Dennis the Menace Has Died
...and the world is truly lost.
However will we go on?
Our lives will be diminished in so many ways.
This may very well be the breaking point for many.
Death and destruction from climate change related disasters, death and disability from an out of control virus, wars, and societal breakdown have little to no effect on the majority of humans, unless you have been affected, but the death of Dennis the Menace is a bridge too far.
Are there no prisms, are there no work horses?
…whisper, whisper, whisper…
What?
…whisper, whisper, whisper…
Okay, never mind.
Our leaders in action.
The new terminal decade.
I used to think that your fifties were the terminal decade, and that was based on me knowing more people who died in their fifties than any other decade.
I thought that if you made it past your fifties, you would be okay.
Now the seventies are coming on strong.
It may be that the seventies were always terminal, but I didn’t pay attention because I wasn’t seventy.
Now I am.
The additional threat of a government that is determined to ensure that older people have no access to healthcare or resources, coupled with the appalling state of decrepitude resulting from a lifetime of neglect, can guarantee that a lot more people in their seventh decade will fall.
Tears come faster now, and laughter, not so much.
I find myself crying a lot more these days and laughing a lot less.
I thought I was strong.
I thought I had accepted what is happening.
I thought I had made my peace with it.
I was wrong.
There is a deep, abiding sadness that seems to have been waiting for its chance to well up.
Now is its chance.
It comes on in waves, washing over me, drowning out everything else.
I’m twisted and turned emotionally for longer and longer periods and left gasping for air and relief.
This is an unimaginable sadness, something I couldn’t have predicted, something I could not prepare for, because I didn’t know it existed.
The oft-cited stages of grief are not concrete points that you reach and pass through, but a constantly morphing set of emotions that you experience over and over.
On a happy note.
The poppies are blooming.
A little movement for you.
Pick five exercises, and over the course of the day do fifty reps of each one. These can be things like push-ups or a regression, sit-ups, step-ups, calf raises, and squats.
Look around, find five and do them and then pick five different ones for the next day and just keep doing this.
You’ll feel better.
Gratitude.
I would like to thank all of you for going on this journey with me. I feel honored that you find value on this page.
Stay strong, for as long as you can.
The grief blindsides me as well. Today is a bad day. I'll be 74 on the 28th. I don't have an official prognosis for my COPD, for some reason I figure another 2 yrs, my father died at 76 -lung cancer.
Today I read that our monster leader wants to undo the globalization of the last 50 years. They want us to be self-reliant and make what we need in the US. First the corporations destroy societies of poor countries who were self-sustaining and their environments, now they want to undo it.
Meanwhile. dolphins are dying and sea lions are going mad because of toxins in the water they live in, Bayer intends to keep killing bees, EPA will allow PFAS to infiltrate human life support systems, thousands of Pronghorns starved in winter because ranchers fenced the land. The abandonment of loving domestic animals is completely normalized and goes on and on...
So, I can't do much exercise, but I can find the focus to read something meaningless and soothing.
Be well
I feel you.
Although at the other side of the pond, we’re sharing this small and precious world. We look at what happens at your end and are truly aghast. Yes, ‘we knew it was coming’… it doesn’t take away the grief of the loss of so much that we held sacred and true. The grief is sacred. It’s testimony of Love.
I’m in my early sixties. Feel blessed to have lived a life so long and so privileged. Feel grateful for all that’s still here to sustain and awe me. I walk with grief, always -
Let’s walk this together.