I had lunch today with one of my best friends. I’ve known Vicki all my life, she’s two years younger than me…and while that made a difference when we were in high school (different circles, you know), it became less and less of an issue as we got older. Vicki was practically my opposite, in high school she was short and very petite, quite popular and a majorette…I was…well, nevermind…
She married a boy from a fine, well-to-do family and had four children. Very opposite from me and my life circumstances. But we’ve found, over the years, how much common ground we do have. We’re both avid readers, we both love movies (especially musicals), symphonies and ballets, we enjoy crafts, we love to travel (and have gone on a couple of trips together) and we both live with and care for ailing, infirmed men (her husband, my elderly father)…and in this, especially, we are able to share our experiences in common – bad and worse (there are relatively few good!) and we’re able to laugh with each other about things that are normally incredibly stressful, very emotional and highly frustrating…things that other people (non-caregivers) just can’t understand.
Recently Vicki was given some very bad news – the worst news that a person can receive. After her cancer went into remission, Vicki changed her lifestyle and eating habits…she went Vegan…because she did not want to have to endure the horror of chemotherapy again. Unfortunately that choice was taken out of her hands and the cancer came back. However, this time the cancer did not respond to treatment and the doctors made the decision to stop the chemo. The prognosis is flat-out BAD. And she’s looking at about a year, at the most.
She spent two days in bed, crying, then pulled herself up by her bootstraps (so to speak) and decided that was counter-productive and she needed to just get over herself. She decided to take all of her retirement money and spend it in one year – by taking her children and their spouses, individually, on trips all over the world. I can’t think of a better use of her money.
Vicki is a very special kind of person. Years ago she taught the senior high school girls in church. Two of the girls in her class had jobs that required Sunday work, so every Sunday evening Vicki would visit each girl and give them an abridged version of the lesson, with handouts, etc. Her professional life has reflected the same dedication and tenacity – even though she planned on teaching physical education, she spent a lot of years teaching English to middle school students in a low-income area – students who didn’t particularly want to learn English – or anything else. Education, while a noble calling to be sure, can be one of the hardest, most demanding and frustrating vocations in the world…and it takes the special kind of person that Vicki is to do it, and do it well.
One year…three-hundred and sixty-five days…
Time is relative…and often elastic. It seems that weekends just fly by, while work weeks drag on. Boring lectures or classes seem unendurable, and yet the same period of time spent…oh…say reading a thrilling novel or watching a favorite TV show is over too quickly. It seems a long time to wait for Spring when you’ve just started a bleak November month…but suddenly August is over and the leaves are turning and the Holidays are looming (again!?! Didn’t I just take down the Christmas decorations??!!??).
I’m due (perhaps even today) to sit down with my boss at work and go over my annual performance review and development plan. (I swear we just did that!) My boss is an amazing woman and I’m lucky to be working for her…but I can’t figure out – for the life of me – what I’ve done to keep getting good reviews from her. (??) The really onerous part of the review process is my coming up with new goals and objectives (that’s the development part). I’m 58, I’m no longer a fire-brand of ambition, I basically just want to keep coming to work and doing my job until they have to pull me off my office chair and body-bag me (financially there’s not much chance of early retirement in my future…so I’m planning on working as long as they’ll let me – it’s not something I want to do, there are lots of things I’d love to be doing even now…papercrafting, those exciting novels, lunch with friends, travel…but Oh Well…)
The development plan is very akin to New Year’s Resolutions, which I’ve hated for years – because every year I’d invariably broken them all before the end of January… I’ve never been great on goal-setting, and therefore have not been an accomplisher of great things. (I understand that you have to do the one to get the other.)
Today, though, I’m looking at the coming year differently, and asking myself what I would do if I only had three-hundred and sixty-five days left on earth. And perhaps setting a goal or two…
She married a boy from a fine, well-to-do family and had four children. Very opposite from me and my life circumstances. But we’ve found, over the years, how much common ground we do have. We’re both avid readers, we both love movies (especially musicals), symphonies and ballets, we enjoy crafts, we love to travel (and have gone on a couple of trips together) and we both live with and care for ailing, infirmed men (her husband, my elderly father)…and in this, especially, we are able to share our experiences in common – bad and worse (there are relatively few good!) and we’re able to laugh with each other about things that are normally incredibly stressful, very emotional and highly frustrating…things that other people (non-caregivers) just can’t understand.
Recently Vicki was given some very bad news – the worst news that a person can receive. After her cancer went into remission, Vicki changed her lifestyle and eating habits…she went Vegan…because she did not want to have to endure the horror of chemotherapy again. Unfortunately that choice was taken out of her hands and the cancer came back. However, this time the cancer did not respond to treatment and the doctors made the decision to stop the chemo. The prognosis is flat-out BAD. And she’s looking at about a year, at the most.
She spent two days in bed, crying, then pulled herself up by her bootstraps (so to speak) and decided that was counter-productive and she needed to just get over herself. She decided to take all of her retirement money and spend it in one year – by taking her children and their spouses, individually, on trips all over the world. I can’t think of a better use of her money.
Vicki is a very special kind of person. Years ago she taught the senior high school girls in church. Two of the girls in her class had jobs that required Sunday work, so every Sunday evening Vicki would visit each girl and give them an abridged version of the lesson, with handouts, etc. Her professional life has reflected the same dedication and tenacity – even though she planned on teaching physical education, she spent a lot of years teaching English to middle school students in a low-income area – students who didn’t particularly want to learn English – or anything else. Education, while a noble calling to be sure, can be one of the hardest, most demanding and frustrating vocations in the world…and it takes the special kind of person that Vicki is to do it, and do it well.
One year…three-hundred and sixty-five days…
Time is relative…and often elastic. It seems that weekends just fly by, while work weeks drag on. Boring lectures or classes seem unendurable, and yet the same period of time spent…oh…say reading a thrilling novel or watching a favorite TV show is over too quickly. It seems a long time to wait for Spring when you’ve just started a bleak November month…but suddenly August is over and the leaves are turning and the Holidays are looming (again!?! Didn’t I just take down the Christmas decorations??!!??).
I’m due (perhaps even today) to sit down with my boss at work and go over my annual performance review and development plan. (I swear we just did that!) My boss is an amazing woman and I’m lucky to be working for her…but I can’t figure out – for the life of me – what I’ve done to keep getting good reviews from her. (??) The really onerous part of the review process is my coming up with new goals and objectives (that’s the development part). I’m 58, I’m no longer a fire-brand of ambition, I basically just want to keep coming to work and doing my job until they have to pull me off my office chair and body-bag me (financially there’s not much chance of early retirement in my future…so I’m planning on working as long as they’ll let me – it’s not something I want to do, there are lots of things I’d love to be doing even now…papercrafting, those exciting novels, lunch with friends, travel…but Oh Well…)
The development plan is very akin to New Year’s Resolutions, which I’ve hated for years – because every year I’d invariably broken them all before the end of January… I’ve never been great on goal-setting, and therefore have not been an accomplisher of great things. (I understand that you have to do the one to get the other.)
Today, though, I’m looking at the coming year differently, and asking myself what I would do if I only had three-hundred and sixty-five days left on earth. And perhaps setting a goal or two…
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