Reading your RR comment Pamela Kelley prompts this thought in me: Is this just the Mars Venus thing? (Disclaimer: I ain’t never read the book of that name, it is just a handy thing-name to identify and describe a difference)
I am a man you are the other. I am an AD patient probably the age of your mother (74?); you are a caregiver of an “older” AD patient. We see from different platforms.
One view I have is this: There is a radical difference in acculturation of men and women in our culture at least of my generation. It’s that heart-head thing the monks taught me and mine in the ‘50’s
It was ours to be the bread winner, the rational, competitive one, taking on the Marketplace for the “Little Lady and the kiddies” The LL stayed at home, was a homemaker, it was inviting public insult if she worked. As a homemaker she cared for the kiddies, cooked for “Him” and was otherwise the heart of the family. She was obliged to and depended upon her husband. That of course contributed to the co-dependent epidemic in our society.
The little lady working from her heart got little nurturing from her man. He was too busy and didn’t have a clue, unless he “needed a little”. Then he was coy, caring, climaxed and rolled over & went to sleep.
The little women nurtured herself with her children and others outside of the home. The available universe for her were her friends. She learned that was something she had to work at to keep it coming. The pump needed constant priming to keep it flowing. She learned how to nurture friends and this sustained her. It sustains here wonderfully as that guy croaks early after a life of work, stress and loneliness induced by retirement.
To this extent a woman’s lonely life in the middle years turns to her benefit in her later years. She need not be alone, many are not.
Many, as you Ms. Kelley, do not see this, your hands are full. Your time does not exist. For this I do not have answer.
I can answer for the guys my age.
It ain’t too pretty. We are alone, lonely and have no idea what to do about it. Add AD to the mix and it is lethal. AD does no more than complicate and exacerbates what is already impossible about this stage.
No one knows this including us! We are alone in the wilderness with no idea there is anyone else or any other place or that we are even in the wilderness. So we simply accept it and make the best of it.
We don’t have friends because we never did, didn’t know how and now do not have the knowledge how to get them. If we have emotions it is usually little more than getting pissed at things that crank us. Although quite vulnerable, we see ourselves invulnerable and do not you get in the way of that! “I can do it myself, leave me alone!!!”
We can’t sit and visit with one another because we have nothing to talk about. If it is not ball scores or sports statistics we are at a loss. We have no idea who we are or the ability to delve into it much less share anything about it.
We can be incensed by talking politics, religion or world affairs, but talk history? Forget it, come on already!
We knew what we were, job, profession, community standing, yet we have no clue what we are now because there is no structure for us to adhere to. We never knew who we were and now have lost all chance of discovery.
This leaves us little but to roll over and die. Therefore we do allowing the little lady the freedom to finally have a life without us.
Caveat: This is what I see around me. Is it a self portrait? In no way; I am different. I was always different and shunned by those who fit in. I did not. I was alone early and learned what to do with it. I hated my failure to fit in but it equipped me to function in the vast wilderness known as Old Age.
This knowledge and training prepared me for this, I have the heart, the mind, the soul to ask: “What’s it All About?” I have learned so much asking this question and this has sustained me.
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