I just returned from a 3-day trip to Chicago with my daughter. She has a strong friendship with a distant cousin that she met on Ancestry and over the years we have watched this distant cousin grow from being a bulemic and very quiet teenager to getting her Doctorate in nursing and then marrying a nice young neuroscientist and recently having a precious new little girl! Such a journey and I like to think my daughter's support had some role in that. Daughter and I also took in a spa morning at a fancy old-world place in Chicago, which is certainly not my usual routine. The weather was perfect!
This cousin we met is even more unusual as she explained that two of her brothers recently came out as Gay. I suspected this about one of the brothers years ago when I met him. Their mother is a nurse and one can only wonder if she expected this or not and how she deals with it. Then prior to this her second daughter came out as lesbian! Four children and only one of them is heterosexual!
Heading off this Saturday to help open a contest for young children to plant tomatoes in canvas bags and attempt to win prizes at the end of summer based on their growing skills after they take the plant home. I will be on my feet 10:30 AM until 3:00 PM and tired when I get home. Sunday I am off to another gardening event where we staff a booth with activities for children who come to a park to see tractor pulls, bands, craft stuff, etc. I will be on my feet from 8:00 until 5:00 most likely and totally wiped for Monday. But we are going out for dinner that night with some new friends and hopefully, that will not be stressful and I will not fall face down into my dinner plate! I do see old people do that, but it is usually in a rest home.
The infant girl will be talking early. She has quite a bright face of eager to learn. Family contibutes in all sorts of ways.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, I sense you filter your life through the gauze of aging. Important, but not something to carry along as a burden.
The older I become, even knowing biology well enough, aging makes no sense to me. and death even less so.
Sounds like an ex of mine -- a very very long ago ex. She had two brothers and a sister. Both brothers are gay, and I suspect the sister is too.
ReplyDeleteThis post was so full that I hardly know how to respond. I think I'll start by saying how remarkable that young woman is who now has an amazing life and a beautiful new baby, Wow. what a story.
ReplyDeleteThen there is that family with all of the divergent-sexuals.. I guess they can count on being accepting of each other.
As for you, bring a folding chair and sit part of the time. There is no way this old person could stand all day. I can walk better than I can stand, and I can't walk very well at all.
The cousin sounds like she is an amazing young woman, as I imagine, her siblings are, too. Their sexuality matters not at all, as long as they are worthy human beings, as I'm sure they are.
ReplyDeleteI, too, am a member of the Elderly Brigade...aka "The Hobbling Hags"! :)
All those ads for medications just annoy me. I know young people look at me and see 'old' but even at 73, I don't feel old. I prefer to think of myself as 'aging'.
ReplyDeleteI know another woman whose four grandchildren from one daughter have come out as gay and one of my great nieces has come out as gay. It bothers me not how people describe themselves sexually or how many. I do wonder though if this seeming increase in the other gendered is an increase or just the same proportion of the population but the general acceptance by society (the far right wing hate machine towards trans and drag aside) has allowed them to be honest instead of hiding or just plain tired of hiding. after all, it's really none of our business who anyone chooses to love. on the other hand if the proportion of people being gay, etc. is increasing if it's a response to the overpopulation of humans on this planet...more people not reproducing along with the decline in fertility.
Ancestry can result in some interesting finds with respect to family connections! My father’s lost cousins reconnected long after dad’s death. He would have been glad to have connected with them.
ReplyDeleteI frankly feel there are worse things than a child come out as gay. This trans thing is dangerous for what it does to the bodies and future if surgery is involved. Otherwise, standing that long would be out of the question for me!
ReplyDeleteI think having enough to do and learn/teach helps keep you going, but as I too age I realize the body sometimes has ideas of its own about the aging matter. Take care.
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