Taking Wall Street by Storm

People are angry. It is a harsh economy, an expensive world, and it feels hopeless that any change will take root in our lifetime. We hear dour predictions on the news, reflected painfully in our bank accounts, and somehow it insights anger. I saw reports of people gathering on Wall Street, holding up banners about the great division between the haves and the have nots, the inequality of the "American Caste System",

Maybe I am misguided, or under-educated, or uninformed, but I am afraid that the 99%, those masses of people who have only known what it means to be a "have-not", aren't considering the true implications of "sharing the wealth". I like having choices. I would like the government to stay out of my head, my wallet, and my choices as much as possible. We cannot legislate compassion or love, we cannot legislate principles. I think we are on a slow moving teeter-totter and that eventually it will swing back, we just don't have the patience because we are living in a society that needs instant gratification. I think if we don't let it swing back naturally, we are all going to topple down to the bottom into an abyss of (label it something pretty like "blissful cooperatives") socialism.

Post Note - Just saw this sitting here as a draft from last October...figured I'd hit the publish button just for fun.

This is the first year in as many fingers as I have to count on that I am not working in the garden. Last year was a bit like this, but not by choice. A year ago today, I was recovering from Colostomy reversal surgery. I look at today -a year ago, on my calendar, and the only thing on my schedule is how often I can take a Vicodin and whether or not I've used the rest room. I'd just arrived home from 4 days in the hospital, and the surgery was much easier to recover from then the surgery I'd had in December of 2010, and the reason I'd had the colostomy to begin with. I hadn't really considered either of the surgeries having as long of an impact on my life as they have had. I have some impressive scars, and apparently I'm missing a foot or two of my colon, but I'm talking about that stuff inside that you can't quite put your finger on. The stuff that you feel silly trying to tell your doc about. I know when I was talking to an old friend, I described it as "I've lost my super powers" and although she was quick to laugh and nod, I'm not quite sure she had a clue what I was talking about. I feel as though I've lost a part of me that I considered essential in my being. I had a quick intuitiveness that seemed to lead me before I even had a chance to think. I could keep track of 10 things at once without any thought. I could find my way home from almost anywhere and manage to take the shortest path without GPS or getting friendly neighborhood directions. I felt as though I was lucky enough to have been born with a photographic memory, quick wit, high IQ and best yet some sense of street smarts that kept me from getting myself into precarious situations. Now I feel jumbled. I know some of all of those things are still in there, yet I feel I'm still fighting every step of the way to rediscover them. My brain feels muddied. My body feels achy, out of my control, weak. My brain fog is even more complicated because I've managed to develop a large hole in my left ear drum, so I strain to make sense out of much of what I hear, lacking that stereo hearing that I'd taken so much for granted. I keep hoping that this is just a longer term effect of being anesthetized into a deep dark place 3 times in a few months, spending hours in that near death place that allows them to repair your body, but I worry that somehow it has changed me in a bigger way. I've tried to talk to the Doctor about it, but they are so very quick to assume that I am describing whatever easy diagnosis fits the path of least resistance that I think they miss the mark, repeatedly. One said I was depressed, which is likely that I am to a degree, since there is a long sordid family history of it, and since I feel so lost within myself, this shell of who I think I used to be, But I don't think that is what this is. One Doctor told me that there are long term consequences to any surgery, but I think she meant the physical scars, the muscles relearning to work where they've been re-appropriated, the general recovery of the body...but not so much the mind. I've read a bit here and there about people having some difficulty after surgery, and apparently there is some ongoing research for postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) but it seems that it is focused mainly on the elderly. I wonder if there are others like me out there that just feel a little different, a little muddled, but they, too, are just disregarded when they mention it to their family Doctor.
I guess I will continue my quest to figure out if there is something more to this then just being tired, or mildly depressed, or just getting older? It's something that you really don't mention in day to day conversations, as it's hard to find a way to say "Oh, by the way, I don't feel like I used to feel but can't really explain it and am not mentioning it for any reason other then to see if anyone else feels the same" during an average conversation. Maybe I will try harder to have more frequent non-average conversations....of course, that could lead to more trouble.
Oh, and the reason I'm not working in the garden this spring? We are moving. It should be an interesting year, indeed!