Entry #686281, added on 02-03-10 @ 10:45 am EST
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| killing ourselves | Entry #686281 |
Deliberately moving slowly at school is a lot more work than I thought it would be. My exam is set for next week, but my facilitator advises me to take it later so that I can 'stretch things out'. I thought being ahead in my courses was a good thing, but it turns out that being an overachiever is tantamount to self-sabotage.
So, I read 'Catcher in the Rye' yesterday, or rather, more than half the book, and I wrote a poem, and I completed a chapter of actual course work, all in four hours. When I have free time at home, I accomplish nothing, but sit me at a desk and make it so I can't leave and I'm a veritable whirlwind of activity. I actually almost laughed out loud while reading the book, because truly, that book is one of the wittiest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. To think it was written 65 years ago is staggering, in a way, except the slang Holden Caulfield uses is largely the same slang my grandmother used right up until the end of her life; crumby, say!, remember me to him, etc. I used to think that people from my grandmother's time were pristine and incapable of cursing. I guess we like to see our elders that way and don't want to imagine them as sexual, violent beings. Age tends to give the impression of purity and wisdom, oddly enough.
M's friend C. came over last night so he could see M.'s cello (not a euphemism) and the wee one's guitar. Since the wee one had taken her first official lesson yesterday afternoon, she was very excited to show him what she could do, which was basically pulling the pick across the strings. I left them to it, thought that if C. brought his clarinet the three of them could jam and be the weirdest band, ever, and I went off to the grocery store in search of foods I like but don't necessarily need. I imagined ice-cream, cookies, cheese, etc., but came home with grapes, yogourt, lettuce and granola bars. I managed to drop the excess weight I took on after my danish binge last week, so I could not bring myself to eat more garbage which would surely bring it back. I feel clean when I eat well, in control, even. When I returned, M. and C. went out for male-bonding over coffee and I set about making the wee one's favourite dinner- plain, buttered pasta, broccoli and black olives with a dusting of parmesan. No, the child isn't normal, I know. For myself, I made a curried chicken salad sandwich with tomato and greens on whole grain bread, and I smiled with every bite. You see, women love eating when their men aren't around. Despite what we say, a good lot of us feel more inclined to eat when we are not in the company of our mates, which is probably where binge-eating comes from. M. is so concerned about what we all put in our bodies that I actually feel guilty when I eat something that might be classified as 'horrid' in front of him. He doesn't dictate to me about it and is actually quite tactful when he points out that mayonnaise is not a food group, but I feel the weight of his eyes when I fill the ice-cream bowl past the brim or when I put too much sugar in my tea. I don't even think it's a weight thing, because when I was 32 pounds heavier, he never once made a negative comment about my body and touched me when he could. I actually think it's a health issue for him, which is kind of strange to me, given that we live in a world which focuses on weight. I was worried about him not finding me attractive and he was worried about me dropping from a heart attack. One of us had skewed priorities.
Diabetes is exploding at the moment, and it concerns me a little because I know that my great-grandfather died from complications of it. I did not know this until I researched my family tree and learned that this is what killed him. My mother always said it was a heart attack, but she never mentioned that he'd had a leg amputated, that he was going blind, that he developed blood poisoning from said amputation, or that he even had diabetes for that matter. So, there's a link, there. His wife, my great-grandmother, developed Alzheimer's Disease and died in her early 80's in a sanitarium for the aged and mentally debilitated some time in the 1950's. My mother's only recollection of her is of a hugely tall woman in a printed dress with smears of chocolate on her face because of a rabid obsession with sweets. Apparently, the nurses would steal her chocolates and beat her if she tried to stop them. Things were different, then. Ironically, my sister K. lives with steps of the former hospital which has long since been abandoned and is reportedly haunted. Sometimes, when I walk with my sister along the lakeshore path that runs behind the hospital grounds, I feel an eerie sensation, but not because of the possibility of ghosts, but because I know someone I am related to suffered there and eventually died there. My grandmother, their daughter, died nearly eight years ago, and her health problems were largely undiagnosed because she was a very difficult patient. Officially, she died of pneumonia, but she also had severe dementia. The doctors attributed this to a consistent lack of mental stimulation over the later years, smoking, use of alcohol and a diet lacking in substance. My grandfather, her first husband, died at 43 of a massive heart attack. He was not overweight in the least, was actually quite active according to all reports, and to my knowledge, smoking was his only vice. So, on that side of the family, we have diabetes, Alzheimer's Disease, dementia and heart disease, all of which have a lot to do with how you take care of yourself in terms of diet and exercise. On the other side of the family, and the pond, we have a slightly more limited knowledge of things, mostly because the Irish brood aren't exactly keen on revealing secrets. What I do know is that my father's mother also had Alzheimer's Disease (jesus, mary and joseph! I'm freaking doomed, right?), and she spent her later days in a 'home', despite making my grandfather promise that he'd never put her in one. My uncles made the choice for him, and it had been hard, but once she was safely ensconced in a facility with warm-hearted nurses and a priest who performed bedside masses (she insisted on those), he relaxed. He relaxed and then he had a stroke and died six weeks before she did. So, stroke and Alzheimer's on that side. Did my grandfather have any bad habits that may have contributed to his death? Well, he worked at Player's Cigarettes for forty-odd years and smoked cigarettes until he opted for a pipe, and he drank because it's what you do when you're an Irishman, so yes, there were some contributing factors. My grandmother and the Alzheimer's? I say it must have been nothing more than bad luck, because from all accounts, the woman had no bad habits, unless you count eating fish and digesting indeterminate amounts of mercury reckless. Alzheimer's, to my understanding, is basically protein build-up, in the form or plaques and tangles, on the brain. It can be a result of age or linked to heredity, but lifestyle choices play a huge role as well. As I am already predisposed genetically, I am a little worried. So, double-whammied with degenerative cognitive disorders on both sides, diabetes and the resulting dismemberment of a limb, and the possibility of swift, unanticipated collapse brought on by stroke or heart attack. None of these sound pleasing. Therefore, I opt to take responsibility for myself. I have to. No one else can and I don't want to be fighting of nurses with chocolate addictions in my old age.
Not to be morbid (wait, I believe that ship has sailed), but my sisters and I often talk about how we think our mother will go. The reason for this being that though my mother appears to be healthy, in that she has never been overweight and is extremely active, she also has the worst diet of anyone we know. My mother makes potato chips and rum and Coke a meal. She is known to drink Kahlua and cream. She will skip breakfast and lunch but will feast on all-you-can-eat Chinese at a restaurant with nothing but a tiny sneeze-guard over the food as it sits for hours under a heat lamp. In short, her personal standards aren't exactly high in terms of taking care of herself. She is supposed to be on Lipitor but failed to renew her prescription, and when asked why, she didn't have an answer. She has acid reflux disease but will not abstain from drinking Coke or eating high fat foods. How she is the size she is something of a modern-day wonder, but the cracks are beginning to show. She now has jowls, and as my mother is supremely vain, this is something of a problem for her, plus, she is developing wrinkles at warp speed because she refuses to use sunblock while sitting around drinking with her friends in their resin lawn chairs. We all have our money on something quick, like a stroke. As my father lovingly says, 'she'll just go down in a pile one day', and he laughs every time he says it, but my mother always responds with something witty like 'Good, the sooner I'm out of this place, the better!'. The thing is, I am mostly concerned that she'll develop dementia like her mother did, because she does have a poor diet, and she doesn't use her brain in any constructive way other than to manipulate people. If that happens, who takes care of her? Semi-sane mother is a pill, but certifiably mentally incompetent mom might be the thing that drives us over the edge. For this reason alone, I am thinking of force-feeding her vegetables and making her do crossword puzzles. My sisters and I don't play this game when it comes to our dad because it hurts more, for some reason. He tries, he really does, and he loves his vegetable garden and he is still active and he loves learning. I suppose I worry more about him because I don't think he deserves to ever get sick. My mother defiantly ignores all the advice and orders from her doctors, so she'll basically deserve what she gets, but people who do what they can to take care of themselves should get some sort of reward for their efforts, namely longevity. I'll be devastated, probably, if my mother ever does get seriously ill, but this doesn't mean she won't have brought it on herself, or that her habits shouldn't bother me now. I hate that she is so daft about things, but in a stubborn way. Defiance despite proven facts = stupid. At least she quit smoking, though. That was kind of impressive.
Not only is ill-health inconvenient, painful and frightening, but it's bloody expensive for most people. You can't work when you're seriously ill, and though we have a great health-care system, it doesn't cover most medications which are ridiculously priced. My aunt has acromegaly, a diagnosis it took nearly twenty years for her to get, and her medication just for that is over $800 a month. She has other issues as well and they have their own pills, but can you imagine? So, she has to work, despite the pain and the discomfort, because my uncle, her husband, drank and smoked himself into brain cancer and died, leaving her alone. She is in her sixties and has to work full-time just to afford the meds necessary to give her a little bit of relief. No, exercise and a great diet would not have helped her because this is a pituitary problem, but if my uncle had been more responsible for himself, maybe he would have lived to support his wife when she needed him. See, it's not always about one person and their bad choices. There is definitely a domino effect.
Why do I care so much about this stuff? Why should I care about what people do to their bodies? I guess it's because all the whining gets to me. I am so tired of hearing my mother complain about her aches and pains when most of them could be eradicated with a little bit of self-care. I am tired of hearing people moan and groan about sleeping problems when they don't exercise, or their weight when they consistently eat garbage, or their pre-diabetic state when they eat sugar in some capacity with every meal (my friend Cathie, who has four diabetics in her immediate family. I ask you, why?). I am tired of people not owning up to their own participation in their personal struggles and destruction. I count myself in this, too. I am sitting here, with a sore tailbone, shifting uncomfortably in this chair, and I know exercise would solve the problem, but instead I sit here tapping away, and later, I will be sitting in another chair reading the rest of 'Catcher in the Rye'. I will come home, get on my computer, read about things that really don't matter, and I will actually be tired and a little depressed at the end of the day, because it's the rut I choose.
I'm a goddamn madwoman, I really am.
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