Write

Posted on 30/08/2022 by Grumpa Joe

Writing is something that comes naturally to some people. To me it is hard work. Writing requires one to use their brain, to think, to imagine, to postulate logical arguments. Today, my brain is in a mode which says “preserve your energy.” Why? That is a great question. Most likely it is because I changed my life pattern last evening and went to sleep a good two hours later than usual. When I finally collapsed into bed I found sleep fast, and it went uninterrupted for six hours. Even my sleep interrupting bladder was quiet last night.

As I write this I am struggling with what idea or theme I should follow, but I know that if I continue to spew words a theme will evolve. So far nothing.

Yesterday, was day one of a three day move-in by my step grandson. He has finally made a life altering decision to leave his father’s ghost behind in the house they lived in for seven years. Seventeen months ago, his father was snuffed in an accident involving a car and his motorcycle. After extensive investigation by police over the course of six months they determined it to be a no fault accident. Freddie was driving his BMW bike too fast and a little old lady in an SUV turned left immediately in front of him. Needless to say Freddie planted himself into the passenger seat of the Lexus. His death was sudden, at least we assume it was, and it was followed by a gasoline fire. The coroner would not release the body until he had verified it was him by dental records.

The sudden death of his father, friend, mentor, left Gerry in shock, and his grand-mother in a state of deep shock at the loss of her only son. Since Freddie was an only child his entire estate instantly transferred to his only remaining heir, his son. Think about that, one second you are a free thinking, free living twenty-seven year old, and the next second your responsibility became monumental.

The step grand son has handled that responsibility well, but coming home at night to an empty house to his father’s cat made him miserable. He finally cried uncle and I suggested maybe he should come live with us. It took but a nano-second for him to accept the offer, and his life instantly changed for the better.

When he arrived yesterday with the moving truck and opened the cargo door, the realization hit me that I did this to myself. I saw a huge truck load of furniture, enough to fill a five room house, about to be unloaded into my castle. Today, another load comes, and tomorrow a third load with the contents of a two car garage. After all of the stuff, he too will come and we will become a happy family of three plus a cat.

I knew it would happen. I started writing and I wound up finding a theme that I could write a book about, but won’t. I got it off my chest and now I begin to love this new life.

Filed under: Biography, family | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Good Grief?

Posted on 17/08/2022 by Grumpa Joe

After experiencing grief for nineteen years it is my conclusion that there is nothing good about it. My lovely, beautiful, caring, adoring wife Barbara died on this day nineteen years ago. I write this at three hours past the time she expired in 2003. Over the last few years this day has not crossed my mind as sharply as it has this year. All I know is that suddenly, like the piercing pain that shot down my back last week I am laden with depression. This phenomenon is not new to me. For years after she died I would fall into depression at the beginning of July and be miserable for the next two months. The first day of July, 2003 is when she went into the hospital with peritonitis, and never returned. The memory of her last days has faded over the years except, this year it is as sharp and clear as it has ever been.

My writing frequency has diminished over the last two months, and I am now beginning to believe that it is because of my depression. Usually, once I realize why I’m not able to think of anything to write about I attribute it to depression. One way I can dig myself out of the hole is to express my feelings to the ether of the internet. Once they are out of my mind my soul is once again free to soar.

A friend who writes the Just Cruising blog is currently going through a similar change. The writer is taking time off to rethink why he has a blog in the first place. I too have to remember why I began this journey. I know for fact that my original goal was to promote the benefits of positive thinking. I have strayed from that path and instead immersed myself in the idiocy of trying to persuade people to my conservative ideas. That was fun for a while but after achieving failure, I switched to just plain story telling; find a subject and tell the story about how that topic came into my life. I must have run out of topics because that no longer amuses me. So now, I find myself writing about myself and my depression triggered by grief.

In the days after Barb died, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being maximum unbearable pain, my grief was at a hundred. Slowly, ever so slowly over the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years it softened to where I would place it at about a four. Then 2022 hit me right square between the eyes and I am back to ten. I thank God it is no longer at one hundred.

One way I coped with grief was to remarry. I found a beautiful lady who was also a widow. She totally understood my emotions as she experienced them also. We were happy for fifteen years together. Our shared grief was mild, but still present. Unfortunately, after ten years she contracted a disease that caused her to forget who I was. We were faithful lovers and friends to the end.

Grief didn’t hit me as hard the second time, but it was certainly there. I think the first round hardened my soul to resist the emotion. Now that I think about it, my current depression began around late June, which is when she died three years ago. Add that to the first grief beginning in July and I wonder why I am having trouble? I am experiencing a super nova of grief. Maybe it is because of the way the planets are aligned and the moon is circling.

At this point of my tome of over 600 words I realize that I am embarking on the very first session of blogging therapy which no doubt will begin digging me out of the trench in which I landed. That my friends is why I probably have been doing this for so many years, it is a form of therapy for me.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, Writer | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Dream On

Posted on 03/07/2021 by Grumpa Joe

There are a couple of things on my mind this morning. First, I feel like my computer is punishing me for the essay I posted yesterday about zero-day problems. I normally write directly into my WordPress blog site Grumpajoesplace.com. Today I am forced to write in a word processor because when I opened WordPress it asked me for a password which I could not remember. I am traveling, and left all of my password card files at home. I have tried so many times with failure that I’m sure WordPress has locked me out for my own good. This is why I hate passwords and security features. I, the owner am locked out, but any hacker can bypass those same barriers and get into my site to pillage and steal. I will post this article later today, even if it means cutting my respite short to do so.

The second thing that I need to write about is a dream I had in the wee hours of this morning. In this dream, I found myself wandering around inside the massive manufacturing building of my former employer. The owner was paranoid about security and had all departments compartmentalized and secured with locks. Only those with properly coded pass keys could enter the compartments. If you needed to be in a specific department to do your job you had access. If you didn’t need to know the information generated therein, you were locked out. Information was granted on need-to-know basis. Over the years I told people that the biggest secret we kept inside our company was that we didn’t have any secrets.

I wandered around the shiny floored hall between departments skating along in my stocking feet. I love doing that even when not dreaming, skating that is. I used my pass key to open a door and found the cell empty, I mean completely empty, void of all furniture, people, paper anything, but the lights were on. Strange I thought, and skated to the next cell which I remembered as the cafeteria. There was a steam line with food, and a few people behind the counter serving, but there were no other people there. Something distracted me and I left to go to another cell. I encountered the same strange phenomenon, it was empty. I decided to return to the cafeteria by another entrance and much to my surprise it was empty, whereas a few seconds ago it had a steam table and some staff. I left in a panic and found the entire fifty-acre complex was empty. Then in my sleep I was overcome with sadness. The sadness was real and I felt like the world had abandoned me. I couldn’t shake the sadness by remaining in the dream, so I woke up to go to the bathroom.

The strangest thing about this dream is that I have been gone from this job and this building for over twenty years. The building itself has been removed from the site. The only vestige that remains is the cyclone fence that surrounded the property and the concrete slab floor. Why in heavens name did my brain do this to me? What provoked such a vivid experience in the subconscious mind? I’ll never know. I do know that once I woke up the sadness disappeared thank God. I never felt such a real sadness in my life, conscious or not.

I’ve been thinking about that world which was so integral to me for forty years. The many people I worked with, some who became genuine friends, but more who were acquaintances only. I have lived without them for half the years I lived with them and the building which I watched grow to the size it was. All gone, with only a few tenuous connections remaining to the few I call friends. This might be a good source of a theme for a story about being left alone, the last man on the planet. What would I do, how would I cope, or have I been experiencing those exact emotions all along? At what point have I passed from one life into another? I left the company and lost my life partner almost at the same moment, and I know that life experience forced me to begin anew. Fifteen years later I lost my second life partner and I found myself alone again. Now, I am on a journey to another new life with a third life partner. This time the journey is quite different. My partner is grieving the sudden loss of her only child, and I find myself being drawn into her sadness. That could quite possibly explain my dream. As I experience these new lives I find myself drifting further and further away from a reality that formed me as a person. My life feels like me in the dream skating from room to room, to find them empty, but still I continue to search for a single soul I can call friend. How many more new realities will I be forced to live through before I finally find the one that is God? I am sad again. 

Filed under: Aging, Biography, family, grief, Memories | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

Try Something New

Posted on 01/09/2020 by Grumpa Joe

It is the first day of September, 2020, and I am feeling low. In order to feel better I have decided to set some new goals for myself. There is nothing better to motivate me than some new and exciting goals. I can fathom new, but exciting doesn’t always happen.

This is the first year in sixteen that my Lions Club is not working hard to sell two thousand raffle tickets. COVID-19 has caused our state governor to rigidly follow the National guidelines for keeping the virus at bay. We as a club reluctantly decided that in the interest of public safety we would not hold our raffle. What that means to the club is a huge loss of funds which fuel our projects within the community. My club is not alone on this matter, every Lions Club in the world is dealing with similar issues.

Without money our club is severely handicapped as we are what is known as a check writing club. We raise money once a year in a giant fund raiser and then dispense the money toward worthwhile causes within our community. Our entire reason for being is in jeopardy this year. We struggle with how to cope.

My every week social group has disbanded. We are a small group of friends who met every Tuesday at the Stray Bar for drinks , and who have not seen each other for twelve weeks.

So, with these social set backs I am going to try something new to brighten my day and to give life some meaning. Here is a list of some of the things I will do:

  1. I will visit a new blog every day, and comment on the blogger’s post.
  2. I will write a new blog post every day. This means having something meaningful to write about.
  3. I will structure my day in a rigid pattern of activity to ward off boredom and to minimize my daily screen time.
  4. I will read one new book per week.
  5. I will call a friend everyday so I won’t be so lonely for human contact and voice. I never thought I would be affected by such loneliness as I have in the past months. There are a couple of reasons for that, one, because I still miss my partner Peggy, and two, because I truly don’t like living by myself.
  6. I’ll cook one new recipe every week.
  7. I’ll walk five thousand steps every day.
  8. I’ll write at least four letters this month.
  9. I’ll take the initiative to lead one new service project every month.
  10. I will accept invitations to do things which I would normally turn down.
  11. I will faithfully pray for all the people on my prayer list daily.

I will measure progress toward these goals throughout September and report back to this BLOG with results.

GOOD LUCK JOE!

Filed under: Aging, Biography, Funk | Tagged: , | 12 Comments »

Day 22-Quarantine-Too Many Bad Memories

Posted on 08/04/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Today, I woke up and told myself that this day is dedicated to Uncle Sam. Yes, it is the day I finally do my income taxes. Over the years I have whittled down the amount of time it takes me, but I still spend eight to ten hours compiling data for the dreaded IRS 1040. I will say one thing, I didn’t think or obsess about the COVID-19 virus. Instead, I sorted receipts, credit card statements, doctor visits, drug purchases, charity giving, anything deductible that I could find, big or small, to reduce the amount of tax I have to pay.

The Tax Man Cometh

Thanks to COVID-19 and the accompanying market crash my fixed income is drawing from a much smaller pool. The thought of draining the pool before death is not comforting. Instead it brings on thoughts of how the virus might be an advantage. Catch virus and die, then leave something for the kids. The opposite is catch the virus, don’t die, and run out of money to live on. The kids will visit you living in a tent city under an overpass. Morose. Of course, I should feel guilty about my high taxes in light of the fact that the government just threw two-trillion ($2,000,000,000,000) dollars at the economy to save it from obliteration. I should feel patriotic and happy to be donating to the cause.

Uncle Sam brought me an unexpected benefit today, grief. As I sorted records, each one brought back memories of life over the past year. Most of the expenditures were for health-care items bought to bring Peg some comfort. As I reviewed them, my mind returned to the situation that incurred the expense. Most were not happy times. Like the last visit of the podiatrist who trimmed Peg’s toenails and inadvertently irritated one of her toes into a wound that we could not heal. Or the rental for her pneumatic mattress that was designed to keep her from getting bed sores. Her skin was so broken down that it was too little too late. These are all the kinds of memories I can do without. I am afraid they will haunt me in my dreams. My prayers will be to never see another pressure sore for the remainder of my life.

Tomorrow, I will wrap up the details of my data and send the pile to my tax man. He basically pumps the numbers into a neat program and it spits out the results. He’ll have it completed within four hours. There is something wrong with that picture, I spend ten hours compiling data so it is nice and neat and he spends less than half that time entering the data, and he gets paid. This is the last time I can claim Peg as a dependent and next year my taxes will be much higher, I can hardly wait.

The weather was fabulous today, but the only time I set foot outside was to gather the mail. Tomorrow, I will spend time in a ZOOM meeting with the support group for sight impaired. All I can vision is a bunch of blind people staring at a computer screen waiting for something to happen. It’ll be interesting for sure.

In the meantime, I found a grocery store that actually gave me a delivery date, get this, it is the local grocer that I go to all the time. My previous attempts were with huge stores like Walmart, Meijers, Shipt, and Target. I don’t even get an acknowledgement from them, but my local gave me a date for next Monday a full week out. The company called Shipt is an online delivery service that will shop for you from any of the major stores and bring it to your door. Their problem is they can’t deliver either. Wow, I wouldn’t want my brainstorm of an idea to blow up on me like that. I guess I can live on my crumbs until then. The downside is the selection of items is about one quarter of what it was in the big box stores. It is a famous trick for companies to sell what you want at a very low price when they don’t have any stock.

It is time to turn on Homeland and fill my brain with violence and terrorism before I retire to have nightmares about Peg’s bed sores and her death.

Filed under: Aging, family, Government | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

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