The Waiting Game

 I wait. A lot. I wait for letters, emails and other communications. I wait for the mail and the paper (well, not so much for the last of these as our guy delivers in the small hours). But at present I am waiting for a report about an x-ray that was taken early this month and was supposed to be read on the 27^th. It is now January 3rd, the bottom corner of my computer tells me, and no report has been filed. It's discouraging, as I would much rather know something than not. Ignorance is not bliss.

The laundry is whirling around in its machine and some of the Christmas loot has been put away although there is still a pile of themed napkins in the dining room and a small stash of stuff to be recycled sitting on the living room floor. It was a very electronic Christmas. I think everyone but the ED's man  got a computer or computerized gadget. Ours is a bird feeder with a camera that will take photos of birds that come to the feeder. I am not sure yet how it works although I have figured out, with help from the YD, how to set it up. The YD got a laptop that cost her a whole evening of listening to a technician as she tried to set it up and found, I think, a flaw in the software. The download speed on the repair was abysmal; someone must have been streaming a movie on our shared node. Someones, perhaps, as it was abysmally slow. ( Drat you, Grammarly; that is a perfectly legal past perfect verb form. {I am getting the ‘have’ questioned. Ah, it was a spelling mistake, not the form.} I used to type quite well, but my dexterity has decreased a lot in the last few years. And why I use ‘dexterity’ when I am left-handed says something about our society, doesn’t it.)

Anyway, the tree is down and out, most of the boxes have made their annual migration to the basement, and there is the small pile of things to go to the recycle. It looks as if it may be a bigger pile next year. The YD, who likes Colour on her tree, encouraged me to get rid of the white lights that have adorned my silver and gold tree for many years and to put up coloured ones. I purchased a large number of red lights from our local CT (on sale, did I mention?) and we had a red tree with red glass balls. (Only one ball was smashed in the takedown.) And so I mentioned to the YD that the white lights could be recycled. No, she said. She wants them for next year. When, she also stated, she will help me sort out and downsize my boxes and boxes of Christmas Stuff. I await the event.

There is more on my calendar than usual, actually. The first week of the month brings a book club meeting and, usually, footcare. There is a hall committee meeting. In the following days there are more medical things, another group event and, probably, the hall AGM. Not exciting, exactly, but pleasant to await, in most cases. But things feel tentative; I do not know why. Perhaps it is the result of knowing that aging in place only lasts until managing is not safe. And that time is coming. It is around the bend of the road but it is there. Waiting. And I am afraid of what it may demand of me and mine.

That thought is there because this is a diary, mostly, and I needed to write down what feels like a cloud hanging over me so that I could pin it down a bit. It is not a thought that demands an answer here, where pleasant photos and reports on activities are the norm. With any luck, I will be posting about Christmas lights once more when the time arrives.