Random thoughts late at night.....

I am not sure.... am I depressed or bored or just trying to forget what is coming in the next week or so?  I find myself falling asleep in my recliner and sleeping soundly for an hour or so.  I had started doing it before Rudy died and I attributed it to just getting older and not being as active as I once was.  That could still be the case.  My doctor even asked me if I was depressed when I mentioned to her the loss of Miss Molly.  I told her no as I really do not want to begin thinking about taking medication to 'feel better'.  I took an anti-depressant once to combat hot flashes.  The hot flashes went away, but so did every emotion that I ever had.  I did not feel bad, I did not feel good.... I felt nothing and I hated it.  So no pills for me.  If I am depressed, it comes and goes, which to me is normal living.

Anyway, I had one of my longer naps than normal yesterday which had me awake well beyond the 2AM hour this morning.  I was reclined in my lovely bed, watching some mindless TV and thinking about stuff.

In those random thoughts I came to the realization that my life is pretty much as far afield from where I thought it would be as it could possibly be.  My ideal world would be to have my two sons, grown and living on their own. They are doing that, but they are so far away that they cannot "be there" for their mother.  I had imagined them sticking a bit closer to home.

My immediate family, locally, were all my husband's family.  His sister died in the spring of 2006.  Marcy was always planning family outings and Rudy and I were generally included.  We could always count on who we would be with on Thanksgiving, sometime around Christmas and Easter.  There were also numerous gatherings to celebrate birthdays, weddings, births, etc.  It kept us busy and connected.  When she died, little by little, over the years, the Boylan side of the family has become more and more fractured with family gatherings on important holidays becoming smaller and smaller.  It was not an immediate thing, but little by little in the last 7 years.

I lost my father in 2007.  While making sure he was not left out in the cold and being alone since he moved to the are in 1997, I was thrilled to have him around and get to hear the stories of the things he remembered about my youth that even I did not remember.  His passing moved the torch of the oldest generation in my family to me.

In addition to my kids being far away, my only sibling is my brother, Andy, who is about 4 hours (give or take an hour depending on traffic around D. C.) away with his wife and kids.  He married later in his life, so his kids are just finishing their educations and are still living at home.  He and his wife are just at different places in life.  So, while we get together over Christmas, we have not spent a lot of time together.  I am hoping that now that he had retired and I am semi-retired, that we might find a few more things that we can do together.

Rudy died in 2011 after battling cancer for a year.  It has really left me at loose ends.  I had a wonderful vision of the two of us traveling and finding a lovely retirement home and just enjoying doing leisurely things together.  We were robbed of that chance with his untimely death and I am still working very hard to find a new path for me that will satisfy me.  I was a loner as a teen, but it is not all it is cracked up to be as an aging widow.

Rudy's niece, Nancy, was the one family member who kept some of the fragments of the family together.  This summer she suffered some medical setbacks of her own.  Uncontrolled high blood pressure had her in and out of the hospital most of the summer.  She is back at work but still suffering from dizziness.  She is trying hard to keep her life simple and will not be getting the family together for the first time since her mother died.

And then there is Molly.  She was my sweet little dog, who frustrated me daily but gave me a reason to have a normal day.  I am still looking for her little tail to be racing me to the couch when I come from the kitchen to the living room.  It hurts not to see that.

So, I am looking around, and my life is completely different from where it was in 2006.  The last seven years has completely derailed all of my hopes and dreams.  I can completely understand why the elderly can get so lonely and adopt hoards of cats.  I can understand why they are pictured in their favorite chairs, snoring.  I can understand why they are not eating well.  It sucks cooking for one.  I can understand being up late at night, as the naps and lack of schedule really make a regular sleeping routine pretty much a mute point.

Just the random thoughts on a late night.....

The good news is I have taken on an embroidery job which is keeping my mind busy and giving me structure for my time heading up to my surgery.