Getting Warmer

This summer we had a lot of renovation work done on this house. Most of the big problems were fixed a couple of years ago, so this was mostly for comfort and cosmetic improvements. We got a new bathroom downstairs, which was the biggest thing. We also had new flooring and carpeting, and a lot of painting.

We found a contractor we were extremely pleased with, and since they were here all day for a few weeks, Julie started looking around for other things to fix. This is an old house, with no central heating and some shoddy electrical work before we bought it, and we’ve just patched problems when they pop up.

So some little things were also done, including rewiring the family room so we can now have ceiling fans and better lighting, fixing some nonworking outlets, and replacing our baseboard heaters, which were not doing the job anymore.

This is the best part, then. I wake up and walk through a house with a steady, consistent temperature. It dipped down into the 30s last night, but no more shivering when I hit a cold spot, and running back to a warm room. I have temperature dysregulation, and even a little colder or warmer can push me into some uncomfortable spots, so this is very welcome.

I’ve been talking about stress with several people lately, and it occurred to me that it wasn’t always this way.

“Stress” wasn’t in our everyday vocabulary. The meaning hasn’t changed, but in the late 1970s, as I recall, suddenly one day everyone was talking about stress. 

I checked Google Ngram, and yep — the word suddenly spiked around 1980 and slowly drifted downward. I’m sure there were a million articles and books, and it was on the talk shows and whatever else served as our proto-internet. Stress was a killer, and so on.

The late 1970s is also when Valium became a cultural accessory, because everyone was stressed.

Now we’ve incorporated the idea, and everybody knows what we’re talking about. “Manage stress” is easy to understand, if not accomplish.

It was my biggest takeaway when I got sober 20 years ago — either manage stress, or stress will send you to a bottle sooner or later. I took it to heart; when I fell and and tore a rotator tendon during early recovery, I chose surgery instead of trying steroids and waiting six months, just because the idea of potential pain for all that time sounded like a really bad idea. This was a good call.

The trick to this, though, is to become very selfish. I had to learn to narrow my concern to just me for a while; I don’t know how else to do this.

I changed, and eventually got away from my own concerns. I spent the first 10 years of sobriety without even a hint of depression. I was mostly a content dude, grateful to have dodged a bullet.

Now I’m back to being selfish, and it’s becoming instinctual. Stress is involved in everything now, it seems. If you knew me well — you’d probably have to have lived with me at some point — you’d probably be amazed at how well I say No now. Choices are out of my hands, and if I were dumb enough to consider something questionable either my wife or my son would sound the alarm.

That’s not likely to happen, though. They know I know what my limitations are, and they also know if I overdo it the price is paid by me. Today is nice and sunny, with rain coming tomorrow, and even though I know the grass will probably need a few more mows before winter, I may give it a trim today.

It makes me feel good to get outside, and accomplish something. But if I get halfway through and I just can’t anymore, I’ll call in the cavalry. We have a system. This needs to be done, and I can’t do it is something I say quite a bit now.

My oldest friend, a guy I met in the 10th grade I never lost contact with, someone who went through all the stages of adolescence and young adulthood with me, who remembers the past 50 years of my life nearly as well as I do, has been in Turkey for the past two weeks. I’m looking forward to hearing about the trip, but I realized it’s been a little lonely in the evenings; we tend to text a bit at night, usually about something we’re watching or reading.

This is the struggle. This is what I mean when I say my life has become small. Take something away and it gets empty fast. Everything I rely on has become hugely important.

Communication is. I can’t get so isolated that I get accustomed to the sound of silence.

All this to say that this is really a blog, not a newsletter. It’s possible that I’ll reach a point where I send out something once or twice a week, something I’ve thought about and outlined and edited for coherence, like the old days.

I’m not really that coherent, though, and maybe I need to practice. So if I decide I need to post things throughout the day, just because, I’ll turn off the emails and save that for no more than one a day, maybe a summary.

I don’t really know. I’m making this up as I go along. But then, I’ve been doing that a long time. I’ll try not to wear anyone out.