The chronic malcontent tries to avoid the consequences of living

Today I cried. Just a little, not for long, but it was an unexpected shock, to find myself sobbing into my hands. I haven't cried, really sobbed, since 2004 when my father was dying. Since then, I've felt sad, angry, and frustrated, but I haven't cried. Until today. The sudden storm of tears left me wondering if there's a limit to the number of calamities that people can handle. After I reassured my cat that I hadn't gone insane, I thought about what can make people cry.

Here's how I think it works: when we are preadolescent, we can handle one problem and that's it. Some problems are bigger than others, of course, but one that confounded me as a child was being denied access to something I wanted. Like a cookie, for example, or a Monkee magazine. Must have cookie! Must read about Monkees! Or losing something I possessed, like when my bratty brother would encroach upon my territory, bashing through the door to steal my stuff because he knew it made me crazy.

If our poor little child selves were confronted with more than one simple problem, we experienced total meltdown, and if problems piled up and lasted a long time, the repeated meltdowns eventually turned us into neurotic candidates for multiple Twelve Step programs. Well, I'll speak for myself.

However, by the time we are adults, we are pretty good at pretending we can handle whatever life throws at us, which is baloney, of course, though few of us will admit it. That's that whole admitting powerlessness thing... yeesh, too creepy, who wants to admit powerlessness? Not me.

Hey, ponder this! Somewhere around age 80, I think we revert to our younger self's strategy of tackling one problem at a time. It's not even like tackling. It's more like...all other problems cease to exist. No, that's not right. It's not that they don't exist, it's that they don't register on the radar. They simply don't appear on the to-do list. When our brains get to a certain stage of deterioration (or is it simply a case of old-age-related stubbornness?), we choose to address only one problem at a time, and it better not be a super big one, like downsizing to move into a one-bedroom apartment at a retirement place.

My mother reached that moment a few years ago when she found her brain wasn't retaining the instructions for sending and receiving email. Her world started closing in on her, and she recognized it as it was happening. In fact, she embraced it. “I'm not learning one more darn thing!” she declared and thus achieved independence from the little bit of modern technology her children had managed to thrust upon her (computer, cell phone, email, Facebook). Tomorrow my mother turns 86, and coincidentally (or not), she will be picking up the keys to her new apartment at the retirement community. Let the moving commence! Said the weary elder daughter.

I'm only 58 (only!), but today I had had enough. Too much! Too much sadness, too much anger, too much frustration, not enough serenity, not enough surrender. Life comes at all of us, but my stupid stubborn well-educated brain keeps trying to convince me that I'm exempt somehow from the consequences of living. My response to realizing I'm not exempt was to burst into tears. Real classy.

My eyes are gritty. My nose is clogged. The cat is demanding I stop typing. It's late. The paper I'm editing will be waiting for me tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.