AND INSURANCE MIGHT NOT COVER ANY OF IT!” I’d like to find somewhere in between those extremes: aware in general of a wide range of possibilities, without spending time getting upset about things that haven’t happened and might not.
I’m the same way when it comes to going out with friends. I dread it, almost convince myself to cancel, go anyway and have a great time.
Ooh, that Augusten Burroughs advice is SOOOO spot on! I’m pretty much living in a state of crisis these days (it’s super fun! I anti-recommend it. And I’m blogging about some of it, because it’s just too big not too), and it is amazing how many phone calls I’ve successfully navigated, most of which I didn’t even hesitate about. And I haaaaate the phone. Hate it.
It pays to do hard, scary things sometimes. And it’s exhausting. So definitely don’t bother worrying about it ahead of time. Worrying about it in advance does absolutely no good, and that energy could be doing something helpful instead. Like sleeping. And lounging on the couch binging on Netflix! (Oh, those were the days)
“I’d like to find somewhere in between those extremes: aware in general of a wide range of possibilities, without spending time getting upset about things that haven’t happened and might not.” — This is EXACTLY what I wish I could do! I’m getting better about not worrying constantly about the unknown, but what you said there is really what I wish I could do all the time.
I worry about my mom, who is 76 — we just moved to another state and I wish we weren’t quite so far away in case something happens to her. I spend a lot of time imagining how we would handle it. My biggest, biggest worry is my husband dying. I can’t fathom living alone in a new state (or anywhere) without him. Because he’s 9 years older than me (and I’m 50), I can’t get that worry out of my head. Blah.
Can I just say that I love everything you write? Thanks for expressing so many things that I think and feel but can’t quite put words to. :)
You have just described my number one anxiety management technique. I have a detailed plan worked out for what I will do when my parents pass. I also have one for if my spouse dies. I also knew a lot about birth and parenting and was not truly surprised. Gathering information and elaborate hypothetical scenarios is how I manage my anxiety.
I also manage my anxiety that way, which drives my husband completely crazy. I was just asking someone this morning about how 4K registration (my son is 15 months old) works in my state because it looks like we will be moving to a new school district the summer before he is starting 4K, which is long after the registration timeline and I don’t want last pick of sites. I am so glad to see I am not alone in this coping mechanism.
I feel like I’ve achieved the worry balance well. I had the same experience with buying a house, with pregnancy/having children, with quitting my job to work from home. I knew enough about all these things before I ever pulled the trigger on them that there were only little surprises.
I know less about parental aging, and never thought about researching it in the same way, but I should probably start. One thing that’s surprised me already (no one ever tells you?) is the fear and anger I’m seeing emerging in my own relatively healthy parents as they encounter a lot of the “little insults” of aging. It’s easy, I think, to be aware of the horrible things that could happen, the severe and/or chronic illnesses, the standard problems like diabetes and high blood pressure. But the little things add up, things you’d never think about, like how my mom’s eyes are always watering and her hair has become unmanageable, or my dad is always in pain somewhere. It’s led to a lot of only half-joking comments about “don’t get old,” and I know my mom is less scared of death than she is of chronic years of decline and suffering. This area is harder for me, personally, to prepare for, though – pregnancy/childrearing, for example, is something I looked forward to my whole life, so it was easy for me to be interested in it even before it was happening. My parents getting old and dying, not so much.
Your last bit really hit home for me; my dearly loved mother-in-law died kind of suddenly on Sunday, and this week has been so hard. I told a friend that you just don’t get a rehearsal for things like this–you just get thrown into it and have to muddle through the best you can. I didn’t know, for instance, how tired I would be; the sheer amount of things to do plus having to be around people all the time just exhausted me, and now we have company again tonight (she’ll be here any minute!) and I strongly regret offering this particular invitation. I also didn’t know how to do the programs for the funeral service, or which florist to call for the grandchildren’s flower arrangement, or that we’d regret not taking more pictures of the family that gathered all this week. I may look into that book; unfortunately this won’t be the last parent death that we have to muddle through (please God let those be many years in the future) and a little more advice might be helpful.
Ugh. My mother is in her mid 60s and HER mother is 90, and when I’ve asked my mom about whether she’s given some thought to what sort of options would exist if my grandmother were ever to become less than her exceptionally-robust self*, my mom just waves it away with an airy, “oh she’ll never get sick and decline, she’ll just drop suddenly one day”. It makes my plan-for-all-contingencies self anxious.
*My grandmother is currently suffering from a bout of anemia, but that has only meant she has done less walking, swimming, volunteering, and gardening than usual this summer. She still does all these things. I have photos of her from last fall, wheeling my children around in a wheelbarrow.
I love that you and your husband have an allowance for things only one of you wants–It keeps me from feeling really cranky about tools and such when I KNOW I have the same amount to spend on things he doesn’t like or need.
I have read that book! Oh man. First I read an excerpt somewhere online, and it didn’t quite sink in that the ENTIRE BOOK was the story of caring for her parents in their last years. And, well, my mom is a huge Lynda Barry fan and her birthday was coming up so I bought this book for her….let me just say that I am SO GLAD I read the book before I gave it to her! My mom recently went through losing her father, who developed dementia in his last years and it was terrible. I ended up not giving her this book after I sobbed all over it, of course……but I’m glad to hear that Roz Chasts’s other books are good! I will keep them in mind for future, more appropriate presents.
I LOVED that Roz Chast book. My mom died of Alzheimer’s last year, and this book just rang SO TRUE. Favorite line: “Where, in the Five Stages of Death, is EAT TUNA SANDWICH!?!?”