A Radical Sabbatical

Lately, I’ve been thinking about life and whats important.  And every time I decide that work should not rule our lives, u have to stop and ask yourself, who has that luxury these days or on any given year?

I never would have believed it if someone told me prior to my sabbatical, I would adjust very well to being home and having free time.   However, I would have never believed that I would enjoy my free time as much as I have.   I feel the end of my year closing in on me and I’m frightened.  I’m trying hard to not allow the negatives affect my today.

School has not been as exciting as it was last semester.  However, I am enjoying   hearing the other students speak about their experiences working in the field with children on the spectrum. 

My jewelry making class is awesome and has truly been the highlight of my year. I love hanging out with my friends and taking in the city.  Its just been great.  We all recently decided to take another class that would take us thru the end of June.  I hope to learn so much more.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a close friends husband died while on vacation.  Its been so hard to watch the family go thru the pain and loss.  I think about them day and night and feel helpless.  No one can fill the void that they are left with.  The sudden loss of a father and a husband.  One minute the person is here…..the next second they are gone.   People say, this is life.  I say, it’s unfair.  It’s a lousy deal to hand someone.

On the radical side of things, I did not accomplish my goal to lose some weight. Of course I still have time to focus on it, but I was hoping to lose all my weight by the summer time and we are quickly approaching the summer. 

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Watching friends lose their aging parents is always hard but when you lose a friend to an unexpected death, the loss is devastating.   We are are four couples who travelled together, celebrated together and shared our most intimate secrets.  Most recently, our group of 8 became 7.   Two of the couples recently went on vacation. A bit of snorkeling, some good wine and beautiful walks.   I received an email from H telling me she could not believe what a wonderful place it was and they were having fun.

Yesterday, I received a call, H’s husband died, either a heart attack or an aneurism. We were devastated.  How could this be? 60 years young.   I felt as though a part of my life had been ripped out from under me.   Obviously, the death made me think of how close we all are to not knowing when and where it can happen.   But losing a loved one is so frightening.   It makes me realize how unprepared I am for it and how unprepared we are as a couple.

L was truly a good soul.  Funloving, down to earth and a good friend to all those who sought his friendship.  I will miss him terribly.  I will miss his understanding of me, I will miss seeing him smile when he’s with H, I will miss seeing him with us when we are four couples.  But most of all, I will just miss his being around.

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Okay, I know its time to write whats been going on but its been making me very anxious.  I guess the idea that its now April and I’m moving closer to returning to work has me so filled with anxiety. 

School has not been a joy this semester.  I so enjoyed last semester but mainly because it was more challenging.  This semester is all papers no tests.  Writing papers has never been my thing and its even less so, now.  I had a bit of an incident in the classroom the other day.  The Professor was lecturing and the girl next to me and I were reading each others projects.  Clearly, we should not have been reading, we should have been paying attention to the lecture.  There are 15 students in the class, so the teacher will notice anyone who is not paying attention.   Suddently, I heard the Professor screeching at us, “what do you think you’re doing?”    I of course, did not bother answering as I was in shock that she took the road of the neurotic professor.   On the other hand, my peer turned to her and said, we’re reading each others projects.  With that the Professor went off on us and could not refocus on the lesson.

Now mind you, I am older than this Professor but I felt she could have handled the matter differently.  She could have just said, ladies, this is not the time to do this, please put it away.  Afterall, this was not an elementary school this was a graduate program.   I realized at that moment, that people on the hierachy in College are no different than the people in the DOE (where I work).   I would not be the least bit surprised if this woman deducted 5 points from our final grade.  In our syllabus she wrote, no reading in the classroom.   hmmm, imagine that. 

So, school this semester is not exactly what I would have liked it to be but I am learning a great deal about children on the spectrum.  Now my silver jewelry class is awesome.  It has really opened me up to being creative and I actually enjoy making the jewelry.  I’m having problems with soldering but I’m hoping to get the hang of it with more practice.

My parents have been fortunate with the weather this winter as its allowed them to continue going to the senior center.  However, my moms dementia is just awful.  Her physical deterioration is becoming more and more noticeable and her loss of bodily functions very difficult.   I’m never sure whether to be grateful that she is unaware of things or not.  

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I haven’t written a formal paper for a college class in almost 35 years, so I wasn’t surprised to have gotten a point value of 15 out of 20.  The Professor commented that my observations were good but that I had left some significant information out on speech and language.  Well, duh! I am not a speech and language major which is what 1/2 the class consists of.  The other half are teachers.

I guess if I were paying closer attention to the Professors lecture on speech and language and what we are looking for with children on the spectrum, I might have understood it better.  Well actually, I looked back at my notes and I seemed to have a good grasp of the material.  Well, I guess if I had read all the required readings I may have had a better understanding. 

Actually, I learned something very important today.  What it all comes down to is one thing, I hate writing papers.  I didn’t like writing papers 35 years ago and I hate it even moreso, now.  

I’m thinking my chances of writing any research papers in the future and becoming very famous are pretty slim.

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I’ve learned a great deal from the classes I’m taking this semester but more importantly, I’ve learnt that working with children on the spectrum is not for me.  I’m happy that I’ve learned so much about this area, its given me a great deal of insight.

I guess my heart and soul has always been to work with children who have hearing loss or those students who are deaf as well as with their parents.   Though I have some time before I return to work at the end of August, I am beginning to feel somewhat in panic mode.  I guess the first half of the year has gone by so fast and I don’t want the second half to go by too quickly.  I’m enjoying this freedom and time for learning.

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Watching the Doctor try to get a vein while she laid half naked on the table was difficult to watch.  She always had trouble with Doctors drawing blood especially since her veins are so thin.  When she sat up on the table, she looked somewhat frightened like a child who just realized, she lost sight of her mother while wandering away, innocently.  She looked right through me with her aging eyes and nothing, looked familar to her.

While we were waiting for the results of the tests, she repeatedly asked me, where are we? when are we going home? When we arrive home she asks, when are we going home?  Dementia is a funny thing. You’re looking at this person you once knew very well but you no longer know them as they were.

I hate watching both my parents grow old.  It’s demeaning and there is no pride.  Their apartment looked and felt “old” and I hated when family visited, especially the grandchildren and the great grandkids.  I wanted the place to look more comforting and inviting so I asked my father if we could refurnish the place.  I guess he saw it as a day out galavanting around looking at new things.  The shopping and decision making were all done in one day and he did choose the furniture and I must say, I love the way their place looks and feels now. 

While sitting and talking the other day, I asked my mother how she likes the furniture and she responded, “its very nice but I don’t plan on staying here long.”   We all sort of laughed but at the same time, it wasn’t funny.  You have to have a sense of humor to grow old.  I plan to be flamboyant in my old age, rolling in humor no matter where my mind is.  I plan to be quick with replies and enjoy my life.   If the day comes that I choose to die, I want to die with dignity and grace.  My mother has no dignity or grace left. When do we lose it? Where did it go?

I had no idea how involved I would be in my parents life this year and how much rift it would cause between my brother and I.  It also has given me a bird eye view of my own destiny.   Remember when you were thirteen and you felt you were going to live forever?  Nothing could ever stand in your way.  You felt ageless as though you would forever be that age and never grow old like the people you witnessed.  This was not meant to be a sad post, it was meant to be a little of both…..both sad and content.  Its all relative….. Its all life…… its all love ….. and its all ageless.

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Okay, so I handed my class paper in and I put it in a folder to hand to the Professor.  I was the only one who had the assignment in a transparent.  The Prof gave me a funny look and I told her that I have a bad habit of spilling coffee on my things and didn’t want to take chances with the paper.

 Now I know that wasn’t exactly why I put it in that folder but I thought I would look good having it in a transparent.   I wasn’t going to tell the Prof I was kissing up to her and my telling her I have a habit of spilling coffee on my things is really true but moreso on furniture and in cars.

On another issue, I had my hearing aid adjusted and boy can I hear better.  I also plan to look at the Starkey Destiny hearing aid which supposedly can be programmed to do everything for you except raise a toilet seat.   I’m certain though that one of these days, the manufacturers will have specific programs that we can have put in to make everything easier but our hearing needs.

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Had a hearing evaluation this week because I’m seeing a difference in my hearing over the past few week.  When it came time to do speech discrimination, I requested the audiologist use a different list of words, one that I am not familiar with.  I mean, lets face it, after 30 years of being hearing impaired and taking innumerous hearing tests, I think I can recognize: hot-dog, white-wash, foot-ball, and so on.  I felt it only fair to test my word recognition by using words I was unfamiliar with.  Afterall, every conversation we get involved with daily is pretty much unfamiliar.

It was clear from the start that my word recognition had regressed.  Don’t know whether to blame aging or my otosclerosis?  The audiologist and the intern were extremely sensitive and approachable.  I could have been their worst nightmare but because I am clearly savvy on my hearing loss and my expectations and what I want from the evaluation session, they were more than cooperative.  Although they could have been difficult about my request for a different word list.

I requested that my hearing aid be reprogrammed to a few pitches higher which they did and I found a nice improvement in my hearing.  I plan to return in two weeks to test out two hearing aids that may give me more benefit.  In the meantime, I clearly saw a difference when I went out to dinner, in a noisy party setting and in the classroom.  I am very eager to try out new technology and even discussed the C.I. and Baha with the audiologist.  From what we can see, I am not eligible for either one of them.  Oh well, on with life.

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It was difficult last semester to get my head into studying and I totally forgot, that taking graduate courses meant writing papers.  Long papers that have to be to perfection and in a style that most of us are clueless to.  My first paper is due in a little over a week and I have yet to start writing and reading.  I guess not that much has changed in my approach since my days in college 35 somewhat odd years ago. 

However, I am thrilled that we’re situated in a classroom that is acoustically better for me.  The powerpoints are awesome as the Professors follow them pretty much to the letter, so hearing, is not a big issue.  I so wish we had powerpoints when I was in college.  I doubt very much I would have been a Social Worker had there been an easier way to grasp the material with hearing loss back then.  I can just feel all the emotional anxiety creeping up on me as I think back to the days of College.  It certainly was not easy.

Well, it also looks like I’ve hit the half way mark to this sabbatical and I am very aware that one day, I have to return to the work force. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy it, embrace it, and get the most out of it and who knows, maybe now I’ll feel good about retiring one day.

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Graduate classes are so different from undergrad.  The workload is bigger and though there are no exams, the writing of papers are somewhat foreign to me after 30 years.  Somehow, I’m feeling it was alot easier to study for an exam than write a paper in APA format.   I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it after this first paper is done.  I just have to get started since its due the first week in March.

This has to be the fastest year in history for me.  Every month flies by as though we were in a race.  The idea of having to return to work is so anxiety provoking that my chest closes on me at the thought.   This has been the most creative and best year I’ve had in a long time.  Everyone should get a year off, three quarters thru their life…lol   I learned that I need to laugh more, take some things less seriously, other things more seriously and nothing is more important than my children, my husband and my parents, which I already knew.  And that good friends are the ones who truly stick with you through thick and thin, in sickness and in health.

I’ve discovered that taking care of your elderly parents is not for sissys and that I am not necessarily going to grow old the way they did.  That having a pet in your life is a very good thing.  Having a hobby is important but having love and someone to love back is not just for the books.  Count me in as one of those people who believe in romance and forever after.  to be continued

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