This Too Shall Pass

It's a liberating - or unnerving - concept that this too shall pass. But it shall. All of it, whether good or bad. For me right now, feeling bogged down by slowness and infected sinuses and molasses, it is a beauty of a thought, shooting me across the sky into some sort of perspective.

As some of you know, I work as a transcriber. Work that I am very good at, and which my conscientious self takes pride in doing well. And work that I'm also not very disciplined with, because it's not really suited to my temperament.  A word of advice:  if you're going to work from home, make sure it's something you love.  It makes it just that little bit easier :)

I'm also in the process of studying to work as a personal care worker for people requiring assistance in their homes, and to get out and about in the community.  The space between this job and the next feels like it's going to drag on forever and ever, but in reality I will be trained and ready to go in my new work in five months. Hopefully. I am still to organise my placement - all 120 hours of it - before I can get out and working.  Hopefully I will be able to have all of that done and dusted and in five months be off and running ... or as off and running as a CFSey person can be :)

My anxiety screams that five months is way too long because money. Money is tight and I have not been contributing much at all in recent times, leaving my partner to shoulder most of the burden, which awakens pretty much every demon that I have, giving ample opportunity to feel depressed and like a useless loser, basically.  I've been trying to drum up extra transcription work, but it's not been all that forthcoming.

And so once I move into my new part-time work situation, combined with the disability support pension I hope to begin receiving soon, and suddenly the world of Susie will feel a little less precarious. And I will be able to resume a regular writing practice again.  Because my world has been as wobbly as a fault line for some time now, and I need it to stabilise for my health's sake, both mentally and physically.

So I will hang on till then. Wait in the fire, wait in the fire.  This too shall pass, and what has felt like it's forever coming will be here and I can relax.

To be brutally honest, the thought of washing old men's testicles is terrifying to me. The thought of assisting the old man who lives on the end of the testicles to remain independent in his home for as long as possible is exciting and gratifying. The former I will get used to. Hopefully not the latter.

And so I wait until then. But it's a stressful wait. To be honest with you, I'm struggling. Money woes, old trauma that rears it's head up and threatens to devour. Health going up and down like a bride's nightie so I can't get any purchase on anything, so I'm not productive, so I feel like shit. 

I feel like shit. And I feel apologetic about it because I'm paranoid.  And I feel paranoid because almost menopause.  And so this post is turning into a whinge, but I'm sorry, I'm just simply not shiny.  I'm tarnished.  Too much time on my hands with menopause looming so close to be able to resist overthinking.  Which contributes to the extra health things.  But I'm trying.  I'm trying so hard to climb out of this pit.

(In fact, I think the problem with me is not so much that I don't try as I overtry.  And I overcare.  I know this, but I've come to know it just a little bit better lately.  I so want to be free of the past ...)

And so I can't wait to get out there working, in whatever capacity my chronically fatigued body will allow me.  I really can't wait.  I know I am going to be so much happier when I do.  Perhaps then I will be able to write posts that are about things that extend a little beyond my very own navel ;)

To finish, in my class last week we watched two episodes of Derek.  Have you seen it?  Ricky Gervais plays Derek, a worker in a nursing home, and all it took was 29 minutes or so to have me gathered in and in love with these characters.  A lovely light-hearted look at ageing, disability, and what it means to be human in the very best sense.  Gervais is so brilliant in this.

The value of life

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

~ Some dude

Tyler has a take on embryonic stem cell research which is personal and compelling and is called Andy.

The sanctity of life. How much do we value it? These are the kinds of questions we should be asking ourselves, and each other. If we just take the commodification monster's word for it, he'll commodify us right from underneath our noses and right down to our very bones.

Jane's friend worked in a nursing home for several months, had done a course which required 60 hours' work for her to gain her certificate. Problem was, she just couldn't do it. Working in a place that stunk of urine, with depressed people waiting to die. She felt awful that she couldn't do it. Talked about how starved for affection the people were, that if you reached out and touched someone's hand - not 'cause you were dressing them, just because - it would be enough for some of them to tear up. Living old in this culture must be a hideous thing.

Jane's friend has since worked as a personal carer for a man who required, as part of his help, assistance in the bathroom. She had been positive that she would never be able to cope wiping the bum of a grown man - and yet after a while, it didn't worry her.

Maybe age and death wouldn't worry us as much if we didn't hide them away constantly, where they grow like Gremlins. Some people have never seen a dead body in their lives, apart from the millions of ones on TV, which just exacerbates the unreality of it all. Seeing a dead body makes you realise that you are far more than your body. The essence of the person - though a cliche - has gone.

Imagine growing old in a world where you knew that you were going to be valued for the wisdom you have acquired. That would sweeten the bitter pill just a bit, wouldn't it? In Japan, Jane mentioned, there is a level of social language used specifically for elderly people. Indigeous cultures value their aged and respect them. Us - we shove ours away in nursing homes. 'Cause we're ashamed, 'cause we don't know what to do with stuff that's not shiny.

Horses

At Christmas we stood at the fence & toyed with the barbed wire & joyed
at holidays, the smell of horses, the pleasure of being filmed by myuncleyourdad
(girding his loins for six weeks of empty threats to whispering girls to go to sleep)
& he filmed us at the fence the horse chewing on my hair & it sent squeals & chills
down my neck & each minute opened up like lotuses & the chills stretched all the way
down through the days of acting all the parts in our own dramatic soap opera &
music & swimming in our nighties & the twilight of our childhood so sweet through
the yellow lens of 25 years & I join with you cuz in saying
I'm ready to grow young again
Untethered
Up ahead