Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.
Dale Carnegie
I try to avoid the three C's, not practicing them is relatively easy, putting up with them, from someone else, is completely impossible. People, bent on shoving their opinion down your throat are not interested in listening. And all the fools I know are extremely longwinded and loud, even on paper. I try to stay silent, until they run out of steam, most times I succeed. I am thankful that today was fool free.
I doubt a fool would have lived if they had gotten between me, and the demons I was facing. My first day of volunteering was mostly painless, but there where odd moments of discomfort, and one partial flashback. I never wavered in my determination to accept the negative, so that I could experience the positive. The payoff was well worth the cost paid.
I fell in love several times today. I gave comfort hugs and reaped my own comfort. I made deep eye contact with twinkling eyes, buried in deep wrinkles and watched the years fall away from their faces as I twinkled back. I sang with them, watched them dance, played games with a beach ball, inspiring camouflaged exercise that made them giggle. They did not giggle alone.
I have an application in my purse, for a part time position, making beds, passing ice water, then giving the residence my undivided attention, while the aide is busy with hard core care. It will not replace the volunteering, since it is only 4 or 5 hours a day. I will just remain after I clock out and do my bit for free. A couple of days a week is all I can spare, but this adjustment needs to be taken slowly, in any case. Keeping involved is important to me.
Writing is my first love. Journey's End is and always will be vital to me. I have many plans for what I do here, some in the works, other's only imagined. I have an address of a local paper to pursue an idea brewing inside for another writing avenue. I still have two novels to redraft, until I get them as perfect as I am able. But I have a portion of love that belongs solely to the ole folks with flashing eyes that refuse to stop twinkling. It felt wonderful to express that love with actions long forsaken, but never quite forgotten. Giving a shit about people who gave their youth to build the world we inherited seems a just cause. I hope someone feels the same when my blue eyes twinkle in a face lined by age.
I placed a link under the title of this post to a online library filled with books available to read online. I am rereading, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Never stop learning, keep building the fire so that when you reach your twilight years the spark will still be burning.
THINK ABOUT IT
LET IT GROW
THEN DECIDE
