98 END OF YEAR THOUGHTS 2

I did a blog (# 40) before, entitled End of Year Thoughts, which was at the end of 2021. I decided I need to do another one, four years on, before I reach my arbitrary 100-blog limit.  Here are some of the things that occupy my thoughts in the runup to 2026. Happy holidays to all, and Happy Solstice which I always wish people around this time. The days are going to start getting longer and brighter (and, eventually, warmer) from now on. That’s a good thought.

• This winter in the veggie patch I rescued two potentially perennial plants – a basil and a jalapeno – into pots in the sunny corridor room where I keep my geraniums during frost time. Will they make it to the warm weather? This is an experiment, so I don’t know. Time will tell.

• This year was one of the worst I can remember. Mainly because suffering (as distinguished from pain) occupied most of my thoughts, for reasons I won’t disclose here. Getting older is one of the things I can’t seem to get used to, although I am trying. See below.

• Old age doesn’t proceed as a smooth slope, it goes in stairsteps. When I am on a horizontal, things don’t change rapidly physically, everything is pretty much on an even keel. But those verticals! (often beginning with a disease or accident, as mine was – dislocating my shoulder at the end of 2024) The particular vertical of this year has a lot to do with the body not doing what it’s told – especially in the balance/clumsiness area.

• Things learned must be unlearned, and other things learned instead, when we get older. I’m not talking about computer literacy etc., which is a cruel trick to play upon older people who are already learning many things about themselves and their new bodies, and may have less brain function than before. For years I taught myself to be efficient in carrying things from one place to another in my big house, carrying maybe a dozen things that all needed to be elsewhere. Now that I’m getting older, I have to train myself in the opposite, because I can no longer carry lots of things, no matter how heavy or light they are – balance issues or strength issues intervene. I must think about how much I can manage, and usually end up making many more trips than I used to. As just one example, I used to be able to carry a full and heavy tray of dishes between the storehouse and the kitchen, I can no longer do that, it feels too dangerous. I have to break up the load to a manageable size, which means multiple trips. More exercise, I tell myself.

  Another example of this is the bank. I learned, slowly and painstakingly, in a language not my own, how to transfer money at the ATM because I kept getting sent over there by window clerks. Now that I’ve hit 70, apparently I can no longer be trusted to transfer money by machine, but must go through a much more tortuous and involved procedure at the window; at age 70 I am suddenly considered incapable of deciding if the transfer is legitimate etc. This results in anger, which I can’t vent on the clerks, it’s not their fault… so I vent it on my long-suffering husband when I get home, with the expected consequences. (It’s not his fault either!)

• I won’t talk about going to the bathroom, because it is not really for everyone’s ears. Suffice it to say that I found out recently that incontinence is a problem facing up to 50% of 30-year-old women! Consider that I’m now 70 and you will have an inkling of what I have to manage.

• Steps in the house, and irregular surfaces generally, are a problem if your legs hurt more or less all the time. Walking, and going up or down stairs, involve a surprising amount of standing on one foot, and when you aren’t particularly stable anyway, you have to fond places to hold onto, even if you don’t have putting on or taking off shoes to contend with as well.

• As I prepare for New Year, there are many things taking up a lot of headspace -- cleaning, decorating, etc. I am letting go of a lot of activities and probably will do so more and more in the years to come. My husband is useful, but I can’t rely on him for everything.

  What have I said goodbye to, given up, graduated from? Making and sending lots of cards went out the window this year. I contacted only those people I really care about, by letter. I also said goodbye to making decorative rice cakes, or almost. I found a woodworker who would make a large wooden one (the wood is called mochi no ki, and is greyish-white in color), and for some of the six smaller ones I need, I got glass ones. They will be useful for many years, and someday I hope to say goodbye to this onerous task altogether. (I don’t like or eat fresh rice cakes, but have been making them with my husband in the traditional way for almost half a century. I think we deserve a little pat on the back for that!) Each time I let go of a traditional activity in our house, I have lots of guilt trips etc. to go through. Transitional times are never easy.

• This past year, a Snake year, I heard was for finding out truths about oneself that may be hiding as under the old skin of a snake. And let them go, as a snake sheds its skin! Then one will be free to run as is necessary in Horse year (next year).

• It’s cold! (a perennial complaint at this time of year) I have been living in this barn of a house for 40 years and have gotten used to lugging kerosene, etc. We don’t have electric wall-mounted heaters except in one or two rooms. I hope the weather pundits are right and that this winter will be relatively warm, without much snow to contend with; as my balance issues will have a field day with snow added!!

With very best wishes to one and all for a healthy and challenging 2026.