Healthy As A Horse

I'm afraid this post is going to be a bit of a rant/processing-the-past one. If you'd rather be entertained than irritated, feel free to skip over it!

Before moving to the UK, where health services are reputed to be not as high-quality as what I'm accustomed to in Austria, I'm trying to get caught up on medical exams and necessary work before we leave-- hopefully, June/July. In the upheaval of my life the past few years, I'm afraid I've neglected most if not all of that. So in the next few weeks I have an appointment with my gynecologist, I'm scheduled for a hearing test, and I'm looking for a way to afford some dental work. And yesterday I had my first general physical exam in several years.
It was a more pleasant experience than I'd expected, actually; done at a local doctor's office, the staff were highly efficient and friendly, and it was all over within a couple of hours, though it seemed pretty thorough to me. These days with ultrasound, they can examine inner organs much more completely without any invasiveness. I think that's pretty cool. I am, of course, still waiting on the blood and stool test results, though I don't expect anything earth-shaking to come of them.
At any rate, while he was doing the examination my doctor kept exclaiming at the good results. "Ein sehr schönes Ergebnis" (a very good outcome), he would say, or "So ein schöner Befund" (such a good result). We've been to see him twice before for small things Ade required, so I know it's not his habit to say such things as a comforting bedside manner. Anyway, to make what could be a long and exceedingly dull story short, I am apparently as healthy as a horse, (apart from the high blood pressure, which is controlled with a minimum of medication): heart muscle and ventricles in great shape, good EKG, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, stomach and lungs all functioning as they should. I was weighed and measured and found to be (barely) within the "normal" range for my age and gender, so I'm not even technically overweight.
Shouldn't I be delighted at this news? Wasn't I?

Yet I have to admit I had mixed feelings.
Yes, I have felt I was healthy; I get some regular exercise and my lifestyle, though somewhat more sedentary in the past year or two, is not essentially unhealthy. But part of me was expecting bad news as almost inevitable, and didn't know how to fully receive the truth that I'm actually not only healthy, but doing rather well. And as I started to examine why that negative expectation was in me, I started to get angry. This post is an attempt to get some of that "out there".

Where did this surprise come from? Well….
Almost all my married life with P, I lived under his considered opinion that I am lazy, too sedentary, fearful, fat, unhealthy and therefore, a failure/disappointment. Why? Because I'm not just like him. I'm not a workaholic. I don't have a naturally wiry body structure, high metabolism resulting in an inability to gain weight, the constant desire to push myself to the limit physically, or a high value on athletic activity. I value other things, and I'm good at other things, many of which are complementary to the above. I laugh, I nurture. I taught P how to relax, something he did not know before. I taught him to appreciate, among other things, good food and wine.
This is not to say I didn't try to meet P's expectations. Over the years I have backpacked, X-country skied, camped, white-water rafted, hiked mountains, sailed in the Adriatic; I've done rollerblading, ice-skating, canoeing, zip-lining, bicycle riding, snorkeling, and countless other activities P enjoyed. I enjoyed some of them as well, but not as a lifestyle; afterward I was usually happy it was over and wanted to take what I considered a well-earned rest. And for P, it was never enough to budge the judgements he had formed against me.
Now, of course I understand that most of this was not my problem, but P's. Much of his judgement was based on his judgements of his mother and not on me at all. He'd told me several times that he always felt cheated because somehow he thought he WAS marrying an athlete, though I'm sure I never contrived to give him that impression while we were dating! And it's true that my physical limitations (sometimes very painful scoliosis in the early years, and iffy balance due to partial deafness in one ear) did hinder me from full enjoyment of some of the above-mentioned activities, and prevented others altogether: for example, he never could get me to try rock-climbing-- shudder!
But what the hell. What was he expecting?! I am only human. And I am ME, not P. If he wanted a clone, he was bound to be disappointed. I know I was certainly disappointed in certain aspects of his personality uncovered over the years, but I did not make myself the measuring stick for what would have been desirable in him. I was happy for him to pursue the things he enjoyed, but I didn't want to be forced into them myself, because I did not enjoy them. I didn't drag him along shoe shopping, to book or cooking fairs; why should I be dragged up mountains? I was so relieved when he finally found other people to do such things with, but he would always make these puppy-dog eyes at me because he would "rather do them with me". No matter what I did, he felt let down.

I had eventually learned to identify these things as not my issues and let most of them slide. But obviously I took some of these judgements on board, to the degree that at the doctor's office some part of me was surprised to hear that actually, I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. And so I'm not only happy to have my beliefs confirmed, but also upset that I still fight the phantom voice of my ex telling me how I will get sick and old before my time, it will be all my fault, and he will be forced to take care of me unwillingly because I was not athletic like him in the years when it would have made all the difference. (Yes, he really did say this.)

The ironic aspect of all this is that right now, P's elderly father is fading fast. P is much like his father, G. They each took pride in their physical accomplishments. Neither is a team-sport player; P always excelled at such sports as required that one improve one's own record, such as mountain biking, climbing, ski mountaineering, etc. But he and G always had a sort of competition going on, too. One of the reasons G is now so frail is that over 10 years ago he was riding his bike (in his late 70s) along a bike path and did not yield to an encroaching automobile (which had right of way). He was hit by the car, his leg was broken in several places, and without his helmet he would surely have died of head injuries. Ever since then he has not been the same, though he got right back on the bike and into the swimming pool as soon as the doctors allowed him to. G also had an operation for colon cancer a few years after that, from which he recovered, but he's been shaky ever since.
Now G has fallen and injured his back. His daughter wrote me he can't even get up without assistance and is very shaky indeed. His memory has been going for some time anyway and his small-motor movements are very poor. Everyone is gearing up for his not lasting all too much longer.
And here is the ironic part (you wondered if I'd get to that, didn't you?!): P's mother M, who is a couple of years older, is the one who was always made out to be the way I described in the first section of this post: lazy, fat, fearful, the family can't do fun things because of Mom, etc. And she is doing JUST FINE, THANK YOU. She's never had an accident or surgery. Sure, she's a woman in her 80s and she has arthritic knees. But she didn't drive herself to her limits all her life in order to prove something. She's taken care of the household and of herself while her husband was out doing things more appropriate for younger men. She has taken care of him as he declined. Her handwriting is still firm, she still sees well and her small-motor movements are not shaky.
In other words, M has proven both G and P so wrong. She is not the one who is now in need of care, though she is older than G. She, the "party-pooper", will outlive the one who judged her all their married life as physically inadequate, a judgement with which her son not only agreed, but transferred that judgement onto his own wife, however inappropriately.
The question is, will either G or P be able to a) see it or b) admit it? And does it even matter?

I can't allow it to matter to me. I have to, as with so much else, just recognize it for what it is and let it go. It's not my responsibility or indeed, any of my business any more, whether those involved come to anywhere near the same understanding of events that I do. I'm no longer part of that clan and it is such a relief to be free from that family system.
Yet I also understand that my own learning to live in freedom comes slowly. It's like having had the prison doors swing wide open, but the light is so bright and the flooring is so uneven that my steps into the "world outside" are somewhat hesitant. I recognize that though I don't want to remain imprisoned, much of it is not in the cell behind me, but in my head. Though I have left the cell, my Friend keeps exposing the bars which still exist in my thinking-- one by one, as I am ready to face them and dismantle them, to disempower them by consciously withholding my (up until that point, largely unconscious) agreement with them.
This is a process which could take the rest of my life. But it's a healing, a life-giving process. I really have to resist what Germans call Schadenfreude, that part of me which wants to gloat: "Told ya so!", while still recognizing the facts as they are. The fact is that M is better off than G, though all her life G judged her for the very things which have led to his demise and her relative well-being. (And I believe this pattern could repeat itself between P and myself, if he does not learn from his parents' mistakes.)
But in any case, I know the world outside the prison doors of those judgements is now mine to explore, in the light of my Dad's approval and the warmth of my A's love. So it's nice to know that my body will probably last long enough for me to have many years of discovering this new world outside the prison of both outward and inner judgements. May I learn to treat others with that same understanding, and enjoy my Father's world.

***

I've always loved this hymn:

This is my Father’s world, and to my list'ning ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done;
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring! God reigns; let the earth be glad!
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.

This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone.
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known.
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam
Whate’er my lot, it matters not,
My heart is still at home.

- Maltbie Babcock