I take the worn toque off my balding head and respectfully salute the both of you:
My Two Lovely Oldbags:
Let me begin by saying that my father would have kicked me hard enough in the arse for addressing any lady in such an "impolite" manner to permanently rearrage my buttocks. Let me also suggest, with obligatory apologies to Dad, that you both address me as "Old Fart" since you have set the tenor of these conversations so firmly on the informal. Finally, may I say that I am very appreciative of your recent posts both in terms of what you say, and also in terms of the emotions with which you say it.
You ask for our patience, Oldbat, (perhaps that could be your Christian"first" name followed by the surname "Oldbag"), while you work through your thought of being "wedded to an image" which might in fact prohibit us from a certain kind of "liberation". Here on the east Coast, lobsters molt - there comes a time when its growth, its life requires a painful cracking through the shell that has until then defined, protected and increasingly limted it. By choice or circumstance or both - life sooner or later demands the same of us. I am eager to see where your thoughts might take you, Oldbat.
I am also eager to celebrate the virtue of the "belly-laugh". I have been blessed with good friends both near and far who have supported me in my own trails for years and years. They have rarely disappointed me, and often saved me. They have done so though I have thogoughly worn them out with my own weariness and litany of complaints. The words of solace, the wisdom of the professionals, the comfort and companionship of good books are all to be relished throughout such times of loneliness and exhaustion. However, sometimes as I think OLdbat suggests, what is most needed is a genuine breeak from the weight of so much sadness - what's needed is an uninhibited, deeply resonating belly laugh that at least momentraily revises a sense of joy within us. And I think, remember - this is "Old Fart" speaking - I think such a letting go into spontaneous moments of joy takes courage: the courage to abandon our weariness, our despair, our grief, guilt, and anger, in a sense our very publicly constructed and affirmed identities along with all our necessary and noble resposnsibilities and let ourselves be embraced by joy - before returning to our lives as care givers. Not always an easy thing to do: to suggest, however briefly, that we have a life - perhaps even a right to a life of our own - aside from our life as a care giver. To suggets - above all else to ourselves - that we might be an "I" as well as a "we".
Being an "Old Fart" that might be a crock of beans, but maybe not. I know that a couple of beers, and a crowd of singers raucously hollering out Stan Roger's "Barretts Privateers" would do wonders for me from time to time.
Take care, m'ladies. You sound like lovely, lovely individuals. It's good to be in your company.
Jim