Today at work a colleague asked me if I had recovered from yesterday. At first I had no idea what she was talking about. Then it came back to me: I had a very difficult court appearance on a domestic abuse case where I had negotiated a settlement thinking it would spare the victim a trial. Instead, it put her into a psychological tail spin, resulting in a hospitalization. When I had gone to see her, she perseverated on how the defendant (her husband) had gotten away without admitting to all he did to her.
At his sentencing yesterday, I became pretty fanned up on her behalf and let the judge know just how this man’s actions affected this woman, who had previously functioned as a high ranking engineer in her native China.
And afterward? I promptly forgot about it.
This weekend, a friend posted that it was 5 months since her young dog died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her post was brief: “5 months,” with an attached “feeling sad.”
After reading that, it dawned on me that I never celebrated anniversaries of deaths. My first dog died on Martin Luther King Day, so I will always sort of remember that, except the date changes every year. My second dog died a week or so before Labor Day, but I do not recall the exact date. And I never counted months. I barely even count the years.
The night after my first dog died I was consumed with grief. I bundled up and took the other two for a walk and was struck by how completely unfazed they had been with it all. She had even died at home and they had the opportunity to inspect her body, which they both declined. As I walked with them on that frigid January night, I made a determination that they had it right.
Most self-help books and websites extol the virtues of living in the moment. I have a history of Alzheimer’s in my family, so I am uncertain as to whether my lack of memory for certain events represents a decline in my mental functioning or a conscious choice to live in the present.
Either way, I’m okay with it. The vast majority of my days are happy ones. While there are a few sad memories that linger, my focus is on each day as it happens. It just feels right.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
On the Benefits of Being Lazy
This past weekend it occurred to me that I passed up both flyball and agility competition opportunities. These are two sports in which I regularly compete with my dogs. It was a wonderful weekend NOT participating in either of those activities.
I come from a mixed marriage; my dad has always been a bit on the lazy side and my mother is industrious to the point of being a bit obsessive. I was trained to do house work at an early age and always got good grades in school, ultimately going to law school and becoming a county prosecutor. It has been a job of high risk and high reward.
In the past, I thrived on adrenaline and conflict. However, as I have gotten older, I have learned that those two things provide a fertile breeding ground for stress, which, in turn, produces a variety of aches and pains, mental, physical and emotional.
Two years ago this summer, I campaigned (unsuccessfully) for judge. I was convinced by a few well-meaning people that I was a worthy candidate and had a fighting chance against a colleague who had run several times previously and had lots of money and connections. At the same time, I had my sole bathroom renovated, which required me to shower in a temporary setup in my unfinished basement. That summer also marked the beginning of the demise of my beloved gardens that I had toiled in for over a decade. I simply had no time to do anything but mow the lawn. As I look back on that summer I marvel at the fact that I did not have a nervous breakdown. I did come out of it battered and bruised, however.
Last summer I had a hip replacement and upon recovery, immediately threw myself into field training for my youngest dog. I was never home. The gardens continued their decline, culminating in a large tree falling in my backyard. Its removal was the final insult to any plants remaining; they were crushed in the process. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of depression at the state of my backyard which, heretofore, had provided me such serenity and comfort over the years.
As the summer drew to a close, I began to envision what could be. I had a new screened porch built where my old patio once existed. I reconfigured my fence to allow for a new small garden outside the fence where the dogs could not make a muck of things.
Fast forward to this year. Earlier this spring, there were several weekends of strenuous physical labor, as I worked to wrest my gardens back from the clutches of weeds and bare dirt. And I must confess: I overdid it a couple of times. But it has also become a time of rebirth, as I replace many a long standing perennial. And, as a good friend advised during the period of destruction: it is all about opportunity.
And now: rest. Right now, there is nothing I like better than to sit on my new porch, listening to the birds and occasional rain shower. I also get to enjoy the fruits of my labor, as the new plants start to bloom.
Unstructured weekends give me great joy. And all of a sudden, dog competitions don’t seem as important anymore. What is more important is simply hanging out with my buddies (two and four legged) and truly savoring the sights, sounds and scents of summer.
In other words, being lazy.
I come from a mixed marriage; my dad has always been a bit on the lazy side and my mother is industrious to the point of being a bit obsessive. I was trained to do house work at an early age and always got good grades in school, ultimately going to law school and becoming a county prosecutor. It has been a job of high risk and high reward.
In the past, I thrived on adrenaline and conflict. However, as I have gotten older, I have learned that those two things provide a fertile breeding ground for stress, which, in turn, produces a variety of aches and pains, mental, physical and emotional.
Two years ago this summer, I campaigned (unsuccessfully) for judge. I was convinced by a few well-meaning people that I was a worthy candidate and had a fighting chance against a colleague who had run several times previously and had lots of money and connections. At the same time, I had my sole bathroom renovated, which required me to shower in a temporary setup in my unfinished basement. That summer also marked the beginning of the demise of my beloved gardens that I had toiled in for over a decade. I simply had no time to do anything but mow the lawn. As I look back on that summer I marvel at the fact that I did not have a nervous breakdown. I did come out of it battered and bruised, however.
Last summer I had a hip replacement and upon recovery, immediately threw myself into field training for my youngest dog. I was never home. The gardens continued their decline, culminating in a large tree falling in my backyard. Its removal was the final insult to any plants remaining; they were crushed in the process. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of depression at the state of my backyard which, heretofore, had provided me such serenity and comfort over the years.
As the summer drew to a close, I began to envision what could be. I had a new screened porch built where my old patio once existed. I reconfigured my fence to allow for a new small garden outside the fence where the dogs could not make a muck of things.
Fast forward to this year. Earlier this spring, there were several weekends of strenuous physical labor, as I worked to wrest my gardens back from the clutches of weeds and bare dirt. And I must confess: I overdid it a couple of times. But it has also become a time of rebirth, as I replace many a long standing perennial. And, as a good friend advised during the period of destruction: it is all about opportunity.
And now: rest. Right now, there is nothing I like better than to sit on my new porch, listening to the birds and occasional rain shower. I also get to enjoy the fruits of my labor, as the new plants start to bloom.
Unstructured weekends give me great joy. And all of a sudden, dog competitions don’t seem as important anymore. What is more important is simply hanging out with my buddies (two and four legged) and truly savoring the sights, sounds and scents of summer.
In other words, being lazy.
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