A lot of family birthdays and anniversaries are coming up in the next six weeks and I want to take the whole family out to lunch for a celebration. It turned out that the only good day is Sunday, 3rd September. Every other day does not suit someone, but all 14 of us should be okay for that.
I was awake for my customary 4 hours in the night, though I’d slept soundly for 2 hours and then again for another 3 or 4. Some nights, I just spend a long time in bed. I probably doze more than I think I do.
I’ve been thinking about dependency. It’s not easy to accept you need help. I know that I can’t or don’t want to do everything that I’d have done without question when I was younger and I’m happy to employ people – I used to do my own painting and decorating, for example, but now I’d rather pay for someone else to do it. But being actually dependent is a tricky prospect. A lot of people carry on driving, long after they should give up, because it’s symbolic of their independence, for just one example.
I wasn’t good at accepting help, because I had a dread of being a nuisance. Eventually, I realised that always turning people away was a rebuff, not a kindness. I finally learned to say Yes Please and lean a bit more. But there’s a fine line again, one can come to be a nuisance if demands are made. I certainly do accept help more than I used to, not least because friends don’t have to offer and, if they do, they probably mean it.
I really hope I don’t get difficult in my old age. My dearest wish is that I don’t. I recognise that I may be deluding myself, in the assumption that I’m not *that* difficult now – but I do worry about losing whatever sensitivity I have.
Anyway. I’ve cut back the grape vine in the greenhouse, which has a stupendous crop, but I leave the door open for the cats, so probably the birds will eat most of the grapes. I cut them back – just the end shoots – so that Wink can get in to water while I’m away. I have washed all my summer clothes and I’ve returned my library books and done some last-minute shopping. Tomorrow, i’ll pack and on Monday I’ll leave for Ro’s house at about 7.30. In the actual morning. He wants to be on the road, having picked up the children from their mother’s house, at about 9 o’clock. He’ll be driving. It’s not that he minds being driven as such, but he still tends to feel carsick on a long journey, unless he’s behind the wheel.
Enjoy your time away.
And remember, people don’t offer unless they want to help, and will genuinely value being asked to do little things. We all need to feel wanted, after all.
Plus… if you think about life as a pot, into which you put when you can, you have done more than your share of putting in, in your time, so be happy to take a little back out now and again now.
I have come to the same conclusion, we can no longer do everything ourselves, these last few days I have organised a local gardener to look at undertaking the more strenuous tasks such as cutting tall hedges in the back garden, an electrician to rewire a light fitting and for a decorator to give most of the house a lick of paint, all three tasks are ones that Ian would have and did do.
There are some tasks we would never have done so our roofer will be relining two valley gutters, modern health and safety demands scaffolding not ladders, such joys of maintaining a 1930s property.
I think you will be fine, Z, I live in a community with many older souls – you remind me of the sparkier ones – fit as fiddles in their eighties and still doing better in their gardens than I’m doing in mine. I consider them an inspiration, and they also know when to ask for help. It’s not all downhill.
Sx
Travel well, return well.
I’ve come to realise that when I think I don’t need help, that’s when I need to ask for some. I say that because when I just do something without question, it generally means I’m ok on my own. Make sense? Here’s to you, sweetpea! xoxo
Thank you all, kind friends. I think I do better than I used to, becaues I was, when young, so very self-conscious that I often didn’t think about how the other person felt. It’s easy to be complacent, I trust I’m not – all I am saying is that, compared to how I was a few decades ago, I’m much more empathetic.