“I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” This famous line from Network came into my head the other day. I think it has to do with change. As I’ve gotten older I know that any change in routine can increase my irritability. I tend to lose things more now, although my wife disputes this and reminds me of keys I lost for almost two years. That also can set me more on edge. I think what is really behind this is the possibility that a major change in our life is coming.
Our sons are grown and live more than an hour from us. We want to see them and their families, but it takes a lot of planning on everyone’s part for this to happen. The decision we are facing is whether to move or to stay in the home we have lived in for 35 years. The thought of moving away from a place I am comfortable in is very difficult. I remember a line from Nikos Kazantzakis “When a man is young, the world is too small. When a man is old, his village is too big.”
My family moved into this town in 1959. I moved away in college. After we were married we lived in a small apartment in Forest Park and then bought a townhouse in Villa Park, IL. We lived there for a few years and then, with proceeds of my mother’s estate, were able to buy a home in Warrenville. My wife was pregnant with our youngest son when we moved in. He will be 35 in a few months and now has his own wife and life.
In 35 years you can accumulate a lot of “stuff” as George Carlin used to say. What should be kept and what can be let go of? Where should we live? How much space do we really need at this time in our lives? I go back and forth with these questions and I know I really don’t want to move/change.
Perhaps this is me just settling. Retirement has been fairly peaceful. I can read and work out and maintain some contacts with people, but I know I’m not really challenging myself. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been thinking that the productive part of my life is over, and now I’m just waiting to die because my usefulness is done. In my mother’s final days she wanted to come back into her home in Warrenville. She had been living in my sister’s home. She was able to come back and die in her own home. In my family most of my relatives died in their homes. My grandfather was one of the first of his generation to be waked in a funeral home rather than the house he lived in.
Morbid thoughts, I know, but very appropriate for a winter’s day. We went and looked at a townhouse a few weeks ago. I suppose it would be possible to live there, but I could feel all of the complaints and criticisms rising as we walked thru it. It is large enough and we wouldn’t be on top of each other, but there is no yard etc,etc.
The reality is that as we get older this house may be more difficult to care for. There is a yard and two furnaces/air-conditioners. The house will probably need a new roof in the next year or so. If it snows, the snow has to be removed. The real bottom line is that we are getting older and may not be able to provide the care the house needs. I am getting older and know that after I do a lot of strenuous physical activity, I can feel it for more than a few days.
I don’t like change. I don’t like disruptions in my daily routine. On my worst days I can see myself as Ebenezer Scrooge yelling at those “damn kids and their music, dress and behavior”. I’m not there yet but I can almost hear myself yelling “Bah Humbug!!”
Carl Whitaker is one of my therapeutic heroes. He was one of the first family therapists. He always believed in trying to connect with people in the here and now. He thought connecting with a family system was one of the best ways to initiate change. He once wrote “Ten Rules to Keep the Therapist Alive”. I would always have a copy available and when I was feeling really burned out I would read them over and over:
“Relegate every significant other to second place.
Learn how to love. Flirt with any infant available. Unconditional position regard probably isn’t present after the baby is three years old.
Develop a reverence for your own impulses, and be suspicious of your behavioral sequences
Enjoy your mate more than your kids, and be childish with your mate.
Fracture role structures at will and repeatedly.
Learn to retreat and advance from every position you take.
Guard your impotence as one of your most valuable weapons.
Build long-term relations so you can be free to hate safely.
Face the fact that you must grow until you die. Develop a sense of the benign absurdity of life-yours and those around you-and thus learn to transcend the world of experience. If we can abandon our missionary zeal we have less chance of being eaten by cannibals.
Develop your primary-process living. Evolve a joint craziness with someone you are safe with. Structure a professional cuddle group so you won’t abuse your mate with the garbage left over from the day’s work.
As Plato said, “Practice dying.” ”
He also believed that you never stopped growing. Up until the point of his death he was trying new things and challenging himself. Maybe moving into a new town/community might be just the challenge I need. I could still maintain contact with people here, could still see them, could maybe meet new people and just maybe I could do more than just practice dying.
So today I don’t have to stick my head out the window, go all Network and yell at anyone. I just need to keep believing in the positive of change—at least for today.