Quieter Times

Sometimes I enter a space – hours or maybe even days – where I feel completely ‘normal’ as if I’ve gone to sleep with a memory disorder and woken up free from it. As if, indeed, the whole of my recent past has happened in a dream.

A day, two days or even three may then slip gently by without causing any anxiety, memory loss or confusion, whatsoever. And though, in my heart of hearts, I’m aware this is unlikely to last, it really feels possible.

I suppose what’s actually happened is, well, basically, nothing at all. Nothing has presented me with challenges, deadlines, or tasks to complete; there’s been no date or meeting to remember, no explanations to make and I may have spent little to no time talking or relating to anyone. Without the pressure required to accomplish anything or follow through with the correct responses, my shrinking brain has gone completely unchallenged by the ordinary ups and downs and ins and outs of normal life, leaving me feeling like my original, sane, and averagely capable self.

I think in some ways my lifestyle enables this to happen to me, because I do spend most of my time alone, which makes it easier for me to move along peacefully without my brain being unduly challenged. It’s a flatter, safer, quieter, and more lonesome way to live; a more careful and guarded lifestyle, but I have always been a person who needs a lot of time alone.

Painting, writing, and counselling were my work, and are quiet pastimes, though it’s been an age since I last painted, and a lot of my walking has been done alone (I really must join a walking group.)

I’ve always needed a lot of alone time. Yet I have always really enjoyed a good party, and my family were quite musical, so we had singalongs, which I remember with the greatest of pleasure. We’re very fragmented now, having drifted off into various, quite distant, locations. I miss those evenings and those times of our family singing together. I miss my grandparents who were patient and wonderful, and the dogs and cats we had, and my beautiful pony, Honey, who spent a good deal of time, on our rides, seemingly attempting to wipe me off her back under low lying branches!!

How life changes, doesn’t it?

As do we, as we move through the stages of our allocated, or maybe random, time here on earth. I really remember thinking about ageing when I was a young mum and finding it impossible to comprehend!

Well, it’s happened to me now, and, on the whole, it’s different … waaay different … but hey … it ain’t so bad!

What I wonder, will be next? Not tomorrow, but after our tomorrows? Now THAT is an exciting thought . . . and I, for one, can’t wait.