retireddaze

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I remember talking to a patient who worked on the line at Caterpillar. He was talking about how proud he was of one of their new earthmovers. The company cafeteria was in the midst of the assembly plant. Rather than pictures of their own machines, they had actual earthmovers, tractors and bulldozers from their competitors. All employees were encouraged to examine the competitor’s machines and compare them to the ones made in the plant. My patient had a real pride of ownership over the machine he worked on and the contribution he made to it. Freud’s famous quote about work and love keeps coming back, but what is rolling around in my head right now is the meaning of life.

Sometimes people think they have to accomplish great and wonderful things to have a meaningful life. When that doesn’t happen their whole lives begin to feel empty. I remember seeing attorneys, physicians, CEOs of large companies who thought their lives were meaningless. One very successful businessman broke down in tears in my office not because of business failures, illness or family problems. He was going bald and couldn’t handle going on in life without a full head of hair. He had developed all sorts of catastrophic expectations as to what would happen. He thought his business would collapse, his friends would shun him and his wife would leave. He had great difficulty putting his life in perspective.

I remember another woman who was in a terribly abusive marriage. She had left her husband once and then returned because their children were young and she didn’t think she could support them. She would, of course, have very bad days re this decision. Yet she would have really good days too because she loved to cook and to bake. She brought in a number of Blue Ribbons that her cakes had won at county fairs. She told me that even her husband was proud of her for that. Another couple I saw was childless but raised mastiffs. The wife would talk about these huge dogs and describe them as her “family”. Both she and her husband had serious physical and financial problems, but as long as they had their dogs they were happy.

What gives meaning for one person may be meaningless to another. It can be foolish to compare your life to another person because you have no real idea what that life is like. Once in the hospital I saw a couple about the wife’s serious illness. She and her husband had been married over thirty years and had raised six children. They had a good marriage despite the fact that the husband worked 12-hour shifts in a factory and she worked similar hours on opposite shifts in another factory. They would see each other briefly in the morning as the children were getting ready for school. The central focus of their lives was their marriage and their children. Someone looking in from the outside would find it hard to say they were happy because of the intense business of their lives, but they were.

Germany has one of the shortest work weeks in Europe. All workers get an automatic four week vacation every year. Pay is uniformly very high and unemployment is low. The Wall Street Journal had a recent article about the fact that despite the positives, many workers there are suffering from “Das Burnout”. Their expectations of their lives don’t match the reality. Sometimes there is a fantasy that there are people who never have bad days. Their lives are filled with one exciting episode after another. This is obviously not true. We all live thru a range of emotions from ecstasy to utter boredom. Some days are wonderful and some experiences are beyond compare. Then there are the other ones we would all like to forget or at least to ignore. It’s important to keep believing that a bad day or a bad week month or even year doesn’t mean a bad life. I don’t believe Thoreau’s quote : “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them” is true. Sometimes the song is hard to find but it is there for everyone. You just have to keep practicing singing until you find it.

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Recently I have been thinking about death. This has been triggered by a number of things. Prince, an artist I liked, died suddenly. Merle Haggard, old country outlaw that he was, died on his birthday. Alan Rickman, a very fine actor, also died suddenly. However what troubled me the most was the sudden death of an ex patient. She was just 40 y/o and died of a pulmonary embolism. She had been on a disability for years that really affected her life, but she was trying to be happy. She had a loving family who really enjoyed her. Sudden death is always totally unexpected. .

I think we all believe we will live forever. Death seems like it happens to other people, but not to someone like me. In my culture death was always present. I still tell people that before I was 12, I had probably been to more wakes than anyone I knew. The Irish Catholics have rituals about death. There is the wake full of friends, relatives, and comforting words. In the old days, wakes were at least three days. I still have vague memories of my grandfather’s wake. My cousin and I were only five years old, and we were allowed to run around the funeral home for all three days. Wakes were gradually reduced. My own father and mother’s were two days. It is now only one day. The day of the funeral starts from the funeral home with a procession to the Church. There is the funeral mass and then the long procession to the cemetery. Now there are internment chapels. In the old days we would stand around an open grave as the priest said the final prayers. Now we all enter these beautiful buildings and say our final good byes. After that there is the funeral lunch. The lunch is now usually held in restaurants and includes family style food and drinks. After the lunch a select few are invited back to the family home for continued talk, drink, and more food.

This is the way my family has dealt with death in my lifetime. I know no matter what I do, this will happen to me. Recently I received a brochure from the Cremation Society of America. They were looking for business. They even offered a free cremation with a tasteful container if you joined as a family. Funeral homes now aggressively advertise and recommend pre-planning your funeral. I once jokingly told my wife that I wanted a funeral like in the movie “The Big Chill” with speakers blaring “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. I don’t think she is in favor of that. I said that quite a few years ago but now death is certainly more present.

I think what bothers me now is the reality of how fragile life really is. This is not a forever thing. It can end at any time.   I still remember my mother never getting over my father’s death. I still see my grandmother praying two rosaries every day for my grandfather.

I have had quite a few patients threaten suicide and an unfortunate few who succeeded. I always tried to get the ones who were thinking about it to contract with me not to. I saw the family members of suicides totally crushed. They always thought if they could have just done one more thing, said one more thing, their loved one wouldn’t have died. I wanted my patients to hear about this . I always told them that their lives didn’t just belong to them , but also to those who loved them. The effects of a suicide can last generations. I remember treating a man in his sixties still trying to understand his own grandfather’s suicide. I had patients try suicide because a relative had and suicide became an answer to a difficult situation.

I know that for some people life seems unbearable, but death is forever and cant be taken back. As hard as it is think of those who love you. They wont get over it. Don’t kid yourself.

Now as I am in my seventh decade, my own denial system is still at work. Some days I still think the future is endless. Then there are those days when reality hits. Thankfully my health is still pretty good. I have a supportive wife and family. I still enjoy life and look forward to tomorrow. I keep reminding myself about the importance of focusing on the now. The sudden death of friends and people I know ,or am familiar with,  keeps interrupting that.

I know I still have a lot of work to do on this for myself. Maybe the answer is to  keep trying to live well so that no matter what I can have some positive memories no matter what or when.

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Last year around this time I met this rather strange old man at the gym. He began talking to me while we were both in the hot tub after I had worked out. He said “Do you like a good joke?” He then told me two or three double entendre jokes, which were really not funny. He then launched into his life story. He was 74 and married to a 50-year-old woman. His first wife of 40+ years had died and he had remarried. His current wife was an old customer of his. After the marriage he had moved in with her and her adult children and was still supporting them. He was somewhat estranged from his own adopted son who had not been in favor of this marriage. I was polite and listened, but it really was almost like work.

I didn’t see him again until Wednesday when he again approached me in the hot tub with his line “Do you like a good joke?” He then told me the same ones he had told me a year ago. This time I didn’t stay around long enough for the rest of the story. An older woman entered the pool and he began talking to her about his 50 y/o wife. He seemed sad and probably lonely, but I really didn’t want to hear his stories.

Today while I was swimming he again approached me with “Do you like a good joke?” He then started to tell me the same jokes until I cut him off and began to swim. As I was swimming I noticed that he had cornered a young man and was going thru his routine. The kid looked really uncomfortable but really didn’t know what to do.

I continued my workout and went to shower and dress. As I was getting dressed, I heard the old man in another part of the locker room starting again. He had cornered two or three guys and was trying to tell them the same old jokes he had told two or three times already.

I was really irritated by this as I left the gym. Then I began to think who the hell do I think I am? This guy is only four years older than me and is probably very lonely. His home life sounds pretty desperate and he is trying to make some social contact. He keeps using a routine that probably worked for him at one point in time. There are guys who still think that to be one of the good old boys you have to start by telling a dirty joke. It might still work in a bar, but it doesn’t work really well in the kind of mixed gym we go to.

How do you make social contact with new people? One of my old patients and I would laugh over cheesy pickup lines:

“Hi, I’m a fashion photographer. Would you like to be in my next photo shoot?

Are you a 90 degree angle? Cause you are looking right!

Hey gorgeous! I’ve just finished studying the book of numbers. But I noticed I don’t have yours.”

(The one that I would probably use is: “ I’m single and desolate. Can you help me?”)

However this is really not a joke for older people. Many of our friends are dead or gone or focused on their own families. Sometimes I have noticed my own sons rolling their eyes when I tell them stuff because they really don’t want to hear it. Maybe they are starting to think of me like I was thinking of the guy at the gym. One of my friends said that he never wanted to be like his parents and just talk about his ailments. He now knows that he does it quite a bit. Older parts just don’t seem to work as well as they used to. We do repeat ourselves and our memories are often dysfunctional if not totally absent.

Bette Davis’ famous line : “Old Age ain’t for Sissies” still rings true. A couple of years ago my brother-in-law’s sister had asked for our help in moving some things into her apartment at a retirement center. I still remember carrying stuff down this long dark hallway that had many apartment doors. They were all closed and very quiet. It was almost like a mausoleum. She died a year later in a nursing home. It was a very good nursing home, but no matter how good, they all have patients strapped into wheel chairs and there is always a smell of urine. Old age can be a very lonely time. There is a very solid body of research that shows increased social contact can delay Dementia and Alzheimer’s in the elderly. There are senior clubs and “senior outings”, but I’m not ready for that yet. I don’t feel like a senior. I’m still too much into rock & roll, but maybe, just maybe, I should start thinking about this more

So I will try to not be such a judgmental jerk to the guy at the gym. I just don’t want to hear his jokes any more.

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Almost April! Almost Spring ! The weather has been warmer and I think it is now OK to say we have had a very mild winter. The seasons seem to change quicker now. When I was younger they all lasted longer. Winter was never going to end, Spring was beautiful and Summer was endless. Now they seem to pass as if they are all on fast forward. I think I still focus on the aging process too much.

I would like to be able to focus on the now. Sometimes when I am running or swimming I can slip into that. It used to be called the runner’s high, but to me it just seems like time stops having any real meaning. I once had a patient who was really into meditation. He would talk about that type of experience in his own life. He was upset that it didn’t happen every time he meditated. It still happens for me when I am running, but I don’t run as much as I used to.

I now say that about a lot of my life. I don’t do many things as much as I used to. Most of the time that is OK, but sometimes I get down on myself for not doing more when I know what the positive outcome would be. Lately I have been thinking about old stories. One was about a talking dog. Supposedly one friend was telling another about the wonder of this talking dog. The other friend asked, “What did he say?” The first said, “I don’t know. The wonder is that he could talk at all!” I need to keep focusing on what I can do and not what I cant or don’t. Too many of our friends never had the opportunity to retire because of health, financial, or family problems. I have been very lucky in all of those areas so far. I need to enjoy them while I can.

The other story is about the Indian chief who tried to explain life to his son. He told him, “We all have two wolves inside us. One is made up of anger and fear and envy. The other is made of peace and love and kindness. Your life will be made up of which wolf you choose”. The son asked, “How will I know which wolf to choose?” The chief said, “It depends on which one you feed”.

I know that is a very old story but it is relevant to me today. It seems so easy to focus on positives, things to be grateful for. Instead the negatives are much easier. One group we had was made up of codependent women. (one woman said all women are codependent—but that’s another story). In any case in this group we thought we would do a simple exercise to increase self worth. The other co-therapist (also a male) suggested all the women look into a small mirror and begin saying positive things about themselves. We couldn’t get any of the women to participate. They all said it was too hard. We realized that thinking positive is a skill that needs to be learned and then practiced.

I know when I’m down and someone says “Think positive, Be Grateful”, I want to tell them that they don’t understand. I guess it really is me who doesn’t understand that I need to practice being positive more so when I do have down days I can call up that skill.

I once had a patient who had been in recovery for a number of years. He was upset that he wasn’t in a relationship. He thought it was because he just wasn’t good enough. He was very active in his recovery and even volunteered at the NA office in Chicago. One day he had a breakthrough. He was answering their emergency phone and a call came in. He recognized the caller as a female friend who had gone thru treatment with him. She had relapsed and was quite upset. He offered her support and then began to gently ask her what had happened. He told me that he asked her if she was following thru with all the treatment recommendations that they both had received. These included regular attendance at 12 Step meetings, establishing contact with a 12 Step sponsor and getting involved in recovery activities. She had dropped all of that. What he told me was that he realized that he had followed thru with all the recommendations and had stayed clean. He talked about how grateful he was for that. He then talked about how had begun making a grateful list every morning. No matter how bad the day got he could always pull out the list and at least find one thing to be grateful for. I was always impressed with such a simple idea and have recommended it to many people over the years. Now I need to practice it for myself so I have something positive to feed my wolf.