I don't often wish I was ten again, but sometimes I do. When the grup stuff gets to be too much, I want to go back to a time when my biggest worry was that Mom was making tuna casserole for dinner (bleah!!!... sorry, Mom).
When I was ten I would often walk the fine line of staying out late enough to miss dinner and get a walloping, or getting home just in time for dinner being set on the table and a, "you're too late. You'll have to get your own."
Then I would shrug and say, "I'll get something later, if that's okay." From there, I would decide and, if it was tuna casserole, I'd go hungry. It was better that way.
Today is a day I wish for simpler times. Hubby is in a mood because he had an "encounter" yesterday. We had been told something would happen, it didn't. He got angry and yelled and screamed. He called me at work and yelled and screamed about it some more and I said, "do you want me to see if I can fix it?"
He calmed down a little and said, snidely, "you can try, but it won't do any good." He said some other things, too, highly uncomplimentary about the person with whom he had tried to deal. Well, I tried, and I applied honey instead of his full-on acid and, while it's not perfect, it is better than it would have been. I called him back. I didn't gloat (hint: never gloat around my hubby. It makes him angry.), I just explained the result. He sounded cheerful and happy and all of that. But I suspect he's now simmering because I solved something he didn't.
I got home. We had a pleasant evening, up until we were getting ready for bed.
He brought the subject up again and I explained the compromise I had reached. He started in again, being uncomplimentary about the person and the company they work for and so on. I calmly said that they were just doing their job, there wasn't anything more they could do, and so on. And he got irritated. "You're not on the same page as me! You never are!" Well, no. Because I didn't agree with his assessment or his approach or his declarations. It just isn't in me to say I agree with something when I don't. So I stood my ground and he got angrier and I finally said, "maybe you're right and I'm wrong, but we can't solve it here. Good night." I went to bed.
This morning, he's still grouchy and irritated and I'm not sure what's going to come of it. It just feels like a battlefield with a storm threatening. This will pass, but I can't help but wonder when.
Now, if I was ten years old, I could just run away and go home and read a book and I wouldn't worry about it. But I'm not and I can't so I am. It's no fun.
There are several issues at play in this, and none are solvable. For one, he has zero people skills. He used to have them, when he had to work for a living. But his father never had people skills either, and his mother is... quiet. And introverted to the point of agoraphobia and, frankly, not too bright. So hubby never learned people skills. He's an only child, to boot, so there was no battling with a sibling, no art of compromise lessons that come from negotiating with a sibling.
When it comes to handling people, to working with them toward a common goal, he's incapable. He bludgeons his way to completion, sometimes leaving "bodies" behind because he doesn't know any other way.
He's not a bad person. He has his good points, too, but because he's locked in the house with his mother all day long, the minimal people skills he ever had have atrophied into non-existence.
At this point, I have two choices, and only two. I either agree with him 100% all the time, or there's a problem. And that's why he's grouchy today. I didn't agree with him and I solved a problem he couldn't solve on his own.
So, I'll keep to myself, offer soothing sounds and go through the day doing what I can to mollify. It's a people skill that comes in very handy at times like these.
Aside from that, I'll confess to being worried about something that's worried me occasionally.
My mother was profoundly deaf. Not from birth, but from the time I was about six or so. She had a degenerative hearing condition that resulted in her coming home one evening after a doctor's appointment, rushing through the door in tears, and slamming into the bedroom.
She had just been told that the hearing aids she had worn for as long as I could remember wouldn't work anymore. She was stone deaf and would either have to learn to sign, or to lip read.
She was a strong lady and thought about it. To make things easier for everyone else, she decided to learn to lip read. Then she did. The local hospital had courses and she went and we adjusted. A few years later, that remarkable woman went out and got a job - despite living in a time when people were handicapped, not 'challenged'. And she did well at that job, rising to supervisor, then department head, and staying at the same company for twenty years.
So, since I was little, I've been aware that sometimes body parts don't work as they're supposed to. I think a lot of other kids and people are aware of it, too, but it wasn't something I ever talked about with my friends. You know, the "which would you rather lose, your hearing or your eyesight?" It just wasn't a 'game' that we played.
I never could decide, but thought about the 'what if' scenarios and I think I would rather lose my hearing than my eyesight. And now I'm worried about my eyesight because yesterday I noticed a streak in my vision. I experimented and discovered that it's only in my left eye. I thought about it and realized it's inside my left eye. Puzzled some more and realized it might be blood in the vitreous humor - the gel that holds your eye's shape and allows you to see.
Several years ago, the husband of a friend of mine was found to have a partially detached retina. Because I am excessively near-sighted, I have been warned that as I get older, I may have retinal detachment and resulting blindness. Oh yay.
So, yesterday, with the streak in my vision, the filament tail that flailed every time I moved my eye, I began to worry. Is it blood? Is it because my retina is coming away? I am seeing "sparks" when I close my eyes, and lately I've noted a bright white concave arc at the bottom of my vision when I close my eyes. Occasionally, if I look up and to the left, quickly, I see a double arc that appears like a prism. It's worrisome because I need my eyes.
I need them a lot because I need them for work and I need them for my writing and it's scary to think there might be something going wrong. Of course I called the eye doctor. From there, I halfway (fully) expect to be referred to the Northern California Eye Institute in Santa Rosa for a full evaluation. But my appointment isn't until Tuesday, which means I get to worry today, tomorrow, Monday and a good part of Tuesday.
Last night, remembering my friend's husband's treatment, I slept with three pillows and my head elevated. In his case, he'd had air injected into the eyeball to hold the retina in place so it could heal. In mine, I'm not sure what it's going to do but even doing that makes me feel like I'm doing something while I wait for a determination.
Yeah. Getting older is no fun. I can think of fun, though, and I have plans for fun. I just almost cry when I think how far away fun seems sometimes. But this too shall pass, as these things do, and I'll be better and things will go on.
On Tuesday I'll find out what's going on with my eye. It's only one and I still have the other, so there's a silver lining. As for hubby, he'll calm down after a good sulk, and things will get back on track there, too.
But now I'm going to ask: can I be ten again? Just for a little while? Please?
Best~
Debbie Downer (aka Philippa)
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
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