Funk

Image by albyper via Flickr

I have been in a deep brown funk for months.

And then, all of a sudden, in the course of just 24 hours, it lifted.

Simply,

I got dem cosmic opera blues (hosted by Gioachino Rossini)

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I was depressed this afternoon. Or maybe not depressed, more like sad/mad/grieving. All I wanted to do was listen to opera and cry. So I did. Listen to opera that is. Never did cry, except when I read a sad story in Crip Zen. Didn't cry, but did have a panic attack when I was reading about how "they" have destroyed Warm Springs. I was afraid I was having a heart attack. Then I was afraid it was some awful new PPS.

Whatever. The opera thing worked. I feel human again.

Here's what I think was the matter: I'm tired. Tired of being alone in this. Guilty for being a burden. Angry that my husband won't take better care of me/us.  Scared, because the truth is, he can't do any better than he is. He's sick, too. Hell, while we're on this, I feel guilty and sad and frustrated that I can't take better care of him.

Depressed that I can't afford to hire somebody to clean and shop and cook. Angry that this ever happened to me in the first place. Angry that it's suddenly getting dramatically worse. Sad. Missing the things I can't do any more, even just since last summer. Missing my dog. Missing my best friend. Missing Paul Newman. Missing Luciano Pavarotti, for God's sake. 

I finished up with the overture from The Barber of Seville and I feel fine now.

Simply,

You can get used to a lot of things over the course of half a century. I, for example, had become so accustomed to my disability that sometimes, when people asked what happened to me (or worse, what I did to myself), I had to think about it for a second. Hunh? Oh. That.

In fact, I often, and for a long time, did not think of myself as disabled at all. I swam, I rode horseback, I hiked, I even drove a stick-shift. Couldn't run or dance, never learned to ride a bike, so--handicapped, sure, but not disabled.

Now, though, it's starting to catch up with me. After 50 years, I'm having some serious post-polio sequelae. That means there's a new level of adjustment going on here. For example, today would have been a beautiful day for a walk in my neighborhood, and normally that's exactly what I would have done: Put a string on Diana and headed out into the bright fall sunshine. It's what we were doing this time last year.

However, I'm not supposed to do that any more. And I needed to go to the grocery store, too, but I just didn't have the energy. So instead, I puttered, dizzily and weakly, around the house, on and off in between some extended rest periods.

That could all be pretty depressing.

In between wanting to cry about just damn near anything and everything, though, including stuff that has nothing to do with my disability, I've been thinking that I've had 50 good years with this thing. After all, I rode, didn't I? For almost 20 years. And swam, and hiked, and walked generations of dogs.

And it still is a beautiful day, after all, whether I can get out in it or not.

Simply,

Sucky anniversary

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the day I got polio.

Simply,

My mother had her moments.

When I was a little kid, we went to Church #1, to wit:

Note the steps. Lots of steps.

When I was in 2nd grade, I got polio. While I was in the hospital, which was costing my parents a metric shit-ton of money they didn't have, the church called on her at home one Sunday afternoon to inquire when she intended to resume meeting her annual pledge! She basically told them they could stuff their pledges up their collective arse.

When I was able to go back to church, they refused to relocate my Sunday-school class to the ground floor (as I recall, it was on the 3rd) to accommodate my inability to climb flight after seemingly endless flight of stairs.

My mother basically told them to stuff it, she was going to find a new church. And she did. Church #2 was all on one level.

Simply,

Where'd everybody go?

According to The Post-Polio Experience, by Margaret Backman, there are 1.5 million of us polio survivors in the U.S.

So where the heck are all you people anyway? Let's talk!

Simply,

a tear for Daisy

Today is--was? would have been?--Daisy's 15th birthday. But she got so old by the time she was 14 that we had to put her to sleep.

I dreamed about her this morning.

I love Diana: She had my heart before we were halfway home from the pound. But Daisy was born in my house. I toweled her off and handed her back to her mother to nurse.

We had an incredible bond. I adored that dog. She went nearly everywhere I did, including to work every day, for years. I thought we would always be Daisy and me, as if time might pass all around us but we would never die.

Of course that cannot be.

So. I love Diana, and miss Daisy.

Simply,