Woke up this morning to find the umbrella knocked off its base and another inch of water in the empty tuna can that serves as a rain gauge.
Very happy that I decided not to venture forth last night.
Accepting one’s limitations is part of middle age; some may call it wisdom, some, risk aversion or even resignation.
Fortunately or not, by age 63, most of us have had enough experiences to know a good bet from a bad one.
By that, I mean an expenditure of time, energy and money that has a good chance of paying off, versus one that’s likely a waste of resources.
I was doing some heavy groundskeeping the other day, a real workout, and in the course of it, started thinking about my adoptive mother.
We had a poisonous, toxic relationship. At the point that she became a fragile, elderly lady, I stopped talking with her, for fear that I’d actually cause her harm.
What I hadn’t seen until that day, though, is that my adoptive mother shoved me away as much or more than I did her.
That realization helped me see things from her perspective, how a bad adoption placement must have affected her, her marriage, her concept of herself as a mother and as a worthwhile person.
There is no failure that cuts so deep as the knowledge that you’ve failed as a parent.
Anyone who hasn’t been through the crucible of counseling or therapy can drift through their entire lives thinking that they are not responsible for their own mistakes, that their failures are someone else’s fault.
Therapy forces you to visit the dark places. I’m not sure that makes a person stronger, maybe not: if anything, you are so aware of your limitations that it can be crippling.
There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of uplifting stories about “famous failures”, from Abraham Lincoln to Steven Spielberg.
We’re supposed to take heart from their example, but there’s still the nagging suspicion that the reasons for their eventual triumphs have nothing to do with us.
Lincoln may have been raised in a log cabin and suffered from depression most of his adult life, but he was savvy about exploiting his aristocratic, photogenic looks.
Spielberg might have been considered special needs as a kid, but he has a devoted, adoring mother whom I suspect kept up his spirits and nurtured his self-esteem.
I read an article last week about a discovery that 2/3 of the CFS/ME patients in a study have been infected with a retrovirus, Xenotrophic Murine Leukemia Virus-related Virus (XMLV).
Since 1985, the NIH, CDC and the medical community generally dismissed the symptoms of ME sufferers as psychosomatic, “all in their heads”.
Kind of reminds me of the way people with so-called mental illnesses are treated. Afflicted by real, demonstrable imbalances of brain chemistry, we are nonetheless judged by those fortunate enough to be healthy.
Same with overweight women, as director Lee Daniels admits of his new film “Precious”.
Rather than the world of Gene Roddenberry, where everyone on Earth is beautiful and lives in perfect harmony, my ideal future would be one in which imperfections and limitations are accepted rather than judged.
A worthy life goal, wouldn’t you say?