Discipline

How could I have reached my ripe old age and still need to rely so much on discipline.

I did of course,in my last post sing the joys of being able to do anything you wanted to if you were living alone.Absolute freedom.

On reflection realise though, if I am not careful I will achieve nothing if there is nobody around to push me.

Since a very young age discipline has been my shadow,without her I wonder how my life would have been.

I would like to end our relationship ,and definitely eradicate that being that accompanies her called conscience.

But should I? It might be my downfall.

I’m off to wash the breakfast dishes and make the bed.

‘Man must be disciplined for he is by nature raw and wild’

Immanuel Kant

The Shape of Things to Come

Allegedly it was a hearing mistake, but it made me wonder,especially as I find myself doing some of the oddest things these days.

An elderly lady while using the Self Check In at Stockholms’ Arlanda Airport, instead of putting her bags on the conveyor belt layed down on it herself and disappeared into the darkness of the luggage hatch.

According to the Airport Authorities the personal on the other side managed to “sort out” the seventy eight year old out without any lasting damage.

A Bad Wife

Can’t seem to concentrate on anything these days. Time doesn’t flow by, it rushes like a raging torrent towards the last day of September.

Last week,even the pain returned,that which always makes itself evident in some kind of joint or muscle in my body when I am going through a bad patch. The medical practitioners call it wear and tear at my age. I call it something else. Whatever it is,it is something that is influenced by the cold and my mental attitude.

I have now done something which I don’t think a normal wife does, even when she has been married to the same man for thirty eight years. Maybe a normal woman wouldn’t either, I wonder if I am normal.

I saw an ad. in the paper “Apartment to rent in Thailand ”

My husband and I are both retired,and are lucky enough to be still in good health,with two lovely daughters who don’t need us any more and a cat that does.

We are not alike,in fact we don’t have the same interests in many things. But we did enjoy travelling, and always said we would do it more when we retired,and definitely we would go somewhere warm in the winter.

But we didn’t and we aren’t going to, for Hubby has become a home bird and quite satisfied to potter about in the garden. He likes the Swiss winters,with the cold and the wet,and his body doesn’t rebel them.

We talked about it, and we went to see the owner.The flat could only be let on a years basis but it was at a very reasonable price.

I could do what I liked he said,but he couldn’t see himself going there for more than a month.

I rented it,and I now have a ticket. Return of course.

I also have a very bad conscience.

The devil in me says I shouldn’t have, for thirty eight I have looked after home and family I have a right to do what I like now within reason, while there is time left.

But the other dutiful side of me,says wives don’t do that.They stay at home they cook and they clean,they shop, and they nurse for ever. and they don’t usually teach their husbands how to do it for themselves like I did.

Should I stay here because I once said “I do” is it my duty?

He could fly directly from Zürich if he misses me. I will be twelve hours away.

I Would Like a Choice

Over the years I have been asked more times than I can count by elderly persons unable to care for themselves if I could give them something so they could die. They didn’t want to live anymore with the everyday suffering of being bedridden and in pain. They didn’t want food pushed into their mouthes before they had finished swallowing any more.Or the pain that comes from large open bedsores that could take fifteen minutes or more to dress.

They didn’t want to lie for hours in wet,stinking nappies. They just wanted to leave this world with dignity.

I couldn’t help them.

It seems that in Switzerland where I live,the cost of caring for the elderly whether in their living accommodation or in a

nursing home will double between now and the year 2030. In that year an estimated 2 million people over the age of 65 will be living here. In 2005 there were only 1,2 million.

The growth of the over 80 year olds has risen enormously. This has had a massive influence on the cost of health care.

A study by the Swiss Health Observatory says the price for care will rise from 7,3 billion francs in 2005 to around 18 billion in 2030.

The rise is of course affected by the prescription of multiple medication for the aged, on average fifteen tablets a day,and performance of complicated operations, excluding emergency orthopaedic procedures on over seventy five year olds. Higher nursing and so called hotel costs add to it.

Ethics play a great part in how we approach the situation at the moment.

Mankind has the right to live ,but when are we going to have the right to die?