Going Deep

Not Jack Handey-like Deep Thoughts, just a little interlude to unload my brain.

Not that we don’t all obsess with death, because I know we do, but I have as of late been thinking about it more than usual, and it has been dragging me down. If I still had all my girl organs I would say I was deep in PMS-land, but those have been dust for two years now.

I used to avoid posting certain things here because I knew my aunt was reading my website and she sort of became my primary audience. So I filtered a lot of thoughts and language. But we lost her last summer and that makes this a “safe space” again, but that is small comfort. I adored my aunt. She was everything wonderful (I can say that based purely on my own interactions with her. If she ran some sort of underground “Racists for Kitten Murder” group, I don’t want to know.

My endocrinologist died in April, and I just learned about it. I’m feeling a bit bereft with this one. I really liked the guy. Our last appointment was over the phone, so I didn’t get the in-person experience (which was great). I felt like a friend. I knew all his issues with the medical establishment and insurance companies (he went cash-only years ago). My prescriptions were fairly complex combinations of new drugs, and compounded drugs to meet precise amounts per his unofficial studies of how different treatments helped or hindered himself and everyone in his practice. He observed trends and solved problems I didn’t know were related to my thyroid. There isn’t possibly another person who will treat my symptoms the way he did, and now I have to face a future where I could spend the rest of my days being mildly symptomatic again. Living like that isn’t fun. I wish he’d taken my needs into consideration before allowing himself to die (I can only assume he was taken by illness, he was actually well past retirement age.)

We’re getting old. My parents are still alive, thank God and my mother’s ferocious insistence on controlling every bite of low fat, low sodium, small-portioned food my dad eats. As I ease into the age group that gets a discount on coffee at McDonalds, and the realization hits I’m never going to be the toast-of-the-town ingenue, the center of attention. Maybe I can still pull off the wacky matronly type, but I am getting into the invisible years (women of a certain age, especially if they aren’t thin and sexy, become invisible.)

I guess I need to ponder my remaining days, and how best to use them. I’ve become somewhat obsessed with RV shows and record several to the DVR. I watch the tiny house programs, knowing that I could never survive in 300 square foot shipping container, or use a composting toilet (I mean, maybe I could, but the idea scares me) but do think it’s cool to just take your shit with you wherever you go (literally). I still have to work another 20 years, if I want a chance at not dying in poverty, so maybe I won’t hit the road quite yet.

Is this is my midlife crisis? If so, good news, everyone! I’m going to live to be 104!