Single, and Growing Old OR As Good as it Gets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Readers sometimes contact me and ask me how I manage to stay positive. So am posting this poem by way of reply. I will be 75 later this year, need a walking stick following a bad fall in 2011 and  have prostate cancer which has been treated with hormone therapy, also since 2011, so am constantly needing use the loo, plus I have some arthritis in my bad leg and in my neck.

I have done battle with depression all my life, even as a child. It may well be a complete stranger to many people having to contend with the physical, emotional and economic consequences of the Covid-19 coronavirus, but it and I are old adversaries. 

For years, I lost more battles with the BIG D than I won until a GP said he had no problem with patients who suffered from depression staying on an antidepressant; in the past, I had taken them until I felt better and then come off them... until the next time. What works for one person may well not work for another, of course, but I tried this approach and have not had a serious bout of depression since. 

Regular readers will know that, looking back to early January, I can now see that I had all the symptoms of what was almost certainly a milder version of the C-19 virus even if it did not feel 'mild' at the time. But it was winter, the time of colds and flu and there was little if any talk of a pandemic then. I simply put it down to a bad cold and stayed indoors. Yes, I am finding the C-19 pandemic very hard to deal with on a daily basis, but mostly due to the necessity for social distancing, not seeing friends and having to avoid public transport (I don't have car) especially as I live alone. 

Obviously, there are many people a lot worse off than me, but I can empathise with anyone who has difficulty trying to look on the bright side of life.  Growing old, for start, is definitely no picnic, but it’s only fair to point out that the same can be said of life in general. Some people in some parts of the world have a relatively easy life compared with those in other parts; some individuals appear to sail through life where others constantly find themselves swimming against an unremitting tide.

“How do you cope?” I once asked a young disabled friend some years ago. “Mind over matter,” he replied, “Think good, feel good,” he added with wry grin, and this from someone in pain 24/7. It was sound advice, and I make a point of following it. 

On bad days, the love of those closest to me, past and present, helps me through any pain and subsequent, frustration, depression ... whatever. I only wish I had done likewise back in 1979 before I suffered a mental breakdown and attempted suicide. Even so, I am convinced it was love that saved me then, and sustains me now, even though I live alone and have no partner. (I only had a partner for a short time, and that was many years ago although our feelings for each other continue to sustain me just as they did before he was killed in a road accident abroad.) As a result of my suicide attempt, I was unconscious for a good 35 hours, and I seem to recall his and my mother's voice calling me back. Both, long dead. Call it a fantasy if you like, but even the doctors said I am lucky to be alive ...

“The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Winston Churchill (My Early Life, 1874-1904)  

  

SINGLE, AND GROWING OLD or  AS GOOD AS IT GETS

Can’t get out and about

too easily now, a walking stick
needing to take the strain

when the rest of me lets me down,
and that’s as good as it gets

Can’t hear or see as well

as I could not so very long ago

but hearing aids and specs

get me by (now, wherever did I put

the darn things...?

New technology remains

a mystery not designed for old folks

who struggle to master

even the basics, a failing memory

chasing P-I-N or password

Growing old, no easy task,

gets harder by the day, yet a feeling

for life, love. and nature

inspires, and more than gets me by, 

cur for mind-body-spirit 

I draw upon all the love
that has seen me through the years
(in all its shapes and forms)
until it all but mends this poor frame,
and that's as good as it gets

Copyright R. N. Taber 2018; 2020

[Note: Following several requests from gay-friendly straight readers, I have also published this post/ poem on my gay-interest blog; feedback has long since confirmed that many if not most of its readers do not dip into both blogs.]