It’s been a lifelong tenet of mine that nobody wants to hear your troubles, so I have always made an effort, even when things aren’t going so well, to either keep it to myself, or at least to have a sense of humor about it.
I’m not much bothered by things, and I think I have a naturally sunny disposition. But every life goes through periods that must be endured, and the past couple of years have been my personal Ice Age.
My husband’s health problems have been no secret. We endured and he came through, and since the beginning of the year, I’ve been able to return to my own pursuits. But it seems that something has changed. I go through the days with a sense of unreality. I want to hold myself at a distance. My mind wanders. I’ve frozen over.
I joked with a friend recently that it seems there’s some awful alignment of stars happening in the heavens right now. So many of my friends are having their own ice ages. Lesa Holstein lost her husband so quickly. She was so kind when Don was having his troubles. But I got a temporary reprieve, and she didn’t. A second friend just received a cancer diagnosis, and another faces an operation.
Everyone gets to go through these periods, if they live long enough, and this is not my first rodeo, as we say in Oklahoma. It’s the universal life experience, to lose loved ones, to go through extended times of stress and fear. In the past, no matter how unendurable a situation seemed at the time, I lived through it whether I felt like it or not, and the fog eventually lifted. I expect that will happen again. You just have to hunker down and wait for spring.
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