Category — Uncategorized

There was a study that came out right before Christmas about how loneliness comes in three waves during life: late-20s, mid-50s, and late-80s. Not that you can’t be lonely at other times, but those are the big time periods for emotional upheaval.

CNN had a quote from one of the authors of the study:

“One thing to remember is that loneliness is subjective. Loneliness does not mean being alone; loneliness does not mean not having friends,” said Jeste, who is also director of UC San Diego’s Center for Healthy Aging. “Loneliness is defined as ‘subjective distress.’ ” It is the discrepancy between the social relationships you want and the social relationships you have, he said.

So loneliness is in the eye of the beholder, and it’s often tied to what is happening in your life and feeling apart from others even while surrounded by many.  Some life events we go through “alone,” even when we’re not alone.

The authors stated the reason for loneliness in your late-20s is tied to decisions — life decisions and career decisions.  Mid-50s loneliness is tied to health.  (It made me think of Spalding Gray’s Bermuda Triangle of Health between 50 and 53.). Late-80s is tied to loss and end-of-life situations.  So they’re all high-stress situations that make you feel like you’re floating out there on your own.  Even if you’re not alone.

I’ve clearly already lived through my late-20s.  I did feel lonely, but it was from going through infertility; not decisions.  But mid-50s is on the horizon.

I wonder if it’s helpful to be told that a certain time period will be X.  Or does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy where you’re filled with dread because you’re told you’re going to feel awful; and, in turn, you end up feeling awful due to the dread?  Is it better to have the heads up and mentally get your ducks in a row (if you can), or better to let things unfold without the warning of how stressed out you will feel?

Too late; I’m already worried about the next decade.

How many female animals live beyond their reproductive years? 

Which animals experience menopause?

Those were my Google searches after reading NPR’s story on the grandmother hypothesis.  Because I had never given this fact consideration… at all:

Killer whales, Japanese aphids and Homo sapiens — they’re among the few organisms whose females live on long past the age of reproduction.  Since the name of the evolutionary game is survival and reproduction, the phenomenon begs explanation — why live longer than you can reproduce?

Apparently “um” is not an answer.

The hypothesis is that these older women help the younger women have more children.  Having a child or multiple children is a lot of work.  Having another set of hands around makes parenthood easier.

Which gives grandmothers a clear role: give help and support.  So why does society not give equal consideration to women (and, frankly, men) living without children?  Aunts make parenthood easier.  Fictive kin makes parenthood easier.  Friends make parenthood easier.  In all these cases, parenthood is easier due to the other women in your life supporting your children.

I am not reducing the role that grandmothers play in the world.  The grandmothers who support me are awesome.  I just wish researchers would also turn their eye to other women who are not currently raising children who play a vital role in helping and supporting, exploring the aunt hypothesis or the fictive kin hypothesis, too.  It really does take a village.

“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.” –Donald Rumsfeld

I never thought I’d quote Donald Rumsfeld.  At least, not in this manner.

I’ve been thinking about the real unknown unknowns; the things that we don’t know about; the everyday problems that lurk out there and we don’t realize or notice because they don’t affect us.  Some of them never come to fruition because a decision or two switches the path you’re on, saving you from disaster.  And others come to light through circumstance.  I was infertile before I knew I was infertile.  I didn’t suddenly become infertile when we tried to conceive.  I was infertile, but it was an unknown unknown until we were forced to know it.

There are thousands of moments every day when you avoid a crash that you have no clue you would have been in otherwise, or don’t have your bag stolen, or don’t meet the person you could have started a conversations with… all unknown unknowns that will always remain unrealized possibilities.

We don’t think of ourselves as lucky, even though we’ve potentially missed a host of terrible things just because don’t know what we’ve missed.  And at the same time, we don’t think of ourselves as unlucky, even though we may have missed out on absolutely fantastic things that we’ll never know about.

Something I’m mentally chewing over right now.

Our library system asks fun questions in their Facebook feed.  This week’s question: “If you were transported to the setting of your current book, where would you be? (…and what’s the name of the book!?)”

I was in Singapore because I was reading Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan.  So much fun.  And I also found out/traveled to Palawan in that book.  So amazingly gorgeous.

Because isn’t reading a form of armchair travel?  You’re transported somewhere entirely new through the story.

I’m currently in a nameless space for The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness.  I’m a little disappointed to not have a defined setting, especially after traveling all over the globe with Kwan’s book.  I have got to go somewhere good with my next book.

Where are you traveling to right now in your book?  No book?  Then where are you traveling to in the television series you’re watching?

It began with a call from my doctor’s office to schedule my mammogram.  My first instinct is to procrastinate, but my friend posts reminders on Facebook all the time about not putting off your annual physical or mammogram.  She was diagnosed with cancer during a routine mammogram, her life saved because she didn’t procrastinate.  So I make the appointment for the mammogram AND the physical.  I am in the adult zone.

My doctor wants me to have blood drawn before my appointment, so I take off work and go to the lab.  When I’m called back, I give the phlebotomist my usual spiel: this arm is better than the other arm, this vein is better than this one.  I apologize for my tiny, rolling veins, letting her know the best way to show them who is boss is to use a butterfly needle.

She ignores everything I tell her and insists that she knows what she’s doing.

Two needle sticks later, and it’s clear that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

But she finally gets some blood, and I go on my way.

Days later, I’m washing the dishes and realize that I haven’t seen the test results.  They’re usually sent within 48 hours.  And I start to worry: what if the doctor isn’t releasing the test results because something is wrong with the test results?  What if she wants to tell me the results in person rather than having me read them on the screen?

So I call the lab to find out if they ran the tests and why the results haven’t been sent.  “If you don’t have them, it means your doctor hasn’t released them,” the man tells me.  I knew it!  I’m dying, and my doctor wants to be there when I hear the big news, just like my friend years ago who refused to tell me her pregnancy news via email because she “wanted to see my face.”  Seriously?  Why did she want to see me cry in jealousy?

Anyway, I’m dying.

But wait… I’m not dying.  The man checks my records and tells me that the blood tests were cancelled.  Why were the blood tests cancelled?  Because the phlebotomist didn’t draw the blood properly and it clotted.  So it was unusable.  We needed to start over.

So I went back to the lab this weekend.  And I explained what happened to the new phlebotomist.  She listened to my spiel and looked at my arm, telling me that she was going to try THE SAME THING THE OTHER WOMAN DID.  I explained how it hadn’t worked last time, and I have the bruises to prove it, and that if she would just listen to me and use a butterfly needle on the vein I’m pointing at, we’ll all be done with this in two minutes.  She takes out a large needle, insisting I’m wrong and that she has 38 years experience drawing blood.  I stand up and tell her that I am going because I have 44 years experience living in this body with these tiny, rolling baby veins and I am done being ignored.  Finished.  Beyond finished.  I don’t care about the blood test.  She can explain to my doctor why we don’t have the results.

She tells me to sit down  and takes out a butterfly need.  She doesn’t speak to me when I thank her for finally using the butterfly needle in the vein of my choosing and getting the blood easily on the first try.  30 seconds later, after thanking her for the third time and being ignored, I walk out and burst into tears in the hallway.

I go in the bathroom and have a long cry in the bathroom stall, sobbing in frustration at being ignored.  This second blood draw is the final straw in a string of upsetting encounters in a crappy week.

I decide to swing by the comic store on my way home, and I have a long conversation with the owner about various characters and series.  Finally!  A positive experience with another human being, who goes above and beyond to not only get me the comic I want, but engages in happy, geeky conversation about Mark Waid’s awesome new Doctor Strange series.  I make my purchase and thank him for turning the end of my bad week around.  I leave feeling ten times better.

Then I get home and look in the mirror while I’m washing my hands.  There is an enormous wad of toilet paper stuck to my face, and IT WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME THAT I WAS SPEAKING TO THE OWNER OF THE COMIC BOOK STORE.  And he hadn’t said anything.  Because he’s that kind of a mensch.

Thank G-d for nice comic owners.