Day 54, haircut and FOPAL

Wednesday, 1/23/2019

Went for a run in the chilly morning. At 11, departed to get a haircut from Chris, just like on Day 18. There was this difference: as I pulled into the Ladera Shopping Center parking lot, I automatically scanned for open slots near to the top — just as I had twenty or more times over the last two years or so, parking to minimize the distance for Marian to walk. And suddenly realized, wait a minute: I can walk just fine. I don’t need to park close to the entrance. I can sashay across the length of the parking lot with no difficulty. And pulled into the first available spot.

Claiming my new life. I never felt any resentment at Marian’s limited mobility, or the limitations it forced on us both. If I thought about it at all, I admired her matter-of-fact, dignified acceptance. This is how I am now, was her attitude, and this is how we deal with it. Parking close to your destination, avoiding stairs, skipping activities that needed many steps — these was just ways the partnership operated.

But I’m living a new life now, and it has pluses and minuses. One of the advantages is that I no longer need to compromise with limited mobility. (Well, for now. How long will I be freely mobile?) Today I consciously realized that advantage.

I loaded two cartons of books and went to FOPAL where I sorted for 2 and a half hours. Afterward I drove down to say hello to Jean. I took a bag of books. When she was at the house last, she took all of Marian’s Tory Hayden books (Hayden wrote books about saving troubled children). Well, that was a genre that Marian had loved. Cleaning out the next shelf I found another dozen books of a similar kind by other authors. Now I brought that bag of books to her and we chatted a bit.