Then a pause, in order to get my thoughts together. A truism about me: I move fast, and my mind moves slowly. Right now, I am at my standing desk, shifting my weight from one leg to the other. And my mind feels like it’s treading water.

I once asked a friend; how come we don’t want to live forever? And she said, “well, because life is such a struggle.” I see it. We are young and full of energy, then there are the middle years and then we are old and have no energy. And when we are old, what do we talk about? Our aches and pains.

Rain

My hip seems like it’s getting better, amazingly. It was quite interesting how much I talked about it to others. It surprised me. I felt as though I was the exception, the person whose trauma would be of interest to others because it was so unusual. It further WAS something to talk about.

Everyone who is aging and has a specific problem thinks as I do. But I’m not aging.

I’m pretty sure that I’m back to moving around at a good clip. The only other thing I have to talk about is the inclement weather. The horses have a half inch of muck in their pen. Pete rightly observed that they are tired of the rain. I’m tired of not riding them. This situation must change and change quickly.

It was another long day working in the hotel. Tuesdays are busy days – I left the Lions Club meeting in order to get the hotel before the disabled students. I pulled into my parking spot just as the school bus pulled into the parking lot across the street. Seeing that bus reminded me of salvaging books at the recycling center – I’d get there and see the individuals who were going to shred books disembark and walk in the building. A circle has been completed. These are not the same individuals. But there was that likelihood that if they weren’t working for us and cleaning books, that they’d be shredding books.

The Tuesday volunteers consisted of Lois, who categorized books, Natalie, who gave me an assist getting books ready to go to villages, the three disabled teens, who along with their teacher, cleaned books, two other older volunteers who cleaned books, and Robert who with his disabled buddy Orien, broke down boxes and cleaned and stamped books. This was a lot of people. And it seemed as though they had a lot questions, questions that they could easily answer themselves.

Tonight, we had a BLBP board meeting. I made what I thought were astute statements such as, “Having volunteers on hand does not mean that they are saving you time. In fact, it is often the opposite since you have to remain attentive to them.”

I keep reminding myself that things change, and that, in time, I’ll again have more time to spend at home with my horses.

Next: 247. 9/11/24: A Trip to Town