Becoming Secondary

Sometimes, there is a downside to working in hospice and it is different than what you might think.  It's not too much death or dying, but a hyper-awareness of time in my normal every-day living.

Nothing brings this home more than when I'm trying to track down my percussionist in the orbit of high school marching band when I can't get him on the phone.

Does that seem like a weird set of circumstances to bring the old sand-filled hourglass center stage?

I'm hoping I can explain, and figure it out for myself at the same time...

I get to meet people in the evening of life on a routine basis.  Very often, they've become secondary to the people in their lives for whom they were primary for a good long while.  Spouses and kids, mostly.  They were wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, and their best years were the same years I'm living now.  But, their people slowly moved on.  They were moved from the center of their lives to the periphery, and became someone to check in on, rather than someone to be included and enjoyed.

My eyes are wide open to this shift.  I'm becoming aware of the people in my life who may feel like they've been dropped in a secondary slot, permanently.  I am still primary for my children because I can drive and grocery shop and facilitate everything that is important to them.  But, I am inching my way to the periphery and every time I'm holding my phone and there is no answer on the other end, I know.

An unscheduled weekend rolls in and feels like a blessing and a curse because time together is so important.  But, finding more than two people who want to do the same thing is a chore and getting all five to agree is nearly impossible.

So, we compromise. 

At the river, a couple of us fished down the bank a little ways, I sat on an uncomfortable rock until my butt hurt and then filled a trash bag with other people's trash, while someone else threw rocks at spiders the size of grapefruits, hoping to pass a few minutes while noting, "this is the-most-redneck-vacation."  It seemed like the best bonding moment was our unanimous relief to be back home, savoring the memory that we created.  Mainly, that we didn't want to go back there any time soon.  No discussion needed.
 
Sunday kept us altogether for breakfast and Mass, but separate for the rest due to attractions that couldn't be resisted and commitments that needed to be kept.  But, fortunately for me, my plans included sitting poolside and holding a baby for a couple of hours which seemed to slow time a bit.  Gratefully.

Unless I am hitting Sonic at Happy Hour, there are few things my boys are interested in joining me for, and doing things as a family is, well, usually a compromise for most of us.  So, I sit on the futon as long as anyone will sit by me, deliver pigs in a blanket to a fort in the woods, change my schedule to steal a lunch date at Subway, and go to the skate park when it's almost dark because "they have lights, you know".

I know I am becoming secondary.  Just in little moments for now, but they are coming more frequently and I know they will keep coming, as they should.  Occasionally, someone will notice a little tear and recognize that I'm not okay and while I'm trying to find the words to explain, they decide they didn't really want an explanation, anyway.  And I'm relieved, because I couldn't really explain it, anyway.

What's Real in a World of Illusion

I’m at a Disney World Resort, sitting on a patio on a “boardwalk”, eating lunch by myself in the same place I ate lunch by myself yesterday.  I’m here because I tagged along with my husband and five other women for a work conference.  If you read my post yesterday, you have permission to laugh.  In light of a series of recent conversations, it seems that this was intended to be the backdrop for Heidi’s 2017 Brokenness Retreat.  First, last, and only.  Hopefully.

This seems so ironic, because the last time I was here was 23 years ago.  I arrived with my high school show choir, the day after the accident which claimed my mom’s mobility.  I didn’t want to go, but everyone convinced me it was best.  Disney is known as a magical place.  I know it as a world other than my own, but maybe not quite magical.  Not at first. 

I have to admit, I have felt a surprisingly strong resistance to the “unrealness” of the place I’m staying, The Boardwalk Inn.  The buildings are real, the water is real, and the wood that makes up the “boardwalk” is real.  But, the “boardwalk” goes in a circle around a manmade lagoon, has a lighthouse, and a beach with a concrete beginning and end.

And I think to myself, “Hey.  You’re not tricking me.”  This is an approximation, a fabrication, and a manipulation.  I’m not settling into this fictitiousness.  I have a passion for real (nevermind I believe my fears with no basis in reality, without a second thought).  But, I work to shed pretense, not live in it.  This is not what I’m about.  Not that I can’t relax here, but don’t think I’m buying it for a minute.

And then, beginning with this little lunch spot, real things started to happen. 

Yesterday, it was the guy proposing to his girlfriend thirty feet from where I was sitting, and a couple from the North of England, who are on their fourth generation of making memories here, in a place that is magical for them.  Then, my aunt came to visit, whom I haven’t seen for years, and we connected in ways heretofore unimagined.  

Here, in this place that is made to look like someplace else.

Today, when I came back to my new favorite spot, my waitress greeted me with, “How’s your retreat going?  Unsweet iced tea, again?”  And I felt seen and known, at least a little.  The couple sitting next to me were from Atlantic City, where the real boardwalk is, and they told me the funniest thing.  They prefer this one!  Hahaha!  And the fake “boardwalk” grew a little more real. 

I thank Cathy, my waitress, and my lunch neighbors, Roger and Iva, for making that happen.  I thank 35-year Disney employee, Kennedy from the Bronx, who remembered seeing his first clean street here, for answering that he’s “magical” every time he’s asked, welcoming everyone home, and handing out stickers until the tendons in his wrist beg him to stop.  

And, thank you to my real lunch date, the very real grackle coveting my very real tortilla chips, as the most likely source for his next very real meal.  

Thank you all for being the magic in my Disney experience.

Walt Disney said, “I don’t want the public to see the world they live in while they’re in the park.  I want them to feel they’re in another world.”  I can see that he’s succeeded.  But, I can also see that the magic in my world will always come from the people in it.