Today, was the first day in at least three years that I was able to walk down the halls of the hospital without a mask. I still wear it inside the department because I have a feeling that if I don’t, I’m going to be catching about 6 flus, 12 variants of Covid, and 700 colds over the next six months. I’m way overdue. The last time I remember being sick with a bad respiratory illness was in 2019, when I swear I had Covid before anybody knew what Covid was.
The mood for many in the hospital was celebratory. While I haven’t been wearing a mask in public for a long time, I was still spending 8 hours a day at work wearing one. It is great to be able to remove the mask and breathe freely again, even though I’ll probably be guzzling Mucinex this time next week.
Actually, this morning I woke up feeling sick, and I’m not feeling that great this evening. I was going to go to the Little River Band concert at the Lincoln Square Theater tonight, but didn’t feel well enough.
I hope everyone had a good time and that it sold out.
Spring Weather
It’s almost time to watch Twister. I watch the movie every April when the weather warms up. I won’t lie, because I love a good thunderstorm, even though they sometimes scare me to death.
I remember the tornado of 1996 that went through Home Park very well. I’m almost glad it happened because I wouldn’t remember that part of my life so vividly without it. I was 25 years old and 1996 might as well have been 1946 when it came to capturing life’s moments on film. This was way before smartphones as we know them now.
We weren’t taking a hundred photos a day of just everyday life, so without the tornado I wouldn’t have photos of the house then, or of my first dalmatian when she was a puppy, my parents, and myself and ex-husband when we were very young and much skinnier. You just didn’t pull out a 10 pound video camera and shoot videos that often. Photos and videos were much more precious then.
So, April always reminds me, not only of the tornadoes of 1996 and how common they are in Illinois in the spring, but more so of years past in my own life.
It has to be a warm and windy day, warm enough to have the windows open before I watch Twister. That’s my tradition. Obviously, I won’t be watching it this weekend. Boo!
Nobody Tells You This Stuff
The problem with remembering myself being much younger, is realizing how much older I am now. Up until about a year ago, I was still feeling pretty good physically, but when 52 hit, it hit hard. Nobody tells you this stuff about getting older, or maybe we don’t pay attention when we’re younger, but I’ve been feeling like roadkill lately. This is totally unacceptable.
I wake up every morning feeling like I was dragged behind a car the night before. The hot flashes are annoying, but the aches, pain and fatigue are almost debilitating. So, I guess I’ll have to take up yoga, wine, and ice baths to cope, like all the other old people do.
Not long ago, I was watching a video of New York City filmed about 100 years ago, and realized that everyone looked so thin, happy, and healthy. Then, I realized that the life expectancy back then was 45-50. So, this old age stuff that we have to go through now, most people throughout human history never experienced. No wonder we don’t know what we’re doing. It’s all new to society. A hundred years ago when people talked about taking care of grandma, she was 52, not 92!
If this was 1923, I’d very likely be in a grave right now having the time of my life, but no, I’m here feeling every ache and pain due to the wonders of modern medicine and clean water.
Well, this is how my mind wanders. Welcome to my brain.
