Daily Bread

We are embarking on the best holiday of the year, in my humble opinion, Thanksgiving.  This holiday centers on gratitude, yet more specifically thanksgiving for our blessings of food.  We express this thankfulness by sharing our bounty of food with family and friends.

Many people pray over their food.  Most Christians thank God for their food.  Part of the famous Psalm 23 includes, “give us this day, our daily bread.”

Do you remember the song, “Let us break bread together…?”  An African American spiritual from the 1920s, this simple little hymn was included in our United Methodist hymnal and traditionally sung during communion services.

Many social interactions are cemented over a meal, food buying rituals, or snacking on some sort of food.  And we all have keen food memories.  For example, I associate my dad with sardines, fig bars, olives, and sandwich cookies.  My mom baked bread when I was growing up, so I think of her every time I enter a bakery.  She also made homemade French fries, tapioca pudding, and “glorified rice;” for all of which I will always remember her.

We all have engaged in one or more dysfunctional relationships in our lifetime.  Some of them we can get out of and others we must work through.

I think it’s bad, however, that the dysfunctional relationship that I am currently embroiled in is with one of the necessities of life: food.  It’s complicated.

Flannery O’Connor said, “the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”  Ain’t that something.

I’m having difficulty “stomaching” some recent changes to my diet.  I have what probably could be termed a common sense, atop a reasonably informed understanding of nutrition.  I’ve been forced, however, by a digestive malady to throw out my long-held knowledge of “what’s healthy” to eat.  What once did the trick in keeping my health in check, came back to bite me in the you know what.

Grocery shopping became a conundrum.  I pretty much bypassed the most familiar aisle to me over the last twenty years, the produce aisle, my favorite.  Vegetables and fruit have comprised a massive portion of our household food consumption, with a little bit of protein, a few carbs, and a fair number of grains, on the side.

A Mediterranean diet, chock-full of fresh fruit and vegetables, has been the basis of our household diet for decades. We all know that the sugar, salt, and texture of snack foods attract us like bees to nectar and gnats to our eyes.  Do you remember the Lays potato chip ad from years ago, that you “can’t eat just one?”

My Mediterranean diet gets skewered with the first bite of snack food.  Few of us can resist that attraction forever.  It nearly requires the discipline and support of a twelve-step program to resist an addiction to junk food.

Some mornings I have awakened to the day saying to myself, “I’m just eating food today, no snacks, no sweets, just food.”  That’s a silly statement, I know, but it’s my way of heading back into the reality of healthy eating.

I recall an old Saturday night live skit where Belushi and Murray or one of the other originals from the cast, broke down a Snickers bar via the good groups, claiming the Candy bar met all the nutritional categories for healthy eating.  I wish.

We all know the basics of the food groups to be protein, vegetables, cheese/milk/yogurt, fats, fruit, and grains.  But then there are “food groups” like vegan, vegetarian, no-carbs, low-carbs, Mediterranean, gluten-free, no-fat, keto, Atkins, low-calorie, and my new category: bland!

When you love the flavor of good food, bland is a horror like no other, when it comes to food enjoyment.  There’s no way to “bon apetit,” with bland food.  I can take eliminating some foods.  In fact, I once read a little book called, “French Women Don’t Get fat,” that suggested, “corn is for cows and potatoes are for pigs,” so I’ve avoided but haven’t completely cut out these starches.  Until now, with a bland diet.

Forget bland for now, let’s talk food.  Food can be a lot of things. We each form opinions and make food choices based on only God knows what.

Food can be funny.  Remember the Griswold’s from the movie, “Christmas Vacation?”  Their Christmas meal included crunchy turkey; a lime jello mold garnished with cat litter; it was funny food.

Food can be fast.  Welcome to America.  There are food trends, and there is traditional, or classic food.  You decide which of this kind of food pertains to the “farm-to-table craze.”  It’s kind of funny to us rural dwellers who have eaten farm-to-table for as long as we can remember.

Food can be categorized.  Surely, you’ve heard of the Food Pyramid and how many servings of various categories of food we should consume in a day.

Food can be picked at, picked up, and picked apart.  Food can be annoying, and we get fed up.

Food can unite us and bond us together.  Food can also separate us.  For example, you’ve heard, “yuck, how can you eat that?”  Or, “I can’t eat thus and such.”

Food can make us sick and it can equally make us well.  We can eat too much food or too little food; but food cannot be avoided as it is a necessity of life.  We all consume food and we waste food too.

Apparently, there are right foods and wrong foods.  Food can be fancy or it can be plain.  Food can be bland or it can be caliente.

Food is primarily fuel.  It doesn’t matter what foodies, food critics, or food writers tell us.  We will eat what we eat and most of us are thankful for our food.  Bon apetit and Happy Thanksgiving.

Wait a Minute

Is it my imagination or has impatience run rampant?  If it’s not some lady running a shopping cart up my you know what, at the grocery store checkout line, it’s some dude rushing another guy out of his parking spot at the hardware store.

Everybody’s in a hurry these days, and common courtesy seems to have gone with the wind.  I just can’t.

Are people ruder than they used to be?  Have we taken “looking out for number one,” way too far?

I understand that we should all “take care.”  We should all learn to love ourselves, such as the Bible says, as we love our neighbor.  But loving yourself more than your neighbor, then that’s taking the precept too far, I believe.

A few weeks ago, I literally fell in a crosswalk because an impatient driver, stopped to wait for me to cross frantically waving like a flag in the wind, to get me to hurry up.  So flustered, I trotted toward the crossing line and tripped over my own rubber soled shoes.

What’s wrong with this picture?  I haven’t totally lost faith in people because of their impatience.  That trip and fall incident was accompanied by my dropping my bank card at the crime scene.  Don’t you know that a Good Samaritan turned it in at the grocery store customer service desk.  I would not have dreamed of a more honest, caring and truly loving your neighbor type human being to have concluded that stunning experience.

It could’ve been worse.  Don’t you know, it could always be worse?

I don’t know about you, but I feel rushed all the time, whether it’s spouses pushing each other to do something or another, or it’s just the speed of culture.  Could you just “hold your horses,” a little bit?

Put the kettle on, and chill out.  Mind you, I don’t think I’m a particularly slow person.  In fact, my usual walking gait is by habit timed close to my fitness walking regime, which is kind of fast.

I’m also quick off the draw in business and technology, or so I’m told by more than a few professionals younger and savvier than am I.  So, it is just a theory that this “hurry-up” culture is based purely on self-centered “me-centric” selfishness.

I’m pretty sure that the driver’s manual in every state of the United States restricts the use of sounding one’s horn to very purposeful things.  And I’m equally sure that people are honking their horn out of impatience, not because they love Jesus. (Please know I’m not mocking Jesus, but to clarify, there used to be a bumper sticker, which said “honk if you love Jesus.”)

It’s just plain road rage if you honk your horn out of frustration with other driver’s reaction time.  Typically, you will hear a honk if you delay a fraction of a second after the traffic light turns green or risk a rear-ending.

And forget the yellow light as a caution light or prepare-to-stop indication.  If you don’t go through a yellow light, again you risk being rear-ended by the guy behind you who wants to get through the light.

Sensible driving calls for sounding your horn only to alert another driver with whom you might collide, i.e., the blind spot, or their temporary lack of attention to their surroundings, which include you in them.

“Hold on!”  I know I’m not the only human being who takes five seconds to get her cards back in the right place in my wallet or hand bag before leaving the checkout line at the grocery store.  Oh, my goodness you would think you were holding up a person late for an appointment at the White House, but it’s just one granny on her way to the next store on her list.

Leave it to a 19th century monarch to genially tell us all to “back off,” and save ourselves some stress.  Supposedly it was the U.K.’s Queen Victoria who said “Let time slow down so that one breathes freedom and peace, making one forget the world and it’s sad turmoil.” 

Under the Weather

Then, there’s “sick as a dog,” or “not feeling so hot.”  Have you been there, done that a time or two in your life?

I think it’s kind of ironic that the idiom, “under the weather,” is directly related to seasickness.  I’ve certainly not had every kind of sickness, but I can say from experience that seasickness is real, my friends.

It’s been many years now since we traveled by major ocean liner across the Atlantic to Europe.  With all the planning and preparation and packing light and smart, I didn’t once consider seasickness pills.  I was convinced I wouldn’t need them.

I arrogantly, or maybe naively thought that I had the whole seasickness thing whipped as we cruised out of New York harbor along the Hudson River toward the Atlantic.  “This is quite lovely,” I thought as we gazed out of some windows in one of many casual dining rooms aboard the QEII, at the diminishing lights of New York City.

So much for my cocky thoughts that “this is a modern ocean liner with ballasts to beat the band.”  Or, “I have a sturdy constitution, I never get sick.”  After all, this was the 21st century and I wouldn’t be huddled amongst my fellow sojourners, packed like sardines in the hull or sole or whatever the “floor” is called on The Mayflower.

Incidentally, I didn’t see one “angry” wave either to or fro on our cruise.  It was a smooth trip.  In fact, I spent quite a bit of time assuaging the potential effects of gargantuan food offerings aboard the ship, in my Jackie Kennedy headscarf, walking the outer decks, never spotting nasty weather.

But as memory serves, it was about ten o’clock, the first night out, when “sick as a dog” hit me in a freakishly sudden way.  It caught me totally off guard.  I may have vomited twice in my entire life.  However, I have felt like throwing up countless times and personally I think that counts.  Vertigo counts too; you know it if you’ve ever experienced it.

Supposedly back in the day, when a sailor was feeling seasick, he would be sent below deck so he could get away from being “under the harsh weather.”  First noted in print in 1835, the phrase, “under the weather,” refers more specifically to being “under the weather bow,” the bow being the part of the boat where all the nasty weather blows.

In my experience, there was nowhere on that boat where I could get away from being under the weather.  I wanted, not a rescue boat, a doctor, a pill, or any human being.  I wanted a helicopter, now!

“Sick as a dog,” comes from the 1700s when dogs as well as rats were identified as having spread the plague, so dogs were associated with anything undesirable.  Thankfully we’re not living in the 18th century anymore, Dorothy.

Nonetheless, I’ve been “sick as a dog,” from stuff that is not even close to the plague.  But under the weight of certain sicknesses, it felt to me that death would be a relief.

I haven’t experienced much sickness in my life, for which I’m exceedingly grateful.  And, feeling “under the weather,” doesn’t really rate when you have that all-over feeling of sweeping nausea, queasiness, and total inability to function associated with discomfort in any and every bodily position.

Laying down feels like you might drown in your own brain.  Standing up is near-impossible.  If you think walking on a moving train is rough, try walking or moving, or sleeping, or resting, while under the influence of seasickness-like symptoms.

You’ve surely heard the saying, “misery loves company?”  In a state of seasickness, stomach flu, gallbladder pain, various forms of vertigo, and likely many other conditions with which I have no personal experience, misery doesn’t even come close to loving company.  Can you say, “leave me alone.”    

If someone says, “I’m feeling under the weather today, I think I’ll take a sick day,” you figure, oh well, they’re feeling a little off or not up to par.  You don’t concern yourself too much when somebody says they’re “under the weather,” because it’s minor and recoverable in a minute’s time.

I’m told that “par,” is the score that is expected in a golf game.  Under par, in golf means exceptionally good; but in life, it’s not so much.  But since par is associated with a game and is not as serious as the game of life, “feeling under par” is a nuisance more than anything, right?     

Who among us in today’s tech world hasn’t consulted “Dr. Google,” when we’ve noticed something amiss in our bodies?   It might not be big as in the line, “it’s not a tumor,” from “Kindergarten Cop,” but neither is it right or normal, for us.

We all feel “under the weather” at times.  Remember that an ingrown toenail hurts.  An unusual spot on our skin is concerning.  A headache is distracting.  A sharp, dull, lingering pain in this whatsit or that thingamajig can be distressing.  Let’s all exercise some compassion for the folks around us who might be sitting under the weather bow of the boat.      

More Autumn

I, for one, am nearly ecstatic about this extended Autumn we’ve been enjoying.  I know, I know, hunters are probably starting to get tense.

Professional and amateur climate-watchers in Pennsylvania are most likely lamenting that we need the cold weather for this ecological and that conservation issue that I have no need to overly concern myself with.  But for a regular Karen who loves Fall the best of all the seasons, I’m happy as a clam with this weather.

Officially Autumn, which most of us around here call Fall, begins around September and ends with the winter solstice in December.  However, the temperate feel of this transition season, which is also known as sweater-weather, customarily ends long before Christmas when jacket-weather has given way to coat, scarf, hat, and glove-weather.

So, that we are beginning November with highs near seventy degrees, is a bit remarkable.  I’m not complaining.  Autumn, it seems is the favorite season of many.  We aren’t unhappy that due to climate-change or whatever, the season seems to be longer than usual, which is of course a relative concept.  My heating-oil budget is also grateful for this extended temperate weather.

Fall, so named from the phrase, “the fall of the leaf,” has been more commonly used to denote the season in the U.S. since the 1800s.  Deciduous trees shed their leaves this time of year in a vast area of the Northern Hemisphere.

Fall’s seasonal counterpart, Spring, is so named from the phrase, “the spring of the leaf.” Come Spring, everything is blossoming and springing back to life after a long winter’s nap.

Most of us remember daylight saving time’s rules from the saying, “fall back, spring forward.”  It seems to me I read a while back that the House of Representatives passed a bill to banish daylight saving time, but it fell dead in the Senate as some state in the northwest couldn’t cope.  Right when I had hope that there might be more chances to walk outdoors in the winter, before dark, at 5 p.m.!

If your curious which name came first, as in the chicken or egg conundrum, it seems that the word Autumn was used in the 1300s, and the word, Fall was used commonly by the 1500s.  An even earlier name for the season, is “harvest.”

In fact, my favorite greeting for the season, displayed on our front door, is Happy Harvest.  Many people in these parts celebrate harvest with the familiar display of corn stalks, hay bales, pumpkins, gourds, fall berries and vines, and leaves.

Leaves of every color and hue are everywhere this season.  Leaves are controversial – imagine that.  Some say leave the leaves lie, to house all manner of organism over the winter.  Others of a more fastidious nature, wish that every single leaf were picked up and disposed of.  Our household lies somewhere in the middle of the controversy, having nearly every manner of tree, deciduous as well as coniferous, somewhere on our property.

Leaves are a public phenomenon.  Leaves blow from one property to another.  They litter woodland paths.  Wet by dew, leaves become a slippery surface on pavement.  They also color the season with the warmest of glows.

Leaves are the reason for the season, in my book; and the smell of pumpkin spice, cinnamon, gingerbread, and all that stuff.  Hot tea and hot chocolate are drinks de rigueur of Fall; even hot apple cider.

I grew up jumping into massive piles of dead and dying leaves. Don’t tell me I’m too old to jump into a pile of leaves. Tell me I’m too wise to do so.  I’m not as young as I feel or look, I’m as old as I think and behave.

Bated Breath

If you’re a hugger, not a “don’t touch me,” kind of person, you’ve probably noticed at least once that when you hugged someone, they emitted a big exhale.  You know when this happens, they’ve been holding perhaps a bunch of stuff in.

Isn’t it about time to exhale?  The term, “bated breath” was first used by Shakespeare in his 1605 Merchant of Venice, and it refers to abating your breathing, stopping it or reducing it, in short, holding one’s breath in excitement, anticipation, or trepidation for what’s next.

Do you recognize any of these instances when you’ve held your breath:  Anything involving a timer; Under water, either literally or figuratively; Against the clock; Holding back your temper/anger; Concentrating on an intricate task; Passenger in a vehicle; Medical procedures; Rushing from one thing to another; Number two – enough said; Awaiting an outcome; Birthing a baby or a project; Waiting for anything; Afraid of something…?

Prior to about the last twenty years, I erroneously thought that when you’re out of breath, say when you’re exercising, it was the inhale that gave you more steam.  However, contrary to my common sense and the fact that inhaling when out of breath never worked, it’s the exhale that renews your energy.

It was from Leslie Sansone, the exercise guru, that I first heard, “if you’re feeling out of breath, blow it out.  That’ll give you more energy.” Or, “don’t hold your breath, ever!”  So, who knew that to exhale is the ticket to better fitness.

About fitness, are you aware that, at least in television and movies, the Brits call good looking, well-toned folks, “fit.”  As in glancing at a muscled man or woman, “they’re really fit.”  And we expect that fit people are healthy people.

Does it follow, in a blanket cause-effect way, that good-looking people are healthier than those less fortunate in the looks department?  I have a pet peeve with people who say things like, “why would he cheat on her, she’s beautiful,” or “why would she leave him, he’s gorgeous?”  Like it’s reasonable to cheat on a homely person.  Don’t get me started.

Back to the exhale.  I think our body’s natural reaction to exertion, or any kind of stressor to the mind which is reflected in the body, is to hold your breath.  One would think that breathing the way that is most beneficial to your health would be an instinct.

Au contraire, when our bodies are in flight or fight mode, while stressed, we tend to not breathe according to the original schematic.  And if fight or flight has become your usual modus operandi, you’ve taught yourself to breathe shallowly and to rarely exhale sharply.

It seems that learning to breathe properly when under stress or exertion, takes as much discipline as training our muscles, including the heart muscle, to work at their maximum potential for strength and endurance.

The feel-good chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins which are released during exercise, kick in big time when we exhale.  These puppies make us feel so good, we might be tempted to exhale constantly instead of going back to the rhythm of, breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the nose.

It takes discipline to learn to exhale sharply, once through the mouth, and then begin to breathe in and out as usual while we exercise.  I guess like any feel-good chemical, we want more of it, including the endorphins that our body produces when we exercise.  Some of us, then exhale, exhale, exhale – perpetual mouth-breathers, as we can’t get enough of that good thing.

It seems that the exhale is potentially an all or nothing kind of thing.  Either we are addicted to exhaling and that’s all we want to do because of how it makes us feel. or, we live with bated breath, holding our breath for eons.  When forced to exhale, the relief of it makes us realize “oh my, I should’ve done that a long time ago.”

Have you ever noticed that when you’re stressed you find, or hear, yourself “blowing it out,” sort of constantly.  I think your body is practicing the exhale, stirring up endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin, to get your mind back to feeling good.  So maybe instinct plays a part in the exhale, after all.

I’m no expert on all this physical stuff, but I am an observer of human behavior.  I’ve noticed an awful lot of people walking around with bated breath because I surmise that they feel if they exhale, they’ll explode, lose control, or die because there is so much pent up inside their vulnerable vessel of a body.

Given the stress of our current times, I’ve written these thoughts to encourage us all to just breathe, including the nice cleansing breath known to every birthing woman; and to exhale, letting all that bottled up stuff find a way of escape.  I’m reminded of a favorite Scripture, God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

 

Peripheral Vision

Sometimes it’s just utterly relaxing and peaceful to just concentrate on what’s in front of you.  Haven’t you got enough on your plate?

The constant vigilance in looking at the details in the periphery can be exhausting.  Working that machine at the ophthalmologist/optometrist office that tests the integrity of your optic nerve is shockingly tiring.  Concentrating on flashing lights in various degrees of strength and clarity, trying your best to notice all of them, can take it out of you.

You know how you must have peripheral sight in order to legally drive?  Well seeing peripherally means seeing the whole picture, not just what’s in front of your nose. 

Normally I’d be an advocate for socially peripheral vision, but I thought of another point of view on this.  Maybe sometimes it’s alright to just skip all that detail in the periphery and just look at what’s on the plate in front of you. 

Maybe it’s not a bad idea to cut out the periphery and give some space to all the rest of life going on around us.  There is so much going on, all the time.

Concentrating on details can be good and beneficial.  But, do you know the saying by Nietzsche, “the devil is in the details”?  On other words, something may seem simple but upon closer examination of the details, they may reveal problems.

So, if you’re going for simplicity in life, skip the details.  But if you’re the digging-deeper type, details will give you all the information you need or want.

The downside of those pesky details, is, in a word, anxiety.  If we review too frequently, can you say, constantly, in the case of overthinking the details, it does nothing but create unease about the “what ifs” of life in the future.

I’m reminded of a guy in a news story about the Prince and Princess of Wales and their mental health vision for young people.  He commented that we are forced by society to be “over-resilient” and we can’t relax in our vulnerability.  That’s an interesting concept, “over-resilience.”

A standard greeting as we pass one another in the marketplace is, “how are you?”  Most of us unthinkingly reply, “I’m fine, thanks.”

To be honest, I sometimes think before I reply to such niceties, and say forthrightly, “I’m okay.”  “Okay” is code for so-so; I could be better, but I’m resilient.  Most people get the nuance and nod with an affirmative, “yeah, me too.”

Occasionally it’s nice to just relax and let it be, “whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera sera….”  Thank you, Doris Day.

I must confess that I have allowed “the details” of a particularly challenging month, work me into a tizzy now and again.  Now that’s a word you don’t hear all that often these days.

When I looked up the word tizzy in order to confirm that it’s the right word to express my state on the occasional day filled with details that had to be worked out, during a difficult month, I came across an obsolete British synonym, sixpence.  Oddly, that word reminded me of a little children’s book, The Tailor of Gloucester.

In the story, the lesser known of Beatrix Potter’s animal-based tales and my favorite, The Tale of Peter Rabbit being her most famous, the tailor gets worked into a tizzy, or sixpence.  Long story as short as I can make it, the tailor becomes overwrought under the massive pressure to complete an important garment for an important person by a Christmas deadline.

The tailor gets sick and ends up in bed for a forgetful 24-48 hours or so, and the mice in the kitchen of his live-in shop, finish the embroidery on the mayors wedding waistcoat, except they run out of “twist” to complete the final details on the fancy formal vest.  His grumpy cat, Simpkin must go out into the night and spend their last coins on the needed twist so that the amazed and now cognizant tailor can finish the embroidery.

The moral of the story, to me, is that if we work ourselves up into the proverbial tizzy over all the undone details that come at us, sometimes daily, we may miss the good stuff right in front of our noses, and make ourselves sick, to boot.  And sometimes the details take care of themselves, if we back off and let them.

As it turns out, all the details in the periphery of your life might just include people, who are not in the least peripheral to your outcomes.  These people, or details may go unnoticed if you’re not a detail-oriented person.  Or you can acknowledge these folks as not just the details on the edges of your life but as vital support persons responsible collectively for your success in overcoming the challenges you face.

I’ve still got a keen peripheral vision and I want to thank all you “details” in my life.  I appreciate you.  Again, you know who you are.

The Caregiver Personality

There are a variety of personality types walking around this big ole world.  With some of these folks we can mount friendships as easily as we change our clothes.  There are others from every ilk with whom we just don’t get along.

The Caregiver personality is one which I admire but is simply not me.  I thought in a misty distant past of becoming a nurse-midwife.  In fact, I formally studied lay-midwifery while pursuing my post graduate degree.

It was the nursing part of midwifery that threw me for a curve.  I think it was partly due to my personality.

As it turns out the Caregiver personality, one of sixteen personality types identified in the 1956, less than scientific but better than a horoscope, personality questionnaire called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), is vastly contrary to my own personality.  I am more of an Idealist or Artist in personality type.

The Caregiver personality is one where the individual who possesses it is energized by interactions with othersWhen I understood this simple little quirk of personality, I instantly knew “this is not me, no wonder that I struggle so much in a care-giving role.”

I’m the opposite, I de-compensate after too much interaction.  I need to get alone in order to recover from my outgoing endeavors.  Part of my introvert personality is to thrive for a time on one-on-one interactions, but to become energized by silence and nature.

I hope you never have need of the individual to whom I refer here as a Caregiver.  These human beings are in a category unto themselves.  And, before COVID, these people proved to be vital to our aging society; post-COVID, they remain a vital workforce.

Caregivers may include nurses of various degrees, nurse assistants, private duty carers and companions, as well as social workers; or even non-degreed humans who are called to work with folks in their home-setting.  Caregivers assist us as we age and don’t kid yourself, you may be younger than me or older than me, but we are all aging.  Sooner or later, you’ll need some assistance.

In discussing some problems of aging with a friend, I had to giggle at her sarcasm when she concluded, “golden years, my bleep.”  I get it.

I’m all about positivity, acceptance, and making the best of a given situation.  But I am also a realist who detests denial of reality and inauthentic living.

It is clearly beneficial for one’s mental health to acknowledge the odd blarney moment in life by shouting the f-word and smirking for a second’s relief.  Let’s be real, here.

But back to Caregivers.  They border on super-heroes, in my book.  I clearly can’t do everything, nor probably many things, well; but I am the first to recognize when people fulfill roles which are totally not in my wheelhouse.

Speaking of Caregivers, they have a special dispensation of “personality-grace,” if you ask me.  I’ve seen these folks accept personal psychological assaults day after day without burning out and giving up.

“This is how it goes,” they say.  The implication is, they’ve been there, done that, more than once, and they don’t take it as a personal assault when they’re yelled at, demeaned, spat upon, even hit.  The word, saint, comes to mind.

Caregiver-compassion is on another level than your ordinary understanding.  I feel like I have a good measure of compassion toward my fellow humanity, but my temperament is such that my efforts to care for others can be easily tampered with by ingratitude or hostility.  As an introvert, I withdraw and give up, even if just for a moment.

There is in my mind, a give-and-take of care; a back-and-forth, interaction, if you will.  I’m simply not equipped with the Caregiver personality, to cope, when the interaction breaks down into a one-way street of care-giving, only.

“Understood.”  This is a one word, concise and to the point, reply to a military order, I think.  It’s my belief that to be understood is the most meaningful of gestures from one human to another.   There are no sweeter words than, “I understand.”

“I get it,” is a simple way of saying, “I understand where you’re coming from.”  Caregivers have the miraculous gift of maintaining this kind of understanding with the strangers toward whom they dispense consistent and objective care.  I’m truly in awe.

French philosopher, Albert Camus, said “happiness is the simple harmony between man and the life he leads.”  It’s my full conviction that Caregivers are the divinely appointed people, called to apportion that harmony, and to help us who are aging, to find peace in the life we are now leading.  Thank you.  You know who you are.