Other people behaving badly...

Norway 🇳🇴 is hanging on to the medal 🥇 count in the Olympics

Viking strong

My very Catholic Aunt is here, and we were going to go to the AMish market Friday for breakfast and shopping.. she mentions she can't eat meat on Friday.. It's and AMISH MARKET !! Everything is meat!! So we are going Thursday,, which my mom mentioned is senior discount day anyhow,,, So I guess its a win?

It's Fat Tuesday!

I used to ask the Viking what she was giving up
For lent - sex or chocolate?

The Hazmat Team has arrived in the neighborhood. NFD.

There will be people behaving badly at the reception. Maybe you can get some ideas and bring them back to us?

Figure skating-a favorite!

Aw MsMadge think of the free food and booze at the reception. Slip something in your purse for the Viking.

WoW
How about that 17 year old Chloe Kim?

A coworker invited me to son's wedding - I absolutely do not want to go but felt obliged to say yes

These days I don't even take a shower on Saturday and now I have to get dressed up and go out by myself

How about a mani / pedi, Gershun?

Yes, a real HOOOOT !!!!!! I think it's a barn owl. Somebody got a pic of it. So cute and mischievous looking. I hope conservation officers don't swoop in and kill it. It hasn't done any real damage to anyone. Just startled them a bit.

That's a hoot Gershun!

Do you know what kind of owl it is?

Yes, life is just too serious to be taken seriously. It was a cold sunny day here and there is an owl on the loose dive bombing unsuspecting people which I find cute and hilarious....... Until he divebombs me that is.

Yes, I got bottled water and came home without speaking to anyone.
We are doing great, right? I loved getting out, the clouds were beautiful, then ominous.
Trying not to take myself too seriously, because life is too serious to be taken seriously.

Send, but I don't need my hair cut. But I do get what you are saying, truly I do. I did go out today even if it was just to get groceries. Then I came home and washed my bedding. Whew hoo, I know but at least I did something.

Shock.
Becky,
After reading your post about that neighbors attitude, and stupid words, I turned over in my grave and I am not even dead yet! Reminders of what is similarly happening now in my neighborhood, but I cannot say.
The retreat at the lake is the best idea yet. You can recover there. Hope you and PJ are ok. He said that to get her outta there, right?

Gershun,
Move more, think less.
Make a hair appointment now, and go. You never know when those hubs will show up and surprise you in mid-february. He will like it if you look fabulous, even if you don't feel that way.
What you have written will not be easy to recover from, or a quick fix. Your thoughts and emotions can stop you from doing anything. It does not have to be life changing, or help others, or be very important at all, just start somewhere.

This is your intervention. Lay out the clothes you are wearing tonight. And if you must walk-in to a hair salon, do that in the morning. I want to see some hair flying! It is a start, often suggested by therapists. Is there a place at the mall? Go there and have coffee first, remembering your Mom sitting there. If you find a teddy bear, in a bag with flowers..and some chocolate.....buy yourself something you like. Your kitties are counting on you. (They don't get any chocolate whatsoever).

If not, if you are stubborn and won't actually DO anything suggested, what do you want to do? Don't make me come up there....Canada is a very far away place.

Yes, Becky and that's what it all boils down to for me a lot, is being way too hard on myself. I'm glad my opening up about things can help others feel like they can too.

Your post strikes home for me too. I was anorexic as a teen. As an adult it's still there. I worry about exercising, gaining weight, etc. I watch my weight and fret obsessively when the scales aren't where I want them.  I can't exercise at the level I used to because of peripheral neuropathy. I also know about the cleaning thing. I moved in my husband's home and he has a housekeeper who keeps things immaculate. Anytime I cook I obsess about cleaning everything up like she does thinngs. The only thing you can do is try not to be hard on yourself. Not easy to do, but it you can do it with practice.

Gershun, you are by no means a looney tune, well unless all the rest of us are, then you would fit right in.
It is only when people come together as on this forum and feel free to share the real things in their lives, that they begin to understand who they really are and recognise things that can be changed.
You have been through a lot and still have not compleated grieving for your mother. Now you are in a new sterile environment and don't know anybody or anything.
Like Golden I am happy to be alone and have never enjoyed socializing. Wherever i have moved i have made one good friend, more than one and i feel especially blessed. Another great blessing is the love of my children.
You are used to an old house and the inevitable dust and drafts. Now everything is brand spanking new and you feel guilty if there is so much as a spot on the counter. it is like having a new car and the distress when it gets it's first scratch. I used to be like that, everything had to be spotless, but now I can let it go.
Look outside and smell the flowers, in my case we are still admiring the snow, but that too will pass and when it melts I will see that my daffodils are already sprouting a few inches above the ground.
Do you have the strength to go out and volunteer for something.. I used to volunteer for the Arts council and the local craft co-op and made crafts to sell. About 12 years ago I took an interest in buying houses and flipping them. the part i really enjoyed was making them feel my own. I never brought anything that i did not feel i could live in. i had total freedom to do whatever i wanted. Some I did sell but others ended up as rentals which was not very successfull, the last one will hopefully sell this year.
There is a big world out there Gershun waiting for you to explore when you are ready.

You all make really good points. I always felt like I wasn't successful either until I stopped using other people's criterion for what success is. It wasn't until I went through the experience of being my Mom's caregiver/advocate without any help from my "successful" siblings that I recognized my own strength and realized that there are all sorts of different roads to success and being successful. I truly believe my legacy, if there is such a thing will be that journey I took with my Mom.

What I'm struggling with now is just a mixed bag of feelings, emotions, anger, sadness, frustration.............you name it. Here I am in my Hubs and I's new condo in a new neighborhood, which may as well be a new country, cause it's all foreign to me. He's been away working and I find myself obsessively cleaning all the time and getting overly worked up about stupid things like marks on the laminate flooring. I found myself thinking today that I wished I was still living in the 60- year-old place that we moved from. At least I didn't feel this need to keep it immaculate. I probably get that from my Mom who was a clean freak. But, I get so bothered by it. Then there's the not working out thing. I was anorexic when I was young and obsessing about every bite I eat and exercising really never went away. I don't starve myself anymore but I've never been comfortable with just eating what I want without panicking about it.

I'd better stop there or I'll really start to sound like a looney tune. Suffice it to say that I think I need to change my way of thinking soon cause my thoughts are destructive to me right now. But thank-you all for taking the time to read me and give me feedback. It really helps to know that I'm not alone.

gershun - what you describe happened to me after my son died. Things that I had an interest in before became totally uninteresting to me. i tend to like being alone anyway and now, even more so. I just go with the flow and accept it as my life I can handle some socialization, but not much. Some of that, for me, is age and CFS/FM related too. But there was a major shift after his death. The loss of a LO has a permanent effect on us.

ali - "prolonged feelings of being unmotivated, worn out, depression symptoms but not depressed" sounds very much like grief. Grief results from any major change -whether it is perceived as being "good" or "bad". Caregivers will go through grief at the end of their journey, no matter the relationship with the one who was being cared for. Not that that doesn't matter and isn't an important factor - it is. But, regardless, you will travel with and through grief.

cw - career. spouse, kids...look at them as gifts, not accomplishments, then look for the gifts you have been given. There are times a great long empty tunnel looks appealing. It can be decorated any way you like. It's the journey...

I can relate to some of what you wrote Gershun, I think in my case it may be because I've spent my life floating along without any clear direction or goal, sort of believing "and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should" (Desiderata), and now suddenly I'm dam'd near 60 and haven't really accomplished much of anything at all. Career? Spouse? Kids? Nope. Friends? A few, but I hardly ever see them. Hobbies? Meh. The future looks like one great long empty tunnel leading to.... (sigh)

When was the last time you checked in with your GP, Gershun? Couldn't hurt to have a physical, just to make sure it's not blood sugar, etc., also contributing to feeling low.

I think these prolonged feelings of being unmotivated, worn out, depression symptoms but not depressed... it's normal for some people post-caregiving. I was telling another poster -- who could benefit from a place to talk about how they feel after a decade of caregiving, but also a few years since their LO passed -- that there should be a thread on here focused on post-caregiving life. (There may be one? But I'm not sure.) It comes up often enough and seems to be something many of us feel, that our lives are forever changed, we are changed, our lives could be titled Before And After Caregiving. Maybe some of it is due to the physical changes that happened during our caregiving time, maybe some of it is deeply emotional -- and manifests as physical -- because of what we've experienced.

Gershun, as much as I don't love coming to work every day, I know it's helping me right now just to get out and have to talk to people, focus on customers, etc. I hate giving trite advice to smart people because I know I don't particularly care to receive some of it, myself. You know, the ol' "you should go for walks or go volunteer" stuff. But... I think you better do something, even if that something is just post more on here about this issue for as long as it takes, until the mental part of "I need to do something different because my life is going in an unsatisfactory way" becomes a reality. That can take a while when you're in a mental rut.

Becky, I can't believe someone would actually say that to you. But then again, maybe I can. I think I mentioned once or twice that I grew up with a Schizophrenic brother. The police were always being called to my house. I never invited friends over because, well, just because. I could regale you all with a million horror stories but suffice it to say, life was not easy. Top that off with another brother who was a little eccentric, to say the least, who decided to purchase an old Hearst for a vehicle and boldly and proudly park it in our driveway, (he named it Patty) you can imagine how our neighbors felt about us. I always got the feeling that we were all persona non grata in our neighborhood through no fault of our own. People judge that's for sure. I guess the only good I can say that came up with an upbringing like that is I definitely don 't judge people.

Ali, I so want to come over there and hug you. You express so well a lot of what I feel every day. I feel like damaged goods most of the time now. They should put a sign on me that says, "everything's gotta go, closing out sale" Put me in the used and damaged rack for sure. I truly feel worried about myself lately. Without Hubby in town, I don't see anyone. He phones every day but unless I go out to the grocery store or drugstore near here, I don't see a soul. I have been feeling like a turtle hiding in it's shell. I know I should just force myself to move, and get going but since my Mom died I just don't enjoy anything anymore. I used to love watching Hockey. I could care less now. I think I need an intervention or something.

Well, yes, I'd have liked to think we're all old enough to go for the mature adults option.

I have my suspicions, too, about V's overthinking this and not concentrating enough on the fact that it's her dam' birthday and she can invite who she likes. Way way back in ancient history, after I'd been separated from my husband for a few months, another girl (as we all were then, really) suddenly started avoiding me. I found out why when my ex called to ask if I could lend her some cookery books - typing that now I can't quite believe it, but I swear it's true - because he wasn't sold on her dinners. Now anyone who knew me at all knew perfectly well that a) I'd been trying to get rid of him for years and b) that I'd have wished her all the luck in the world; but "someone" had clearly given this girl the notion that I wouldn't like her having dinner with my ex and might be frosty towards her. Nonsense! I'd have booked the table for them myself. And told her to make sure he picked up the bill, too, the ungrateful mongrel.

CM, that was a lot of fun to read. I have no advice at the moment. I think Send's idea is a great one: can someone else take over the party planning, then whoever is invited or not invited isn't a direct reflection on the birthday person's choices.

Or, if it's a big bash like you said, why not trust people to act like mature adults and stay on opposite ends of the party if they don't want to see or talk to each other...? So I suppose I don't understand why the need to not invite certain people. They don't have to hang out together, just be there in support of the birthday person... in theory.

Sometimes the only way to get a party is to plan it yourself. (And forgive me for being sexist, but sons are less apt to think of such things than daughters)

Now there is a thought.

Hmm.

She has three grown up sons, now you mention that important point.

Hmmm.

CM,
Thinking I followed that.

V should not be giving and planning her own party, imo.