We Need to Feel Sad and Grieve

An actor I admired from my favorite TV series died a day or so ago. The public announcement coming from the family asked us not to feel sad or grieve but remember his comedy and his joy of making people laugh....Sounds OK, innocent enough... However; I just lost a dear one and the loss cuts me like a knife. And this loss also cuts me.....we need to feel sad and grieve for the loss of a life that touched us. We can rejoice in their memory of laughter a little later on but now we need to feel our sadness.

It is a good thing to feel the loss, to feel the pain, to mourn. Later (some sooner some later) I can enjoy the happy memories but now I do not have that being in my life and there is a HOLE where they used to be. Even when I did not personally know the departed one Their life touched my life and I feel the loss. I was devastated when my favorite author died suddenly, I feel the loss of another favorite author who also died too young and could not continue to create. Selfish? Maybe but that was their joy and their life was cut short.

In order to value life we must mourn the losses or life becomes disposable and we see that everyday. We are disposable all the life on earth is treated as so much surplus trash to quickly get rid of. That is why we continue with wars and hate filled rhetoric spree like open sewer pipes from the religious, politicians, and "average citizens". We need to feel sorrow in order to feel joy. And we need to be allowed to feel our sorrow. If we do not mark a life passing with tears, sorrow, a keen sense of loss, then that life had no meaning. It means we did not value that life.

Other

When one is a displaced person nowhere is ever home. We know no one here, there is no family, and those that we do meet there is a strange desire to cling fast...yet we hold back because we know we will be disappointed ....and that is true..... hold back and when we do venture a test footings we are never disappointed. We stay the "other". That is why people from other places tend to clump together, even when, if they were in your home town, they would never be desired for friends but the shared fear, the shared isolation, the feeling of being "other" allows the standards to be dropped and welcomes anyone who knows who you are. That is one reason we love our pets and we fuss about getting them to be with us no matter where we end up. That cat or dog is family and is there with us being company during the long dark times when the only people you know are those your pay. We can never go back, we can not stay here. The situation is still the same as when we became refugees. Two things happen one clings to stuff since stuff is never judgmental, it never disappoints and it is always there when needed. Like the fallen friends before we were displaced. Some traditions are kept close while other tradition need to be tossed aside as too much baggage for the journey. The second is fear. fear of loosing what we have left, each other, what little health and becoming helpless in a strange and for all intents and purposes hostile land. We will be the first to be singled out since we are not from here.
One thing that many will find odd or bizarre is when one of out pets dies there is the anxiety of having to leave their bones behind when we realize that this place is not our place to settle. We will never be able to visit a grave, like we can not visit our parents graves, our friends from the life we once had.
It is this that makes grief that much more intense.
Other......I enjoy the scenery, the weather is not bad.....but I know it can not become home since that choice has been denied us....we still need to go a little farther down the road, further still until be too die but then our bones can rest since we are back to the beginning ......

Always On the Wrong Side

I am full of grief today but I will not write about why. I am also full of shame, more grief over the way this, my country, has turned to the dark side.
I was born in a double whammy out of favor set of minority ethnic stuff. I had no choice it was the gift from my parents. I coped the best I could. This coping lead to a secretive nature, loner, quiet child. I am still all the above. I was another even worse minority for neatly 40 years but I was able to get rid of that but I did not really it still follows me. What I never did was feel indifferent to others. I saw people as people and wanted for them what I wanted for myself. I am a generous person I share. I am always, even after this whole life I have I lived, surprised when I meet people who begrudged others crumbs from their table. I am well off in a sense my house is paid for, I am independently lower class. That is like independently wealthy but not much money to throw around, still the need to watch the pennies and such.

However, I no longer need to endure the crap of the right to work states, the nasty supervisors and the overt/covert discrimination that dogged my working life.
I have developed strong dislikes over the time of my life for certain attitudes and the ones that appalls me the most are: I got mine the hell with you attitude...if one is poor they deserve it since I am not poor I worked for what I have...; and all the similar attitudes that plague this country. I especially dislike libertarians, and of course republicans...don't get your knickers in a bunch I am not fond of the current incarnation of the democrats either.

Many of you can walk by a homeless person with out seeing them...no one asked why people have no home no room.....no food..nothing but what the scrounge on the streets. Many are veterans. I remember when the god Reagan emptied all the mental institutions in the 1970s he put people on busses with a one way ticket and a few days worth of medication to the last address of the last relative on the records...some of those records had not been updated for decades....Of course these outcasts got off the bus wherever and had to cope...they coped by living on the streets.....1000s of people were cast out in the name of money. I hate Reagan and glad he suffered in his last years.

I am sad for the fall of empire of the USA. It will never recover from the current Trump and Republican regime. Morality lost, humanity lost, anything altruistic lost last November....And what is the most horrifying change that has occurred is how few people see this spiral down into the abyss of the neofascist united states of america as a bad thing. So many people think this is a good thing. And too many blame Russia for interference....they are not the problem really, the "interference" was welcomed by the republicans! It was not a surprise to them that is why they are not concerned about the events of this first 6 months of Trump.

This is why I grieve, this is why I feel shame....I saw it coming. I wrote about it. Many others see it now...but now is too late to save the old America....we need to create a new america out of the ashes yet to come..... will any of us survive these coming 4 years? It is not trump anymore the people are in place no matter how many people get ousted, impeached, disappeared, the line of succession is full of trumps and worse! Welcome to the end of the line.

Nothing Real only Hype

So I risked my health last night and took a benadryl for this awful allergic reaction I have been dealing with for over a week.....with in 20 minutes I was breathing and not coughing. My joint pains went away and my swollen feet went back to normal feet. Yes I get a massive reaction to certain chemicals used in common products. I just spent a few hours reading or rather chasing a Will-o'-the-wisp for some real information something yes or no would help; I could not find much on the NO DON"T TAKE IT YOU WILL LOSE YOUR MIND verses sure take it it won't hurt...and lots of nothing in between. Now that I have reached that magic age of imminent death I am concerned since I refuse to linger like a useless sponge like OO. But I still feel at least young in heart and mind...the bottom line is there is no bottom line. I do not take it to sleep but to not die from anaphylaxis, or rather a milder form of it which is still pretty freaking bad too.

I do not consider me an old fashioned old person like those I knew in my youth. I look better, I eat fairly healthy don't smoke or drink. Yet after menopause things in the body does change so why would not other things also change in old people? There is not much really out there about Boomer old people. We are all over the place. I know people younger than me are all granniefied and settled in their ways, I know a lot who have died before they got to the age I am now...my own father never made it past 58. And I know old people my age who are truckin' along with just a few roadside reminders that we ain't 30 anymore. The absolute terror of this age is not knowing when we will pop off. S many have died in this last 18 months that I have become concerned .....am I just a heart beat from dropping dead? Should I start to downsize my stuff since there is no one to leave it too? Do I need more stuff? You know different stuff. I do not want an old persons house decor.....how gawdawful that would be all that crocheted TP roll holders, collector plates and figurine, and such.... yuck I did not like hat stuff way back when I was young and I certainly have not developed a taste for it now.

Not only do I now need to worry about dropping dead, but the only medicine that keeps me from dropping dead when the allergy hits is suppose to give me Alzheimer's or dementia too boot( yes I said too boot! bite me!). As I was saying I was chasing down some real information and found next to none. Everyone said to talk to your doctor... doctors are nice and all, but they do not have time to run down all this information like I do. And I can see most of what they can read also. I will continue to take As Needed benadryl so I can not die of this allergic reaction. I will stay well informed of health issues and just try to not die yet and not become a sponge either....there has to be the right time to kick off. I just am not sure when that is.