Smelling The Proverbial Roses

A while ago I used to live in a quaint apartment building on Davis Island.  There were only four apartments in this building; two apartments upstairs, and two apartments downstairs.  I used to live on the second floor above my best friend at the time.  Next door to her lived a psychic.  Whenever we had a building party (it was when we opened all of our doors, invited friends from all over and we would just casually enter any and all of the apartments) the psychic would provide 10 minute readings for only $5.  It was a pretty good deal.  Our friends would stand in line at the psychic’s door to get their reading done.  The bonus part was the the psychic would give those of us who actually lived there FREE readings for bringing her the business.  

I, of course, was skeptical.  I don’t believe in psychics. nor do I believe in their ability to tell me my past, present, or future.  That is – I didn’t believe – until I had my reading.  She had channeled a deceased friend for me.  There were transactions that my dead friend and I had that she would have never known about.  The psychic even knew that I had accidentally set my grandparent’s kitchen on fire when I was just six years old, and she informed me that my grandparents had forgiven me…even though they, too, had been dead for years.  

So I listened up when she told me about my future.  Even when she informed me of when I was going to die and how it would happen.  I had been a total workaholic.  Almost every waking minute had been spent slaving in a restaurant that I did not own and was not making a profit from.  I loved the people I worked with, but I had almost forgotten what my apartment looked like since I barely spent any time there.  There were many times I would go to work at 9am in the morning and not get home until after midnight. My advice to anyone ever wanting to be a restaurant manager is – DON’T!  You will lose your personal life.  I would drive home at night on automatic.  I remembered getting into my car, and then, a few minutes later, I found myself in my driveway.  The in between parts I did not remember.  I always wondered if I ran any red lights in there somewhere.  

Any way….the psychic had told me that I would have to slow down and smell the roses, or life would force me to do that.  I pshawed her silently in my head.  HOW would life slow me down?  That was just silly talk.  

Except it wasn’t.  

It took almost two decades for me to understand what she meant by “slow down and smell the roses, or life would force me to do that.”  The first heart attack I had was back in 2011.  I didn’t even know I was having a heart attack.  I waited a week before I went to the hospital, all the while experiencing extreme pain.  I just thought I had eaten some bad mayonnaise.  The first heart attack was followed by a second one in 2013, and then by a stroke just two weeks ago.   I’m really not sure which is the worst of the two evils; the stroke, or the heart attack.  At least with a heart attack the pain can be alleviated.  And while there really is no pain associated with a stroke (because my entire right side was completely numb and non-functional)…I temporarily lost my mind.  No joke.  The technicians working on me while I was having the stroke kept asking me what year I was born in.  I kept answering “1914”.  I absolutely was NOT born in 1914.  That would make me a hundred years old.  I was mixing the year I was born with the current year.  They asked me to spell words like “REFILL”.  I couldn’t.  I didn’t even know what the word started with.  Now I know it’s an R.  I could see the letter, but I didn’t recognize it.  Nor did I recognize the E or the F, or even what the two letters on the end were.  It was as if I had forgotten what the English alphabet was.  They asked me to spell my name.  I couldn’t do that either.  I had no idea what letter “Chuck” even started with.  

Side bar:  They also kept asking me, “on a level of 1 through 10…tell me the level of pain you’re in.”  I had to keep answering that it would be the lowest number because I was numb.  I couldn’t feel anything.  From the top of head, my earlobes, my nose, my lips, my chin, my neck, my shoulders, my arm, my fingertips, my chest, my ass cheek, my leg, all the way down to my toes.  It was like they weren’t attached to me.  So my pain level was the lowest level.  I couldn’t answer “1” because I honestly had no idea what the lowest number was.  So I had to keep answering, “I’m not in pain, so the lowest number.” 

That was all two weeks ago.  Today I’m doing much,much,muchmuchmuch better.  I couldn’t come back onto the computer right away because the words you all were saying on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere were all just a bunch of jumbled words.  I had no idea what you were even saying.  You may as well have been speaking Japanese.  Don’t take offense to that because when I tried to watch television, it was all a weird language to me, too.  So I just watched the pictures.  Slowly, my recognition function started coming back.  And there’s that word….slowly.  The psychic so many years ago told me that “life would force me to slow down,” and boy – did it.  

Tim has been by my side this entire time, putting up with my bullshit.  I get seriously frustrated when I don’t know a word to something.  Then I get pissed and blow up.  Not AT Tim, but he was around and it seemed like I was angry at him.  I wasn’t.  I was pissed because I couldn’t think of a word, or comprehend a phrase.  I’m better than this!!  I write stuff.  I know words!   

Life has forced me to slow down.  I intend on paying attention.  I seem to be back to normal once again.  I have all feeling back on my right side.  Nothing is paralyzed.  I lucked out.  If I had to choose between a heart attack or a stroke, I’ll take the heart attack any day of the week.  The stroke was no fun and had longer lasting effects.  I’m on a health regimen now with a battery of doctors that I visit.  My intention is to not work so much, sleep whenever the mood strikes, and to slow down to smell the proverbial roses.  I’m back.  Maybe not 100%, but I’m there somewhere.  I’m not sure where that psychic is now, but if I could find her, I would definitely apologize to her for sort of not believing her way back then.  She was right on!  Now I have to remember to stay away from all electricity when I reach 72 years old, since that’s how she said I was going to die….from electrocution.