What's Missing in Your Life, and What Can Be Done About It? (moving, spouse)
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I'm not even retired yet.... And due to a myriad of issues my best turn of events will be an early death..
I've just realized that mobility and independence will definitely be missing from my life if and when I get to retire.
Just an hour ago I came back from the cemetery to put flowers on my parents' grave(This month/year would have been the 100th birthday for both. I have diabetic neuropathy...been in treatment for 15 years...and of course there is no hope for betterment. Already I had the balance,sense of heaviness in the legs,walking on uneven surfaces issues,etc...and it was already getting very scary to walk the grass paths to reach the graves from the asphalt parking.
But today,after about a year of not going to visit my parents' grave...I just couldn't walk on the grass.. I
had a scary sense of falling on the moist/thick/uneven lawn.
I actually crawled on my hands and knees from the parking to the plot...(about 300 feet)..luckily I don't think
anybody saw me.
So most likely this will be the last time I attempt to visit my parents' grave..I will be walking with a cane any time and I will probably even get out of the house less.
you have no one that can take you out there and help you?
What's missing in my life emotionally? Nothing. Actually I am happier now than at any time in my life previously, because I no longer have external expectations or obligations being placed upon me by other people. I have control over my space and my privacy. I have also finally learned to say "No" and (which is even more important) not feel either guilty or the need to apologize for my decisions and preferences. My tagline here pretty much sums me up, lol.
What's missing in my life materially? Two things:
(1) More money. A perfect storm of unexpected and out of my control circumstances combined between 2008 and 2012 to wipe out almost everything I had and planned for. The result is that I'm not dirt-poor (yet) but the financial situation is what it is and there's nothing I can do about it but to go forward under the new set of circumstances.
(2) The decent average health that I before everything suddenly went to h*ll in a handbasket in 2012 during the course of just six months. The upshot is that I can no longer eat or sleep like a "normal" person. I've adjusted my lifestyle so that I have not had to get onto the Medication Treadmill (and hope never to do so) but it sure would be nice to not have to take multiple health scenarios into consideration for everyday situations that most people take for granted (like, say, eating, sleeping, planning things in advance, etc.)
On the flip side, however, my multiple health issues do sometimes provide an excellent and 100% valid excuse for passing up social situations that I'd rather not have engaged in anyhow.
This is one of the saddest threads I have ever read. Life is not perfect for anyone, no matter their age. If you have a roof over your head, food in the frig, something to read and a companion either 2 or 4 legged, perhaps then, you are fortunate. I never got the farm, the house on the lake or a myriad of things I had thought I wanted. But I have outlived my parents and my grandparents...am healthy, take no meds and enough $$ to pay the bills. No bucket list traveling or the incessant RV/Camping lifestyle, but am content for what I have. Children have their own lives and my goal is not to be a burden to them as I age.
My mom had some wise words for me once when I was a kid complaining no one wanted to play with me. I was a shy kid living in my own little world wanting everyone to come to me and couldn't figure out why they didn't.
"To make a friend you have to be a friend."
I finally got it. I had to make the effort to reach out to people if I wanted them to reach back. It wasn't easy but when I did it I began making friends. Out of those friends I found one or two really true ones. I learned it begins with me.
This is the second person who has pulled out the "to have a friend, you have to be a friend." It kind of rubs me the wrong way because I am a GREAT friend - I am very considerate in many ways - and that has not been reciprocated, so it's kind of a sore spot.
This is the second person who has pulled out the "to have a friend, you have to be a friend." It kind of rubs me the wrong way because I am a GREAT friend - I am very considerate in many ways - and that has not been reciprocated, so it's kind of a sore spot.
Can it be that your expectations of other people are out of balance? I've had similar thoughts, I'm a good friend and think about what I have done for others while I never have them reciprocate. We can't expect others to do what we want them to do. It has been a hard lesson for me. But once I learned it, life got better for me.
You seem to know what the problem is, and thus the solution. Your problems with friends and possibly family may lie with what you stated above - if you're someone who is being picky about and judging other people, they really aren't going to want to hang around long enough to become friends, nor should they have to. If you want a true solution to the problem, start there.
My personal experience is all those other people...? They're just as judgmental as anybody else. It's not like I, or the Original Poster are all that unique. For most other people it seems it's usually booze they use to judge you by. If you don't drink, they don't trust you. Often it's also money. "Got any?" The totem pole principle. I don't see my being discriminating in relationships as bad or unique. The things I focus on, now those could be said to be less mainstream. And maybe that's what has me and the OP lying outside of most Venn diagrams.....?
Last edited by fallstaff; 09-09-2018 at 02:21 PM..
This is the second person who has pulled out the "to have a friend, you have to be a friend." It kind of rubs me the wrong way because I am a GREAT friend - I am very considerate in many ways - and that has not been reciprocated, so it's kind of a sore spot.
If you're trying to befriend someone with the expectations of total reciprocity, it more than likely won't work. Friendships are not made based on expectations. That is not what that saying means.
This is the second person who has pulled out the "to have a friend, you have to be a friend." It kind of rubs me the wrong way because I am a GREAT friend - I am very considerate in many ways - and that has not been reciprocated, so it's kind of a sore spot.
Yeah, really. I don't see anybody else proceeding that way. It's always about ME . I gotta do this... I gotta do that. I'm too this... I'm not enough that. How did I get to be the center of the universe? Nope. I am not that "El Strange-O" on such a cosmic scale. I'm just a Bloke like everyone else. But for some reason all inputs and all outputs, including other people's behavior, always seem to depend on me? No. That ain't it.
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