In the living room this morning:
Me (to husband): I love you!
Husband: I love you too!
Me: I love you more.
Him: I love you lots. Is there more than that?
Me: I love you gazillions!
Him: I can't count that big.
Me: It's bigger than ten.
Him: Oh, that's a lot!
There are so many types of happiness in my life — the satisfaction I feel when I have written a chapter of my book, the relief I feel when I’m done with another semester at work, the contentment of re-reading an old and favorite book. There’s the tiny delight of petting my cat Chloe, who is the quintessential cat, and the amusement of running into a pun.
But what makes me the happiest, the most exuberant, is laughing with my husband. We laugh a lot together. The emotions of laughing range from a sly snicker to a whooping exhilaration, and these moments give me the most happiness. They happen often, making my life one of joy.
If my husband dies before me (something one thinks about once they’ve gotten older), I will miss that joy. I will have to find other sources of happiness. But I don’t think they’ll match the joy of laughing with him.
My life is exactly as I pictured a year ago. Life doesn’t change much when you’re sixty, unless it changes in tragic ways with a death. My life hasn’t changed a lot. I write, I publish, I teach, I hope my medication works. I monitor my health conditions.
It is not an exciting life, but I’m okay with that. My life when younger was exciting, but also chaotic and at moments unsafe. I did not always make good decisions. Which is why I hope my medication works.
I don’t expect to win the Powerball (a big pay-out lottery). I don’t expect to make it onto the bestseller list. I hope nothing bad happens. I expect next year at this time to be much the same.
I am an introvert; I tend to spend a lot of time on my own because people leave me overwhelmed at times. But I also seek aloneness because I grew up with bullies saying ugly things about me, and I’m always on the verge of remembering that again, especially with the specter of bipolar hanging over my shoulder.
So it’s a worry in my mind what people say about me. I hope, though, that they say I’m a good person.
Too much of mental illness is seen as being bad. And when I am in the middle of an episode, I can be seen as neglectful, overly emotional, and capricious. Not a good look, although I don’t get manic enough to be truly destructive and frightening. I worry about the consequences of my episodes. And I hope that, despite this, I can be seen as good.
My life, at age 61, has been calm. Big events have not happened this year; every day has been pretty much the same. I live a low-key life, and I think that makes up for when I was a high schooler and young adult and life was eventful with many events (some positive).
Events in my life are small now, with negative events like drained batteries and almost passing out (the latter a daily occurrence). Positive events are much the same; tiny things that get me through a day. Yay! I got through my least favorite class! Yay! It’s nap time!
There are two things I can think of that are major positive events. One is that I have gone another year without either hypomania or depression. Another year without throwing a wrench into the gears of my life. I can thank a good psychiatrist and good medication for that.
The other is that I have gotten Reclaiming the Balance through all the stages to publishing a book, from proofreading to cover to inserting it into the KDP (Kindle Desktop Publishing, I believe) system to be published on January 1. I didn’t think I would have the guts to publish this one, because the male protagonist is, in the most physical sense, non-binary.
As I said, not at all an exciting life. But overall positive with tiny little things and one big accomplishment.
Over 30 years ago, I started my first faculty job at State University of New York College at Oneonta, mercifully known as SUNY Oneonta. I had moved out east from the midwest and had noted some of the changes in scenery from the flatness of central Illinois to the hills surrounding Oneonta, but I didn’t really feel the culture shock until I met my students.
After I learned how to use a mimeograph machine (complete with its blue-purple master stencil), I stepped into my first classroom and stood in front of the class. One woman asked me what sounded like: “Aw yew a stew-DENT?” (If you have heard someone from Long Island, this is the best I could render the voice.)
“Is this Consumer 257?” I asked.
“Yeaah.”
“I’m the professor teaching this class.”
“I thought yew were a STEW-dent!” In her defense, I was 29 but looked really young for my age.
I discovered that day that about one-third of my students were from New York City and its suburbs, and one-third were from rural counties surrounding Oneonta, and the remainder locals. Downstate students are very different than rural New York students. The downstate students are livelier, while the rural students are a bit more reserved.
Some of my favorite stories come from that period of my life, the five years I spent as a new teacher in upstate New York. But it started that first day, when I was mistaken for a student.
When I was in high school, I did a lot of acting in high school plays. I got the funny roles and did well at them. My approach was to act big and to leave enough time for people to laugh. I didn’t do so well with serious roles, and I never understood why. Probably because I put up a funny front because people made fun of me.
I gave speeches, mostly in the speech class we took sophomore year. I was on the speech team, but was not very good in my event, with no help from the coach, who liked his naturally talented folks. The highlight was winning the county competition Voices of Democracy with a speech advocating conscientious objection. “Did they even listen to this?” my mother asked when I won the award. I think they really liked my voice.
I liked being in the front of the room; this is probably why I became a professor. However, I stepped away from acting and speech when I went to college. I knew I was a big fish in a small pond back in Marseilles, my home town. But when I went to University of Illinois, the pond was full of big fish and I knew I was a relatively small fish. The University is a huge campus, with 40,000 students or so, and is a selective university. We were all smart and came with different talents, and I realized mine were not in the direction of acting. So, other than that speech class in college (which was easy for me compared to the one I took sophomore year of high school), I did not go back to speaking or performing in front of large audiences. Unless you count teaching college.
The one thing I would change about myself is my weight. I am, in a word, obese. My lifetime struggle with weight has caught up with me and I am fat.
For people who have never struggled with their weight, the simple answer is “just quit eating so much.” It’s not that easy. I have arthritis in both knees (hereditary weakness) and hips (car accident aftermath) and a lot of weakness when walking certain distances because of a minor cardio glitch. I’m sure I could exercise better if I lost weight, but it’s this catch-22 — I can’t lose weight unless I exercise. Even then, it’s glacially slow, and I’m sure it’s only gotten worse with age.
I can’t afford Ozempic or Wegovy or one of those other miracle drugs, because weight loss is not considered a medical need. This also means I don’t qualify for bariatric surgery. The only weight loss program that doctors can offer me is a stern lecture.
I am very good at motivating myself, because I do it for my job and for writing and all my daily duties. I can’t seem to motivate myself for weight loss because it’s an impossible task. I will never get to the weight I should be; I never have been able to. And it is, at this point, my greatest wish.
What technology would you be better off without, why?
Surprisingly, this answer is the same one as for a previous prompt: my cell phone.
The same things that make my cell phone indispensable make it the bane of my existence. I can now answer work emails any time of day — or night. I can look up just about anything I need to know at a moment’s notice, making me a repository of useless trivia. It goes with me anywhere, breaking the boundaries of my personal life. It crumbles instantaneous life into a series of searches.
I suppose it’s inevitable that my greatest tool doubles as my nemesis.
Let me explain the extent to which I am a morning person: I get up at 5 AM, usually waking before the alarm goes off. I am wide awake at this point. I write this blog by 6 AM over coffee. I enjoy a leisurely morning before going off to work.
Now, mind you, I pay for this in the evenings. In bed by 8; asleep by 8:30 because I need 8 hours of sleep minimum. I do not love the nightlife. Nor do I love to boogie. (If you are old enough to recognize that song, welcome to your 60s. Or later.)
I have always been a morning person, getting up at 6 AM to go to yard sales with my mom, or venturing out to pick wildflowers with her. (There was the one time I had to keep her from picking flowers in a fenced-in area labeled “Warning: Unexploded Ordnance”, but that’s another story.)
In an ideal world, I would have time for a two-hour afternoon nap and then stay up until 9:30, but life doesn’t let me nap. I have work in the afternoon, and I can’t reschedule it. Oh, well, maybe when I retire.
Words Like Me 