And silliness in movement, of course. Gotta have the silly.
I have spent a ridiculous amount of time being still in the past 10 days post-eye surgery, and am struggling a bit to get moving again. Part of me wonders if I am just not ready, and another part of me wonders if … well, how nice is it in this cocoon where nobody is expecting anything of me and nobody wants anything from me and I can just be quietly alone with my thoughts?
It’s nice.
How often do we have the luxury of allowing the world to carry on just fine without us, thank you very much? How often are we forced to let go of any idea that we’re actually in charge or specifically necessary to the continued running of all the things? Not often enough. Everybody needs to be put in suspended animation once in a while, just so we know that the rest of the world can carry on quite nicely without our intervention.
The laundry got done by not-me, and nothing was ruined. I let lots of other people cook for me and it was all delicious and nothing made me sick or reactive. I didn’t wash a single dish or do anything remotely useful and the world just kept on spinnin’.
Humbling. But also … hmm. A human could get used to this.
There’s something really wonderful about getting old enough to start to see what the world is going to be like without you in it. Oh, I’m in no danger of shuffling off anytime soon, and I’m certainly not afraid of it – in fact, I’m rather looking forward to it in a “not just yet please” kind of way. It’s the greatest adventure of them all, truly. But my point is, to see life going on around you without you intervening in it. to watch people start taking over the stuff you thought was essentially yours … it’s a curious thing. Some people are straight-up terrified of the whole thing, and desperately need to be needed and need to be irreplaceable (sorry, you’re so not) and will cling on to life because not knowing what’s next is just unthinkable.
Oh, but there’s a flip side, a terrible flip side, of course, to the ease and peace of stillness, and that is … you become rather like a slug and it gets harder to get out of chairs and get up from the couch and harder to wake up in the morning and harder to resist all the snacks … and your metabolism, already challenged by age and gravity, goes into Park, and well … shit.
This is why people who are old and fit say, “The secret to a long and healthy life is, just keep moving.” Sooooooo true. OMG so true.
So is there a way to keep moving and simultaneously let the world go on around you without your interference? Is there a way to keep moving but only in the direction of less responsibility? Is that a responsible thing to do?
The mind wobbles. Or boggles, take your pick.
So the new cornea has fully attached and is settling in nicely, and I can start carefully and judiciously moving into life again, and after 10 days of being so very still, I need all the help and encouragement I can get. But I’ve got to make a start or I will end up on a reality TV show about the living dead soon, and I can’t be having with that.
See you outside, soon.