I keep lists on my phone. Lists of what I need to do, lists of what I want to do. Lists of places I'd like to go. Lists of books to read, lists of songs to download to my phone, lists of movies to order from Netflix. And I'm old enough to keep a list of my medications.
This morning I'm in the last row of seats on a Smithsonian bus to Reedville, where we will get on a boat to Tangier Island, in the south Chesapeake Bay. This has been on my list of places I want to go for quite some time.
I just consulted the list called "Quotes" and picked one. It says "See reality as the way things are, not as you want them to be." That's an easy one to write about. It's my story.
When I was growing up as an only child in a working-class neighborhood of the Bronx, my father told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, and do anything I wanted to do, if I tried hard enough. I believed him -- totally.
Working hard at school got me into the best high school. Working as a waitress on weekends and in the summers got me enough money to supplement my small scholarship to college. Graduating summa cum laude made it easy for me to be accepted into grad school. An advanced degree, good test scores and a lively interview got me hired into a Federal management intern program. Being good at what I did, learning a variety of disciplines and taking advantage of opportunities -- and being a woman in the right place at the right time -- helped me become an executive. Changing jobs from time to time kept things interesting. Retiring at age 55 with a full pension put me in a position of being able to just about anything I wanted, within reason.
While I was making all these things happen, I also lived a normal and happy personal life. I made -- and have kept -- many good friends. I experienced the joys and heartbreaks of young love. I dated a variety of young men and married one before I even graduated from college. When we realized that we were growing in different directions, we divorced with relatively little pain. I jumped back into the free-wheeling social pool of the '70s with great abandon, and then found a wonderful man who I have now been married to for 36 years. We had no children by choice rather than by chance. We found and became members of a church that supports and sustains us. We were now both retired with adequate investments and a comfortable income, ready to travel and bike ride and explore new activities.
It was a wonderful life, almost perfect, that I had worked for and grasped and nurtured. Things were exactly the way they were supposed to be. ..... And then they weren't.
My body became uncooperative. I had pain, first in my neck and shoulders, later in my hip and lower back and leg. I had experienced health problems before during my near-perfect life. I could always get them fixed through medications or therapy or surgery. So I had surgery for my neck. It worked. I was fine again ... for a while. Then other pain, and a diagnosis of osteoarthritis, and the knowledge that it was progressive.
Pain got in the way of living my near-perfect life. Over-the-counter meds didn't help. I was afraid of narcotic meds because my mom "had trouble" with them. I was frustrated. I couldn't do things I wanted to do. I couldn't enjoy a number of daily activities. This was NOT the way things were supposed to be. I NEEDED it to be the way I wanted it to be.
When I finished my ritual glass of single malt Scotch before dinner, I felt a little better. Some days I had a second glass. Then most days. When I worked preparing food in the kitchen, standing, I hurt. A glass of wine on the counter started to appear. The glass was emptied and refilled. The same thing began when I worked on the computer. Over a relatively short period of time, I was starting the morning with whiskey in my coffee and ending the day with a shot from a hidden bottle. I stopped feeling my pain. But I also didn't feel much of anything else. I became devious about hiding bottles and making up stories about why I was stumbling over pieces of furniture. My world got quite narrow, and I drank because I drank. And then I began to black out, and fall down the stairs.
Reality was not what I wanted it to be. Reality was that I had unintentionally become an alcoholic in my pursuit of eliminating my pain. I had entered a new and even more painful reality.
A month in rehab and daily 12-step meetings ever since have taught me much about handling reality. The Serenity Prayer tells me "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
I cannot change my condition. I cannot avoid growing older and all that comes with it. I can do whatever is healthy and reasonable to be the best I can be. I can do yoga and cardio and weight training to be a fit 63-year-old. I can investigate non-narcotic medications that address my pain. I can, through prayer and meditation, maintain a strong spiritual life. And I can share my story, to remind myself and, possibly, help others.
Postscript: I'm posting this after we return from Tangier Island. They proudly say that they now have wifi on the island, but I didn't try to find it.
This morning I'm in the last row of seats on a Smithsonian bus to Reedville, where we will get on a boat to Tangier Island, in the south Chesapeake Bay. This has been on my list of places I want to go for quite some time.
I just consulted the list called "Quotes" and picked one. It says "See reality as the way things are, not as you want them to be." That's an easy one to write about. It's my story.
When I was growing up as an only child in a working-class neighborhood of the Bronx, my father told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, and do anything I wanted to do, if I tried hard enough. I believed him -- totally.
Working hard at school got me into the best high school. Working as a waitress on weekends and in the summers got me enough money to supplement my small scholarship to college. Graduating summa cum laude made it easy for me to be accepted into grad school. An advanced degree, good test scores and a lively interview got me hired into a Federal management intern program. Being good at what I did, learning a variety of disciplines and taking advantage of opportunities -- and being a woman in the right place at the right time -- helped me become an executive. Changing jobs from time to time kept things interesting. Retiring at age 55 with a full pension put me in a position of being able to just about anything I wanted, within reason.
While I was making all these things happen, I also lived a normal and happy personal life. I made -- and have kept -- many good friends. I experienced the joys and heartbreaks of young love. I dated a variety of young men and married one before I even graduated from college. When we realized that we were growing in different directions, we divorced with relatively little pain. I jumped back into the free-wheeling social pool of the '70s with great abandon, and then found a wonderful man who I have now been married to for 36 years. We had no children by choice rather than by chance. We found and became members of a church that supports and sustains us. We were now both retired with adequate investments and a comfortable income, ready to travel and bike ride and explore new activities.
My body became uncooperative. I had pain, first in my neck and shoulders, later in my hip and lower back and leg. I had experienced health problems before during my near-perfect life. I could always get them fixed through medications or therapy or surgery. So I had surgery for my neck. It worked. I was fine again ... for a while. Then other pain, and a diagnosis of osteoarthritis, and the knowledge that it was progressive.
Pain got in the way of living my near-perfect life. Over-the-counter meds didn't help. I was afraid of narcotic meds because my mom "had trouble" with them. I was frustrated. I couldn't do things I wanted to do. I couldn't enjoy a number of daily activities. This was NOT the way things were supposed to be. I NEEDED it to be the way I wanted it to be.
When I finished my ritual glass of single malt Scotch before dinner, I felt a little better. Some days I had a second glass. Then most days. When I worked preparing food in the kitchen, standing, I hurt. A glass of wine on the counter started to appear. The glass was emptied and refilled. The same thing began when I worked on the computer. Over a relatively short period of time, I was starting the morning with whiskey in my coffee and ending the day with a shot from a hidden bottle. I stopped feeling my pain. But I also didn't feel much of anything else. I became devious about hiding bottles and making up stories about why I was stumbling over pieces of furniture. My world got quite narrow, and I drank because I drank. And then I began to black out, and fall down the stairs.
Reality was not what I wanted it to be. Reality was that I had unintentionally become an alcoholic in my pursuit of eliminating my pain. I had entered a new and even more painful reality.
A month in rehab and daily 12-step meetings ever since have taught me much about handling reality. The Serenity Prayer tells me "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
I cannot change my condition. I cannot avoid growing older and all that comes with it. I can do whatever is healthy and reasonable to be the best I can be. I can do yoga and cardio and weight training to be a fit 63-year-old. I can investigate non-narcotic medications that address my pain. I can, through prayer and meditation, maintain a strong spiritual life. And I can share my story, to remind myself and, possibly, help others.
Postscript: I'm posting this after we return from Tangier Island. They proudly say that they now have wifi on the island, but I didn't try to find it.
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