This post should perhaps be called the joy of travel but I think my experience on my first cruise adventure without my best travel partner, Bert, was more about discovery and finding balance.
When Corbert, Amy and I sat down to discuss my resuming travel and cruising in particular, I was hesitant. Bert and I loved to travel and sometimes took ‘the kids’ with us. We all were bitten by the travel bug so wanting to travel again was almost a given. The hesitancy came from the fact that an important component, Dad, would not be with us.
We chose a South American cruise beginning in Buenos Aires, Argentina and ending in Santiago, Chile. There were a number of factors going for it. I would be able to introduce them to good friends in Buenos Aires and in Chile. In fact, I call them my Argentinean and Chilean families. Also I was going to attend a wedding in Santiago and once again I would be able to get close and personal to penguins.
All went according to plan except for the unsolicited visit from Bert to my birthday lunch in Santiago which I wrote about in my last post https://paulasmeanderings.com/birthday-tremor/.
There are too many highlights to record here but a few do stand out. My friends in Buenos Aires had booked tickets for us to Senor Tango a spectacular tango dinner show. It brought moist eyes as I remembered how Bert wanted so much to see this show with Corbert. The show ends with a stirring rendition of Evita: Don’t Cry for me Argentina, one of Corbert’s favourite songs. When it came up, memory brought a few tears.
It was a pleasure to take them to lunch at the same pub on Stanley in the Falklands where the fish and chips went down easily. On our two previous visits Bert had declared it was the best fish and chips outside England. Then again he said that in Christchurch, New Zealand too!
Sailing around Cape Horn can be hazardous to your health. That passage is one of the roughest you can encounter. As a result, many have been on this same voyage and have never been able to get into Stanley Harbour. The cruise gods must like us as we had smooth sailing.
It was a pleasure to see both Corbert and Amy just taking in the beauty, the history and absorbing the experience as it unfolded.
In Santiago we had our own private tour guide. My friend, Paty, owns her own tour company specializing in the history of her country and wine https://wineweintours.cl/ She is the best.
However, it was the intangible that resonated most for me. Something happened that was unexpected. From the moment I stepped on to the airplane for that first leg of the flight to Argentina I experienced a lightness, a freedom to exhale, to breathe. I did not know I had been holding my breath for 11 years! I did not know how totally consumed I was with a disease, and with the burden of care.
I was so focused on doing and living for two and so angry at a disease that I had lost myself without even being aware of it.
I am weaving a different pattern. It’s not all happy and carefree. It never will be because there’s a part of me that’s missing. Yet there is now room to step away from the disease. I see myself as the conqueror not the vanquished. Alzheimer’s did give me my third age advocacy issue but it will not become the only issue. I now have time for me.
The Meander: Friends call. Travel calls. Cultural pursuits and social events call. Family takes the top position. I am ready to answer. Of course, I’ll be busy because I want to be and as the blog byline states: Standing Still is Not an Option.
Paula, again I thank you for the updates; I love hearing about your activities. All along your journey you have made it clear that one should live in the moment; that’s what is ours, and we are not promised anything more. Thank you my dear friend for the important reminder, “do it now, not later”.
We all know the phrase to live in the moment. Sometimes blockages interfere. Alzheimer’s was one such blockage. I lived in the moment but only one factor guided me and we are not meant to be one note Sambas. I am still learning to live without the spectre of the disease hanging over my head…at least not now, not yet and I hope not again.
Paula,
You said it so well, when you said you had focused on the disease and lost yourself.
Thank you……your comments really clarified some feelings.
What I discovered is that while you are embroiled in the act of caregiving you forget everything else. No wonder we hear the mantra ‘look after yourself first’. We don’t do that but this made me realize the reason for it being so often repeated. We need to make the effort to care for self or we lose ourselves. It’s not the care for our loved ones that causes our self loss but the fact that there is that awful disease constantly as a companion 24/7.
It’s good to see that you’re travelling and enjoying new opportunities. While it must be very difficult too, I’m glad to hear about that lightening.
Thank you. It really was a moment and epiphany that helped to show me the depth of my loss of self. I am working diligently now to get my centre. Still on a journey, but my journey not dictated by a disease.
We have all been waiting for this moment, as well, Paula. You have never stood still. It was never an option but it is so good to hear you can breathe with the vigour that Bert would always have expected from you. It is just not as easy as it might seem. Brava, young lady.
Love the ‘young lady’. Yet that’s a good description not of they physical but of my state of mind. I am being re-born. New hopes, new state of being, still positive and I agree that Bert would approve.
Thank you.