A lesson about depression

I am almost always buoyant in mood:  Nothing gets me down, almost.  I didn't know the meaning of the word "depression" until I was in my 40s. But I have not escaped so lightly since.

Being a high-functioning autistic, I have always found it easy to interest intelligent single women. My diversity in attitudes can generate a certain fascination. But it doesn't  last. I have had a lot of relationships but the ladies eventually walk away.  My communication deficits emerge and generate dissatisfaction.

That has rarely bothered me. In no time at all I just waltz into a new relationship feeling totally carefree.  No moping or reflecting at all.  But every suit of armour has its chinks and I have twice been very upset about losing a long relationship.  And that has led to serious depression, complete with the suicidal thoughts that usually accompany depression.  So I now know what depression is all about.

But the thought that has always sustained me at such times is an awareness that brighter times lie ahead.  If I were to commit suicide I know that I would miss out on many happy times that lie ahead for me.  And so it has happened.  

I had quite a bit of depression at the time of my near-fatal encounter with cancer last year.  But the happy times are now back.  My health is very good, my friendship with Anne is now warmer than ever, Zoe has stopped nagging me about my omnivorous diet and Jenny has come through her encounter with the dreaded virus in good shape.  And my relationship with Zoe is filled with lots of laughs.  I am a lucky man.

Elderly outings

I am the elderly one.  Zoe walks miles at the drop of a hat.  So I rarely drop hats.

We have started to have some sedate outings together.  Below is from an outing to Mowbray Park.

Note the undropped hat

Isn't she gorgeous?

Envy

I wonder what the average man thinks when he sees what attractive women rich and famous sportsmen can have in their lives. See Keely Hannah above.  Envy is an understandable response.

But at 78, I actually don't feel envious.  I look back and remember some very good-looking women I have had in my life over the years and see  myself as having had my share of such women. I see it as mere justice that my choices now are much more limited.  I accept that I cannot now aspire to having in my life such knockout women as the one above

And it helps that my girlfriend is pretty nice looking in the context of her and my present age.  I suspect that Zoe is pretty close to as good as you get among women in their mid 70s

Original article here:

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/celebrity/who-is-keely-hannah-bernard-tomics-new-girlfriend/news-story/3717452c1f7cb972bf3499a59b49688d

V-day

My valentine this year was Zoe.  At her request she got her red roses and card the day before (Sun. 13).  She stayed for both lunch and dinner that day.  We also dined together on 14th.  She contributed some good cakes.  We had some good conversation so she stayed rather later than she had intended

My Lesbian sister

All the people in the note below are now deceased so I think I can safely say something about them now

My sister Jacqueline was two years younger than me -- born 14.9.1945 -- and was always from childhood on known as "Jack" -- an omen of things to come

As we were

"Jack" as a kid

She died  in her '60s and had no children. She died on July 4 2009 of the family illness -- breast cancer. Her death was expected and both her female companion and her ex-husband were with her until the end.

She was in general a good and kind person and remained good friends with Gary Ward, her ex-husband, for the whole of her life.  So I am not the only one in the famiy who keeps good relationships with former partners.  My other two siblings are still with their original partners.

She was always attracted to other females but made the effort  to try a conventional marriage by marrying her good friend Gary Ward.  Gary was a very masculine man, a truck driver and at one time a policeman.  And Jack had a lot of masculine attitudes so it could have worked.  And they did try all the possibilities in bed in an effort to make it work.  But it was no good.  She left Gary for another woman.  They never ceased to be friends however, through all the ups and downs of their subsequent lives.  Gary did after a while marry a real woman  and had kids but he still remained friends with "old Jack" as he called her.

It is actually wonderful thing that they always had one another as supportive friends.  It must have been a great emotional strength to them

Another support for Jack is a somewhat surprising one:  Her mother.  My mother was always scornful of men and was a women's liberationist before that was common.  She was an admirer of the suffragettes.  I think it is pretty clear that she would have been a lesbian if born 40 years later.  

Anyway our mother was not at all put out by Jack becoming a lesbian.  After "coming out" Jack described herself and her mother as "getting along like a house on fire".  

So she didn't have a bad life.  She missed out on the joy of having children but I doubt that she was much bothered by that

I saw little of Jack during our adult lives.  One might have thought that as we were both interested in women we should have had a lot in common.  But we were of course interested in a different sort of woman.  Jack's women seemed to me to be pretty rough whereas I like traditionally feminine women.

I think I got some masculine characteristics from my mother as well as from my father. I think I got a certain degree of aggression and great self-confidence from her. So I was well equipped to get on with traditional women. Real men like real women and vice versa

A pain in the neck

Sore joints (arthritis) seem to be a universal companion of old age. Two ladies in their '70s that I know have had great problems with it.  One has had both knees replaced and the other has had both hips replaced:  Pretty gruesome but better than arthritic pain.  My problem is cancer -- now all under control -- but I was probably doomed to get arthritis too.  

I did.  I have had an arthritic neck for over a year.  I had a way of coping with it that worked well for a while but that gradually faded out and I was left with a very painful neck when I woke up in the morning. Aspirin fixed it but I had to wait a little while until the aspirin was absorbed.

So I tried something else.  I took Ibuprofen, which is basically an anti-inflammatory medication. I took it as I went to bed.  It was a miracle.  I woke up pain free.  

I have a long record of never taking any pills for my health or anything else, however, so I looked askance at taking Ibuprofen long term.  So I experimented.  For the last two nights I have taken NO analgesics.  And for two mornings I have awoken with only trivial neck pain.  My pain in the neck has just about vanished

How come?  I can only guess the answer to that.  My preferred explanation is that the Ibuprofen permanently reduced the inflammation in my neck.  My second theory is that I have been doing a physiotherapy exercise with some frequency lately and that should have helped. And my third theory is that maybe the steroid injections into my neck that I had three weeks ago have finally cut in

But maybe the pain will return and all three of those explanations will be knocked  into a cocked hat.  I will continue my exercises, though.

A first dinner

I met Zoe at the very end of last year. Both of us had advertised on a dating site called Match.com. She liked the older of several pictures that I had up there so ticked me with a "like". But she thought that might be misinterpreted as a general endorsement so on Christmas day, 2021, she sent me an explanatory message as follows.

"Hi, I like your photos from earlier age. I would be in love with you. But you can still return your clock back if you go to healthy nutrition. That means go to 80,10,10 raw vegan diet, means not cooked food and no food from animals. Maybe you can go and with just fruit diet. Regards Zoe"

A rather mixed message but a nice Christmas present. Her self-summary was:

"I am an honest person, intellectual, curious, want to learn new things. I believe in nature and God"

The picture that she particularly liked. She says she liked my broad forehead. It is a picture from my 70th birthday



Below is the picture of herself that she supplied. Note: No wrinkles, not bad for a lady in her 70s.



A surprising thing I found is that she is a Serb and that her degree is in mechanical engineering from the University of Belgrade . That is quite a departure. Nearly all of the ladies in my past have very much been from my own community. Though she and I might at a stretch be said to belong to the same Volk. She certainly thinks we do. She says that my very Northern colouring -- blue eyes and fair skin -- make me a "good Serb". She herself has rather Mediterranean colouring.

We actually met over lunch at my favourite coffee lounge on New Year's Eve, which is sort of prophetic.

We went on to have various lunches at my place, with me supplying raw food, as requested. For a while we had lunches only as her weight control discipline is to have breakfast and lunch only: No dinner. But my bedroom was next door the lunch table so the time of the day did not matter much. We were soon lovers.

But last night for various reasons she for the first time came over for dinner instead of lunch and that went very well. Several happy sighs from her while we were in bed together spoke volumes to me

Two pictures of her at my place below:

The spoilt man

Zoe still seems to be strongly attached to me despite my refusal to adopt her unusual dietary and medical beliefs. So I suspect we are together for the long haul.  I will certainly do nothing to hinder that.  I am normally quite faithful to the lady in my life so that will be true again

So I now have three ladies that I see regularly, an ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend and Zoe.  I value them all greatly as they all contribute great positivities to my life. So with three ladies helping with my various needs, I should be a happy man, should I not? Surely only an ungrateful wretch would ask for more!

But I would like more, which is not the same as getting it, of course.  I have a need for very intellectual discourse.  Since my autism makes me freakishly intellectual, however, I  have always accepted that no lady in my life could provide that.  Fortunately, however, there was one occasion where my wishes of that sort were met. With JHM I did have an intellectual peer in my life. I don't ever expect to have that again but it would be very nice if I did.

Mind you, Zoe did today mention both Herodotus and Oedipus so that looks like an unusual familiarity with high culture

Update of 13 Feb.: When Zoe wanted to mock me as being idle (I am) she quite appositely referred to me as being an Oblomov, which is an allusion to a classic 19th century Russian novel. So her cultural level seems quite high, though with different reference points to mine.

Serbian has a lot of similarities to Russian so Russian is an easy language for a Serb to learn. So a primary awareness of Russian literature is to be expected in a Serb. Whereas my orientation is of course to English literature, with a bit of German thrown in.