Day 4 and Day 5

I considered saying something about how I'll try to do better at updating daily, these hundred days, but honestly this whole 100 Days thing couldn't have come at a worse time for me so I doubt I will do any better.

This is what I wrote yesterday, in a couple of sessions, before abandoning it completely:

( Summer! I am eating it up. )

As for today...

Hmm. I asked my sister to help me with childcare and then felt like an asshole as per usual when she said no, since she almost always does say no, and so I should obviously know better and spare us all the tension. There are a million logistical things that get in the way of us spending more time together in general and on the one hand, they're valid. On the other hand, they could clearly be overcome if we both prioritized overcoming them. I get stupidly emotional about this. There have just always been lots of non-relations who were more than willing to meet me/us where I/we are at, and that's awesome, but it also kinda underscores her unwilingness. She's found a community much more in step with how she likes to live, recently, and I am genuinely happy for her but also painfully jealous. I think we just clash a lot, too alike but nothing alike, and...I don't know. Sometimes everything flows with us, and it's wonderful, but there are just so many traps we can fall into. I have friends who come over and friends I meet out regularly, and friends I text and call regularly, and other people I can ask for help if I need help. But Laura is right there under my husband and kids on the short list of People I Love Most in the World and that seems more and more like a source of frustration as the years pass. Like I am always going to love her that much, whether I like it or not.

I went to class today and wanted to gouge my own eyes out, as per usual, because my math professor has a thick accent I can't understand most of the time and THE WORST handwriting I've ever experienced in a teacher. I spend so much of this course squinting at the board with my mouth partially open and a headache building. Since it's a Summer A course, it's only 6 weeks long, so each session is 3.5 hours of tedium and woe. I honestly can't tell if it's better to go to class or to just head straight to the learning support lab with his handouts and things, every single time. This morning I spent MINUTES trying to discern a word in some notes I was copying from the board - it looked like he had written a P for Proportion with some unknown character next to it. Most likely a w, except that would make no sense with the problem. When I finally raised my hand and asked, it turns out it was the word "for," which made zero grammatical sense and made several students act surprised and confused. The girl in front of me said she had thought it said, "Pom."

I should have spent many more hours studying after, but instead did selfishly enjoyable things with my kids, like browse turtles and fish with Ananda that she wants to build an ecosystem with, in her and Elise's room. We also got coffees and pastries out together. I read Isaac way too much of Harry Potter 7 because we're 3/4 through now, he's deeply invested, we stop to talk about things (or, cry) constantly and it's hard to stop. I sat nearby listening to Aaron play his new piano, and wondering at how different his style is on this one and whether that's a transitional thing. He keeps taking it and the old one apart and using YouTube tutorial videos to do things like stop a sticking hammer and fix a pedal. At one point yesterday he had both of them completely opened up, on top and down below, with the vaccum out, a rag, and some tools. At this rate he might even get the old one in a condition we could sell it for $100 - or, he might start saying he wants to keep it. He mentioned a future where he lives in a field of pianos, because he spent all his housing money on them.

I cuddled with Jake. And, had a giant sex talk with Elise that was hilarious.

It started because she wanted to know if all married people can just fall pregnant suddenly at any time. I told her what baby making actually is, and that it is what actually causes pregnancy (not "marriage"). Isaac and Jake groaned and left the room as she pressed me for more info and clarification of points, and I explained the ways genitals change with arousal, and that people actually enjoy doing this because it feels good.

After awhile she was sitting in front of a YouTube video of a sperm fertilizing an egg, paused it, and turned around. "So, you had sex FIVE TIMES, so you could have all of us?" She seemed amazed. "Uh," I said, as Aaron covered his head with his shirt and Annie started laughing, "no-" "Oh, I think I understand," she continued, "It had to be six because of the baby that died." I tried to get across as briefly but directly as possible that lots of adults really enjoy sex and want to do it even if they don't want a baby, and she just got more incredulous and horrified until she turned slowly back to the video and pushed play again. Aaron left the room; Annie cackled.

I made a really kickass dinner of kale and bean soup, toasted baguette with parmesan and irish butter, and a caprese platter.

And now I'm up too late, and have an impossible amount of studying to accomplish tomorrow. Goodnight, internet.

Day 6 - Rambling Thoughts Brought to You by Procrastination

Since I have so much studying to do, I took a really detailed life expectancy calculator that took many aspects of various categories into account. It was a university's website, and I was painfully honest on it, and it told me I would live to be 89 years old. I found that encouraging and a little surprising.

I grew up thinking I had extreme longevity in my genes, because my father's father's side all live to very old age. I have a great great uncle well over a hundred living independently, and that man's siblings have all been in their mid to late 90s before needing to depend on others, or dying. My father's father is also over 80 and continuously surprising doctors, despite some 60 years of drinking and probably more than that of heavy chain smoking. He's diabetic and "cheats" left and right. My Nana also had BOTH of her own grandmothers still alive until I was almost 25. That is partially the result of very closely spaced generations, but the women were still living in their late 80s and early 90s in their own apartments, walking to church, etc.

Those are all stories, though, mostly about people I barely knew. I internalized them, but these last few years of lived experiences with those I'm far closer to have been sobering. My mom's dad died suddenly, at only 62, albeit of liver cirrhosis in the midst of life long alcoholism and drug use. My mom's mom had multiple strokes, at only 62, that have left her bed ridden, partially blind, and incontinent - albeit as a reaction to kidney failure that has been ruled malpractice, from a shoddy surgery that was done as a preventative measure. Early 60s seems like a very young time to go or become completely dependent, to me, in our current society. It makes me think often about how my Dad's mom, who died when I was a teenager, was in her early 60s, too.

I didn't understand that then the way I do now. I was young, and unaware of her actual age - she SEEMED so old that now the real numbers are shocking. She had totally uncontrolled type 2 diabetes and never wanted to do anything for her own health - she was blind at the end, and weighed over 400 pounds at times during my life. That all underscores for me, looking back, that MY GOD she was only in her 50s during most of the years I knew her! I know homeschooling moms in their 50s, and they travel the world and get their hair cut at salons and take yoga classes and things! They're on the internet and throw dinner parties. My Ma was so, so infirm by comparison, totally isolated from everyone but family and needing help to get out of a chair. Begging us to rub her dark, swollen feet. MY MOM is 51, now!

Point being, 3 of my 4 biological grandparents have failed to make it out of their early 60s healthy and intact. And, now, I see my parents, both of them an utter mess health wise. There's my mother, 51 as I said, with probable COPD and possible SPAD (bad and worse lung diseases), with a string of what seem to have been TIAs (ministrokes) behind her, still smoking, still not eating, still not sleeping or exercising. And my father, 54, with continuously worsening rheumatoid arthritis that has never been addressed medically, and just a couple of teeth left. He's woken up with a booming and disturbing cough that generally turns into vomiting each morning, for my entire life. He doesn't exercise in even light or non-gym ways like walks, either. Although he does not take care of himself, I can imagine my father living a very long time regardless. Or...not. He's really old for his age since he was hospitalized for months and had multiple emergency surgeries, a few years back (for diverticulitis) - all his muscle atrophied, and his beard turned completely gray pretty quickly. The refusal to pursue dentistry is a whole other thing...

So, parents and grandparents, you know, damn - that does not look good, eh? I know people, who I am NOT related to, in their 70s who are much more spry and with it than my parents are in their 50s. I will be surprised if my parents make it to their 70s :/

The other side of the story of course is that all of these people are drinking and smoking and ignoring their sugars, etc, to death, where they aren't experiencing malpractice. There is no proactive medical care in the bunch, or even simple shit like making an effort to drink more water and eat some vegetables now and then.

Still, my concept of my inherited longevity has taken many hits and is no longer quite so uppity and nonchalant as it once was.

As for me in isolation, I'm really overweight. Fairly sedentary when I'm not making extraordinary efforts - meaning, my defaults that I have to very consciously break from are sitting in a computer chair, a desk at school, on the couch, at my dining table, or in a vehicle; or lying down reading with or cuddling a kid. Those things constitute most of my waking hours, unless I'm standing still attending to something in the kitchen.

The test made me count my blessings, such as those really old relatives. Cancer does not run in my family. I have perfect cholesterols and blood sugars. I can and choose to see doctors, and work on mental health, and I have a support system. I've never smoked.

This was spurred by a facebook thread about what exactly constitutes being "middle aged." And that was spurred, of course, by the need to study. Which I will now resume.