Looking Backward and Summing It Up

 2012.  A watershed year for our family. 

We quietly turned the corner from the down-hill slide of middle age to old age.  Our health problems are proof of that. 

 

We also went from vital full-time or part time workers to stay-abed, wallow in exhaustion folk with chronic illness.  I retired from full-time teaching (and maintaining SPED certification through college courses) while Hubby became too disabled to work at the odd jobs he had so enjoyed for the last 20 years or so.  Needless to say, I'm far happier with retirement than Hubby is. 

We gave up private insurance to become those people the Republicans hate so much:  Medicare recipients sucking on the government tit. 

Financially we went from people who saved like crazy so we COULD retire to happily spending our meager funds to supplement our retirement income. We even finally hired a financial consultant to manage our dwindling funds. 

Instead of a husband and wife who each had one primary physician, we began a family having specialists in all kinds of fields:  pulmonology, cardiology, orthopedics, opticians, dieticians, nurse practitioners, physical therapists.  We gave up separate GPs to share one between us because it made scheduling doctor's appointments so much easier. 

We became people who could travel 12 months of the year if we chose, instead of scheduling limited vacation time around employment contracts and college class schedules. 

Wendy and me at the Chesapeake Bay beach house in September

We gave up extended TV watching to become people who went to the gym three nights a week.  Now that one was quite a change. 

Instead of being a triple threat group of couples when we went to the local concerts, we because a double coupling plus one when we lost a dearly beloved friend in the spring.  I miss him every single week, even though I actually only saw him every month or so.  His death seemed to herald a downturn in health for all of us.

Nancy and Tom at our 25th wedding concert

Music began to vanish from our lives.  Once Hubby could sing like an angel but his frozen larynx made carrying sustained notes impossible, as did his racing heart.   He could no longer sit through full length concerts and we left the few events we did manage to attend at intermission every single time.  Makes the purchase of two tickets hardly worth the money.  

Hubby directing church choir

 We tried to update the 1953 bungalow by reinforcing the foundation, adding new siding / guttering, and landscaping by pulling out the ugly bushes around the property.

Guys on the right of the property are carrying in the guttering which is also laying on the front lawn. 

Now we are looking forward to 2013, counting our blessing and holding tight to our family and friends.  On the second day of the new year -- tomorrow -- Hubby enters Research Hospital hoping to erase some negative health issues and making things better for himself and those around him.  This could also mean a new life for us if we approach it in the right way.  Watershed years aren't negative ones -- they just indicate turning points.