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Posts from August 2023

The Use of Regrets; Or, Appreciating Conversations with Friends

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Stormy waters at Ocean Reef Park

After a few wide-ranging conversations with friends recently, it’s clear that each person has their own issues to deal with. We have empathy for each other, as well as opinions (stated or implied) about what the other is doing and the decisions they’re making. The takeaway is that we wouldn’t live each other’s lives. We’ve each ended up where we are for a reason and we’re each living with the consequences. And, as Frank Sinatra sang, “Regrets, I've had a few.” Though regrets don’t mean that we would want a complete do-over or exchange.

My dogsitting, for example, is a temporary solution for me, and a “heck no” situation for others. The weirdness of going into other people’s houses and living in them for a few days or weeks is not tempting to most people, especially those who are at least a decade into living in their own homes. But for me, I get a break from living with my mother and sleeping on a couch in the living room, without having to make a “rent or buy and where” decision.

It also enables me to live the life that I could have lived—in the nicest of houses in the nicest of neighborhoods—if my life had meandered differently.

What’s not to like about having a private pool and high-end appliances without having to pay for them, and even being paid, in a sense, to use them? There is the issue of too many people liking white sheets and towels, and not providing soap and shampoo for the dogsitter, but, still, not the end of the world. Now I know to travel with more things in my bags than when I started a couple of years ago.

The problem is the bitterness creep. If I wasn’t in these “it could have been me” houses, then I wouldn’t be so aware of the discrepancy between what I don’t have and thought I would, and what I do have. Sure, I know that my teacher’s salary wouldn’t buy much more than a small dated house or condo in Palm Beach County these days, and I watch enough house renovation programs to know that I couldn’t afford high-end finishes. But, being semi-retired and living off my teacher’s pension is because I divorced the, at-one-time, well-compensated attorney husband. 

With one friend, we have our occasional Shabbat talks where we inevitably get to the “if only” part of the conversation when we reminisce having been married to successful, dynamic Israeli men with so much potential. But the realities of living with them made the vision of extra bedrooms in the right suburbs and tropical island vacations worthless.

Not having a home—especially not the home I had envisioned for myself—has made it so much easier to be ok, satisfied, with what I do or don’t have. The craving for more, for what others have, vanishes pretty quickly when I realize how unnecessary most things are. A fancy faucet is still a faucet. Three places to have a meal are just spaces to move between with a single plate. And, yes, lots of cabinet space is nice, but who needs eight cutting boards, service for twenty, and storage space for thrice-used gadgets?

The reality of having divorced when I did, and working the job that I did, and retiring when I did results in my having stopped caring—mainly, except for these moments—about what I don’t have. My life feels like the Michelangelo quote: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it,” where my life is what is in the stone and I am the sculptor, chipping away at the unnecessary to get at what is.

So, as I sit here looking out at the pool that I will swim in soon (with the dog I’m watching because she likes to swim and I am, after all, here to cater to her), I force myself to stop looking back, again, into a world of what-ifs. But it’s hard when I also wonder if this is all there is and all there will be.

Then, I recall what a friend told another friend who recently turned 60: “You can expect to have ten good years ahead of you with your health intact, so stop moaning and use them.” Tough love, but useful words to consider.

It made me think that not having a house as an anchor has let me be as free as I’ve ever been to indulge myself in doing what I want to do—with no should’s or have to’s. I can be here for those I love. I can live my empathy, embody the essential.

It’s up to me to not regret my future, my meanderings.

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The spikes and tape indicate where there were turtle nests; I hope they made it!

The Aging Body—Not Mine, Yet

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My private pool at one house where I dogsit.

A comedy skit of old women going out to eat wouldn’t be as funny and poignant as my mother and her friend, Ann, getting out of and then back into my Corolla when we went out the other night. They ignored my suggestions about what to hold onto and where to walk. Or they didn’t hear me. Or they were too preoccupied with their own thoughts of how to conquer the curb that had morphed into a mountain to pay attention to me. Or, even though they both walked with a shuffle, they were not going to give up any autonomy, so they pretended that I was “the girl,” who they didn’t have to heed.

As a disclaimer and a warning that this could be me—or you, my mother played tennis for years, learned how to golf in her 70s (even making a hole-in-one), and power walked Manhattan for years. Ann has mobility issues and uses a walker, but she was less steady than usual, as if she had taken advantage of the $7 martinis even before we even got to the restaurant.

Since I hadn’t been my bitter, critical self during the drive there and the meal itself—even when we told the waiter at least five times that we weren’t ready to order because my mother couldn’t decide what she wanted to eat, so we ended up ordering when the restaurant had filled up, resulting in a long wait for our food—I was able to see humor in the drama and sound effects of their attempting to exit and then later enter my car. I even got them to be momentarily lighthearted in the face of their own dismay. It would have been a pee-in-my-pants moment if I hadn’t crossed my legs in time. (When will that not be enough and I will need a lady diaper or a post-period pad?)

Ann needed to figure out where to hold onto my car, so that she could maneuver up and down the curb. Not only is there the fear of falling, but the frustration of not being able to do something that should be so simple, added to her heightened mood.

Because of curbs, my mother needs to start taking and using a cane. Something she, obviously, hasn’t acted on yet. Who knew that those few inches could pose such a grave danger? I told her where the cutout was and it took her about five minutes to round the corner that would have taken me seconds.

Our evening out made me see that my mother does need me more than I realized. While she’s not bedridden or so felled by memory issues that she can’t be left alone, there’s a sense of daughterly responsibility (that feels a lot like being a mother) that is uncomfortable. When I recently visited my daughters, one told me that I need to stay by Grandma and the other told me that I need to live my life. Yes and yes.

As friends tell me, it’s not easy. Seeing these women try to maneuver the world reminds me that I, too, am aging. There are sags here and there that I’m not happy about. Someone much younger than me told me that she has a herniated disc that her doctor told her is because of age.

How to balance this one life we have so that it’s lived, but also to be responsible and caring because that, too, is part of life? Clearly, we each have our own answers and they change depending on circumstances. I need to remember, as I watch my mother navigate the perils of walking, that there is no answer, there will never be complete satisfaction, and that that is part of living life.


Dogsitting and the Perils of Temporary Love

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One dogsitting neighborhood had a flock of peacocks wandering around and in the trees

Jerry, a laidback chunky Beagle mix, one of my oldest and favorite clients, died last week. I cried when I read his owner’s text. When I spoke to her, she was as upset as can be expected when a beloved 14-year-old pet dies suddenly. She had taken him to the vet after he wasn’t feeling well at night. Then, as she sat in the waiting room scrolling on her phone, the doctor came to tell her that Jerry needs to be put down. Losing a pet is agonizing, I thought as my mind went back to my Poops who died seven years ago, also at 14, at home in my arms.

Jerry’s death caused me to sit a moment with my decision to be a dogsitter. It has been a good retirement gig, where I get to stay in (usually) lovely homes, make a little money and save even more by living with my mother (when not dogsitting or travelling). But loss, I hadn’t thought of that, as we tend not to think of death if we don’t have to.

And I recall the death of one of my daughter’s dogs in a tragic accident (dog meets motorcycle), and the deaths of a dear friend’s two dogs. And the cats who I have known who have passed their nine lives.

Seems like a fulfillment of some statement that there is always a flipside to that which is joyful: if there’s a silver lining, then there needs to be a dark exterior.

This week, I’m dogsitting a 6-month-old puppy, Sally, owned by a soon-to-be-divorced man who didn’t get the dogs in the settlement. She is still learning to do her business outside and chewing on everything she can get into her mouth before I can even say “Drop it!”—which she heeds, Good Girl! Later in the month, I’ll be dogsitting for a rambunctious 18-month-old who is owned by two 80-plus-year-olds. A recently retired friend just got a “delish” puppy and continues to save kittens in her Queens neighborhood.

There is so much to say about having a pet and leaving behind loneliness. Of bringing joie de vivre into your life simply by watching how excited they are to make a discovery in the grass. Of playing their version of fetch and tug-of-war with a tattered formerly squeaky toy until you, too, are tattered. Of having to get out at set times to walk them and see that the world still exists, and that you aren’t as alone as it sometimes feels within the walls of your home.

I may not have loved all these temporary pets, but I have appreciated each of them: these animals we’ve brought into our lives for the express purpose of having a companion. Clearly, some dogs are trained to protect, but I’m talking about the dogs, like Poops, who would notify me with incessant barking that someone was outside our house, but his little Maltese self was not there to physically protect me. He did save me, though, by coming to my room every night when I went through my divorce and still lived with my ex. There was always room for him on the couch that was my bed for two years. Good Boy, indeed!

And now, I have these borrowed pets to provide what it is that dogs so readily give, but to still have the freedom not to always be ruled by their potty schedule. Win-win, as I see it.

When I’m back at my mother’s house, sometimes I see the older neighbors walk their little lapdogs who are as slow as they are. Their owners sit with friends on a bench, the dogs patiently waiting for them to resume the walk that is so often delayed, since it is to return to the loneliness inside. Except it’s not completely lonely, since this little dog demands food, attention, and space on a lap.

A couple of single friends got dogs at the beginning of Covid that helped turn the endless days of isolation and social distancing into an opportunity to talk and interact with a new kind of partner.

I wonder about myself sometimes: my desire not to have my own dog and my satisfaction with an unpartnered life. Am I living unengaged and protecting myself, or is this as engaged and open as suits me? When I talk to a friend who has a husband or when I finish a dogsitting job, I don’t feel that I’m missing out on having someone to continue the conversation with or a dog to walk in the heat and humidity. I simply accept that this is my life at this point. Will it always be like this, who knows? But these temporary pets have added permanent love to my heart and psyche. They may not be my pets and my time with them is limited, but that time (except for cleaning up throw up and poop—Bad Girls and Boys!) has soothed me.

It's also helped me see that I’m a kinder, more caring person than I give myself credit for. And as much as I enjoy being alone, wandering within my thoughts, I’ve learned that I really do enjoy the company of others—people and pets—but in balance. And for that, I say, Good Girl! Good Boy!, to all the lovely pets waiting for a belly rub, and a walk, and an approved treat—they’re coming! 

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