Decisions . . . . .

and how to make them?

I don’t know how you would feel, but I find it very hard to make any at all since Beloved died. Being the only one to decide on major life changes is complicated; when there are two of you - preferably not more than two, otherwise there will be three or more different opinions - you can talk, sometimes for days, weeks, months, but eventually you will sort out problems and find solutions that suit both of you. With luck and goodwill.

I’ve had an unpleasant head cold since Friday afternoon, which fast turned into a chesty one. The kind of cold that you catch as if it were “thrown at you” as my mum used to say, without warning. All the cold remedies on the medicine shelves are long out of date, I haven’t had a proper cold for two years, but I am using some of the ones whose sell by date was sometime last year rather than two years ago. After all, can aspirin/paracetamol - the main ingredient - or sickly sweet cough syrups ever lose all their potency?

For two days I stayed indoors, barely washed and never got out of my pyjamas. A friend kindly bought my Saturday paper when he went for his own, waddled Millie along the drive - that’s Millie waddling, not my friend -,  and on Sunday a neighbour offered to take her for a quick walk. I was grateful but I should have turned her offer down, because this lady walks at a fair lick and Millie does fifty meters at fifteen minutes. And even then she has to have a little sit down on the way. She came home limping badly.

So Sunday night we were both feeling very poorly indeed. Millie woke me from a light, snuffly, snoring doze when she collapsed against the bedroom door as she tried to turn over. Obviously, I got up and calmed her, both of us lying on the floor. Whereupon, and not for the first time, it hit me. “What if something really serious happened?” You know what I mean, something serious enough to cause an injury which leaves you unable to get to a phone. And even if you get to the phone, whom can you ring for help in the middle of the night?

My mind flips from one side to the other. Do I sell, do I stay, do I find somewhere smaller, less isolated? Nearer a bus service, a train station, the shops, a cinema, a theatre? No point moving closer to my son’s town, he’ll be moving home himself again soon. I’ve even looked at residential retirement facilities, small one or two bedroom apartments, but there I’d probably live in close proximity with people a lot less mentally and physically active than I am.

I simply cannot come to any decision; could that mean that decision making is not a good thing at the moment? I’ve been feeling better again yesterday and today, have chatted with people, been to the gym, done some gardening - that always makes me want to stay put. Nowhere else would I get a location like the one I have now, no other home could be as comfortable as mine, the home I’m used to. So why move? Because of the comparative isolation and the larger than necessary house and garden, of course.

So, round and round in circles I go.

If I stay, I must do some decorating. If I leave, decorating will be a waste of time and money, not to mention the upheaval, the mess, the inconvenience. But moving house makes for upheaval, mess and inconvenience. And huge expenditure.

Perhaps it’s time to stop fretting and continue as I am, for now. Or, perhaps it’s time to make lists of pros and cons, weigh up things, get in touch with the professionals for estimates, house valuations, find help like the old-fashioned companions rich old ladies employed. Sadly, I am not a rich old lady. Besides, I am far too young for a companion.

Perhaps the solution is indeed to get organised, collect information, then evaluate and make those lists of pros and cons. How pathetic it all is. Help! I'm beginning to bore not just you but me too.