Shenanigans of the Political Class

June 25, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I find it ironic that politicians who scream about citizens making (ie: creating) too much money and profess the need to confiscate that wealth through punitive taxes, never once promise to give back the millions that have stuck to their fingers during their tenures as “servants” of the people. The mega-millionaires in Congress seem to be the loudest of the “eat the rich” contingent yet don’t see themselves as one of the problems. Apparently, their money is theirs. And so is everyone else’s money.

Too many people agree because they don’t understand that created wealth — wealth that is invested in business and creating thousands of jobs — is not the same as money in the bank. They complain that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share of taxes, and yet if everyone were taxed at the same rate, those same people would be complaining about their tax bill. The richest pay around 35% of their income in federal taxes. The middle group pays about 15%. The workers at the lowest end either pay minimal taxes, or they don’t pay into the system at all but are instead given money via Earned Income Tax Credits. (There is a wide range in each of these categories, but these are the averages I found.)

An even bigger irony comes from those communist mayors (calling them democratic socialists doesn’t change the nature of their rhetoric) who have never held a job in their life, led affluent lives because of family wealth, and yet now pretend to be bringing about a better life for working people while a) making things worse, and b) somehow getting richer.

I’ve never understood why working-class people listen to such hypocrites, except perhaps that they think that when the billionaires are taxed to death, then some of the money will be parceled out to them. I certainly don’t understand this push toward turning the United States into a communist country; it’s the surest way for everyone to go broke. Except for those at the top, of course.

A current scheme is a wealth tax, which never worked in the countries that tried it, but apparently, people still think it’s a good idea. But the trouble is, if they tax unrealized capital gains, then the owners of the company will have to sell off part of the company, which means people losing their jobs, which means fewer taxes overall. Also, all sorts of retirement funds that are invested in those companies lose money, because the sell-off will lower the value of the stock, which means the vulnerable also lose out. And of course, the politicians won’t bother giving a rebate for the loss of the rich person’s wealth when the stocks go down. And yet, when the stocks go back up again, they will again tax those unrealized gains, which means double tax on the same money. So bizarre!

I guess the moral of the story is that one doesn’t need to know economics to be in congress — or a mayor — though it should be a requirement. But then, it’s never about the truth, just the perceived truth. At least as long as it gets them reelected.

Which brings me to the biggest irony of all — that I, who have always had a head-down approach to the shenanigans of the political class, am not only aware of such doings but am blogging about it.

I might have to do something about that — not the shenanigans, which I have no control over, but the writing.

 

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Unfair World

June 24, 2026 — Pat Bertram

That some working multi-billionaires (those who created their fortunes through buying or creating companies with services people want) are worth way more than almost everyone else offends the “equity” folk. They think that outcomes should be the same for everyone. Since not everyone has the intelligence, resources, and focus to make such a valuable impact on the world, then it makes perfect sense (to them) to take the wealth from the rich and give it to those without the genetic gifts, education, and determination to make their own fortunes. Somehow, this “intelligence tax” is supposed to even things out.

Truly, I don’t understand why everything has to be even. The Marxist ideal supposedly is “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” but as of yet, we do not live in a Marxist society. Nor do we live in a fair world, and nothing will ever make it fair.

Everyone has different talents and attributes. Some of these attributes naturally give a person an edge that others don’t have. Not just intelligence, as mentioned above, but height, beauty, athletic ability.

If everyone is supposed to end up in the same place, then what are people going to do about these gifted folk? You can more or less even the playing field when it comes to smarts by lowering the standards of tests to make sure everyone passes.

But how do you even the playing field when it comes to height? Being tall gives people an overall advantage because their height evokes feelings of power and consequence. Tall people also make more money. Every inch of height over average translates to an extra $800 a year, so how would the “equity” folk remove this natural advantage? Cut off heads? Feet?

Beautiful people also have an advantage. People equate beauty with intelligence, kindness, and honesty, though beautiful people aren’t necessarily better than unattractive ones. They are simply perceived as such. People tend to accept lies from beautiful people while shying away from truths told by unattractive ones. And beautiful people earn more — as much as 12% more on average. So how would this be equalized? Force beautiful people to wear masks?

Athletic prowess is widely divergent even among athletes. I suppose, to even the “score” (so to speak), athletes could be forced to carry weights like racehorses. If a horse with all its accoutrements weighs less than the assigned limit, jockeys need to add extra weights so all horses in the race carry the same handicap. Golfers have handicaps, so why not all athletes? Wouldn’t that make everything more “equitable?” Wouldn’t that allow everyone, no matter how little expertise they have, the same opportunity to play professional sports?

It seems to me as if those people espousing equity are trying to make the world fit the individual rather than giving the individuals the skills to try to fit themselves into the world.

But then, no one is asking me.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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On My Soapbox

June 23, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I was going to write about the history behind what is happening today, going all the way back to Alexander Hamilton’s economic system of tariffs, domestic manufacturing, and sovereignty, but then changed my mind because I’m not sure it’s a good idea to get on my soapbox in today’s political climate. Still, Hamilton’s system is worth a mention because it is what made American great, what created wealth in this country, what developed an unprecedented middle class who kept the money they earned without it being taxed away. (Tariffs were always supposed to be the way the United States government supported itself, not taking from its citizens.) This Hamilton system (what is left of it) is the very system that that globalists want destroyed. For over one hundred years, their mission has been to gut the USA middle class, leaving only high earners who make the money and a political class that takes the money and gives what it doesn’t keep to low earners. It’s why manufacturing was sent overseas — the globalists convinced the political hacks that people wanted cheap goods more than they wanted jobs, and so the middle class dwindled. (You can’t have a one world government if one country is wealthy while others are mired in chaos, so since they couldn’t raise the entire world to the USA standards, they decided to lower the USA to third world standards.)

It’s been hard watching this destruction my whole life. And no, it’s not a democrat vs. republican thing — it’s a combined political class that bought into the corruption, thinking that having all countries run by a so-called “world-based order” was a good thing. (The globalists kept their power by playing one country against the other politically, where the Hamilton system was about creating working relationships with other countries by trading as equals.) Many political hacks have kept their own power through several degrowth cycles, though I wonder if they ever see their end — the end, of course, is rule by an international elite that makes the political class in each country obsolete. I also wonder if they are as ignorant as they seem — too many of them seem to think wealth simply exists. They don’t seem to see that wealth needs to be created. Hamilton knew this. You’d think that people who have been running this country for decades would know the truth. Unless they do know and their naïveté is part of the game?

The huge influx of illegals into all the western countries was part of this degrowth — a way of crashing the economies of the western countries, leaving them un-sovereign and at the mercy of the globalists. (The one thing I didn’t realize until recently was that this gutting of the middle class by off-shoring manufacturing, energy dependency, and an acceptance of anti-white racism was aimed at European countries too. How else to explain the British allowing a quarter of a million girls to be groomed and trafficked and murderers set free because people in positions of power class didn’t want to be called racist.)

Because of what previous administrations in the USA allowed, without any real objection from voters until recently, we came very close to what those globalists envisioned — a chaotic USA that could be grabbed up by those who have been aiming for that very thing since before the Civil War. And no, it’s not the same people — the originators of the scheme are long dead, unless, as some people claim, those originators have cracked the code of longevity — but the system and its aims are the same.

Weirdly, in an age of overwhelming information, most of this information isn’t easily found anymore. I did my early studying with real paper books, and paper books are a lot harder to destroy than information on the internet. I went looking online for information about a couple of people — one I know is helping fund the “mostly peaceful” demonstrations in this country, and another I know was part of a grooming industry that involved all sorts of celebrities and powerful people, and almost no negative information about these “benevolent” folks exists. Apparently, they have whole swarms of internet drones who do nothing but scrub the internet, and if they can’t erase the information, they bury it under thousands of new posts that are liked and shared by their bots until it all but disappears. I don’t know why they bother — much of the information available on the internet is leftist leaning, anyway, and AI seems to downplay any mention of conservative values (such as more autonomy and less government).

I used to get upset with people for wearing blinders, but I’ve come to see it’s not them so much as the algorithms. They are never shown a point of view they might disagree with, and so one’s world view is constantly reinforced. Nothing that might challenge that view is ever shown, unless, of course, their outrage needs stoking.

I know this firsthand. I have two separate internet accounts, each using a different browser, and each feed is totally different. Apparently, one browser thinks I am a demonic democrat and the other a rabid republican, when in fact, I am neither. I am a student. A watcher. A pattern recognizer. Nothing more.

Oops. I guess I got on my soapbox anyway. Oh, well.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Success

June 22, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s your top tip to be successful in life?
View all responses

There are two ways to be successful in life. The first is to decide what being successful means to you, then focus on what will get you there. If being successful means being in a loving relationship, then prioritize that, don’t be distracted by what others think being successful means. If being successful means raising healthy and happy children, don’t give up time with them for other pursuits that might interfere, though sometimes, admittedly, what interferes is the need to make enough money to support those children. If being successful means making a ton of money, then go after it, but don’t be surprised when you find that other parts of your life aren’t as satisfying. If being successful means being a good person, following one’s faith, or doing simple acts of kindness, then that’s what you focus on.

Of course, just because you go after something doesn’t mean you will succeed at it, so this brings me to the second way of being successful — being grateful for what you have and what you have accomplished. Enjoying the moment. Celebrating your good fortune and accepting that you did what you could. And not comparing yourself to others. What you might see as their success, they might not. In fact, they might be comparing themselves to you, thinking you are the successful one.

When I became a writer, I hoped for success, which at the time meant being a self-supporting writer, selling enough books to make a living wage so I could write more books. Unfortunately, I didn’t succeed at being self-supporting, but I did succeed at writing. I wrote nine books, all of which were published. That I was not successful at promoting those books does not mitigate the success of having written all those words, told those stories, offered a helping hand to people who have lost a spouse or a child.

Just the other day, a woman came up to me to tell me she’d bought two copies of Grief: The Inside Story, one for her sister who had lost her husband and one for herself so she could understand what her sister was going through. It was due to the comfort offered in my book as well as the explanation of the mechanics of grief, that helped the sister finally sleep through the night, which, if you don’t know, is a big step for grievers. Also, the woman who bought the books was able to support her sister, letting her sister grieve as she needed to, without urging her to “get over it.” She had tears in her eyes as she thanked me for what I had given them.

So . . . . success. Yes? No? Well, the book did not solve my financial woes as I’d hoped, but oh, my, having truly helped someone who needed it? That is success. Maybe it’s even a more profound success than making money — to those two women, it certainly was.

So, in short, decide what success means to you, focus on what you need to do to achieve that success, and then celebrate whatever success comes your way, even if it comes in a way you never envisioned.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Happy First Day of Summer

June 21, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Today is the first day of summer, and I’m still not acclimated to Daylight Saving Time. It’s too light too late for my body to understand what it’s supposed to do. Usually in the early evening, even before the sun has set, the day is winding down into a gentle twilight, not being revved up by a continuing glare. I’m sure this has always been the case at the beginning of summer, but in previous years, either I didn’t notice the light, or I unconsciously made the physical adjustments.

Not this year.

This year the clues as to what I’m supposed to be doing at the close of day are all wrong. Is it late afternoon? Early evening? Almost night? I don’t know. Of course, a clock would tell me the truth — or at least the way it sees the truth — but the light cues don’t bother to tell me to look at the clock.

Oh, well. This certainly isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me — not even close. Nor is it the most confusing. It is, however, a bit puzzling since I had no idea I’d ever even experienced “light cues.” At least not in the summer. In winter, of course, when it gets dark at 4:30, it’s obvious that I need to turn on lights, wind down, gradually end the day’s activities.

I suppose this could be another of those weird signs of age, like getting up to do something and forgetting to do it or not adjusting to outside forces as quickly as I once did. (Outside forces being weather or variable inside temperatures or interruptions or any of a number of things that never used to faze me.)

I’m not complaining, at least I don’t think I am. I’m just making an observation. Of course, by the time I get used to this late evening glare, the creeping darkness will have begun to do its thing, and I’ll be complaining about how quickly it gets dark.

But that’s my prerogative. (Hey! I spelled it correctly! For some reason, for most of my life, I thought the first syllable was spelled “per,” and frankly, without spellcheck I probably would never have discovered I was spelling the word wrong.)

Anyway, despite the confusing light cues, I’m doing okay. As is my yard. No swaths of sunburnt grass or plants yet. I’m hoping the weather folk are right about this being an El Nino year and we actually get a monsoon season for a change. That would be lovely. Still, whatever happens, today is the beginning of a new season with all its possibilities.

Happy first day of summer!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Literary Irony

June 20, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been leafing through The Wheel of Time books and reading the parts that catch my interest. I’m quickly bypassing all the utterly boring sections, especially when it comes to the teenage girls and their individual grabs for power. These sections could have all been done through gossip or news being passed hand to hand or any number of ways to show their rise to power without readers being crushed beneath the banality. Some readers like those sections, the same people who think those two are the real heroes of the story, though I can see nothing of value to their stories other than that they became forces to oppose and perhaps help the hero.

Mostly I’m interested in the parts of the story that we aren’t bludgeoned with by a plethora of words, parts that slip through the cracks of “backstory” to become something else.

For example, one of the “bad guy” characters showed up in the army of male power-wielders that the hero had been gathering to help him fight the Last Battle. By chance, this particular bad guy was chosen from the ranks to be one of the hero’s personal helpers. Although the bad guy claimed to be a farmer, he seemed rather inept, could barely ride a horse, acted mentally slow, and was often found staring in consternation at the simplest things. He became part of a rebellion that tried to kill the hero, and in turn was himself killed by a “dark friend,” one of those sworn to the Dark Lord because the dark friend assumed he was nothing but the low-level soldier he pretended to be.

But if we turn that story around, piece together what we’ve learned about this bad guy throughout the story, and see it from his point of view, it’s a completely different and ironic tale.

In the first book, the hero kills a bad guy who was trying to kill him. Later, as we find out, this same bad guy is given a new body and sent to be one of the hero’s power wielding soldiers. It was pure happenstance that our bad guy ended up actually being in contact with and in service to the hero. Ouch. Having to serve the very person who killed you? So not fun! At least not for him.

Then we find out this same bad guy, some 3,000 years ago, had been a genius, a genetic researcher who created all the horrible monsters that currently plague the “good guys.” When the Dark Lord had been sealed up after a long-protracted war, this bad guy, along with a bunch of his fellow bad guys had been sealed up, too.

Back when he was sealed up, the world was way more advanced than we today can even dream of being, and so this poor guy wakes up into a backward world he cannot fathom, has no tools and no way to do anything he knows how to do, and so seems to be less than ordinary. And the final irony — this one-time genius, though being one of the premier bad guys, ends up getting killed by another baddie because he’s . . . ordinary.

Gotta love irony!

Another striking irony to me is that some of the characters hated by readers were not written as such by Robert Jordan but by the substitute. One character is a woman who helps the hero as she can, but seems a hard taskmistress since she demands to be treated with courtesy. I don’t think people would have hated her so much if Robert Jordan had been able to finish his books. Most of her worst characteristics ended up in the last three books that had been written by a decidedly inferior writer. So, since those three books don’t exist as far as I’m concerned, she turns out to be a woman who starts out demanding respect and ends up earning it. (I was one who didn’t like her, but she’s a good character up until those final three books, so I’ve come to like her.)

Another such character is a prince who was sworn to protect his sister, the daughter-heir, but she’s disappeared, no one will tell him where she is, and so he’s lost. He doesn’t know what to do and ends up — maybe — making bad decisions based solely on the chance of finding his sister. He’s also in love with a woman who is off doing self-important things, who says she loves him but doesn’t want his protection (even though that’s all he’s been trained to do). His bad luck was to be tied to both the power-hungry teenagers mentioned above.

To me his storyline is sad, and he only becomes an incompetent fool in the last three books under the pen of the substitute.

So, here’s another irony — readers love the substitute author, think he’s better than the original author, but blame Jordan for the characters they hate even though it was the substitute that mangled the characters. Yep! Gotta love irony.

I have those last three books, but as I’m leafing through Jordan’s books this time, I can see more and more mistakes the substitute made, and so I know for a fact I will never want to reread them. I just don’t know what to do with them. If I need the room on my bookshelf, I suppose I’ll take them to one of the little libraries around town since I still can’t force myself to go to the city library. Meantime, there they sit.

Because this post is about irony, I’m trying to find the irony in that previous paragraph, but it seems straightforward to me. Unless the irony isn’t in the paragraph so much as in the books. Although a lot of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is utterly brilliant, an equal amount is plebian at best.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Conceptions of Happiness

June 19, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s a common misconception people have about happiness?
View all responses

I’m not sure what misconceptions people have about happiness since I don’t know how they perceive happiness.

I do know that happiness is elusive. If we go chasing it, we don’t always find it. If we stop chasing it, happiness often finds us. And even if happiness doesn’t find us, there are other things that are just as important: contentment, being at peace, meeting challenges, living a meaningful life, making a difference to someone, helping others find happiness, creating something, growing a garden.

Sometimes, too, not being particularly happy is a proper response. Most reasonable people, in a tornado, try to get out of the wind, not revel in the devastation. Most reasonable people do not revel in misfortune, theirs or others. And, unless laughter is one’s way of dealing with anything intense in life, unhappiness during a time of grief is an entirely appropriate and reasonable response.

Neither happiness nor unhappiness is a constant state. Both are in flux and either can change in a moment. And so can one’s perception.

Studies have indicated that happiness is found mainly in retrospect. For example, happy children don’t know they are happy. They simply are. It’s only later, when they look back, perhaps after a terrible time in their adult lives, that they realize they had been happy in their early years. For another example, when someone is involved in a challenging situation that takes all their time and energy, they don’t realize until later they were happy. In fact, often while going through this situation, people thought they were decidedly unhappy.

Think of some of the happy times in your life. Back then, were you aware you were happy? Chances are, you were involved in living and didn’t bother to stop to think how you were feeling at the moment. You just lived. Not pursuing happiness as such, just simply living with whatever happiness came your way.

Oddly, happiness can also be found in anticipation. When a person is going through a difficult time, sometimes they get through the days by looking ahead to future happiness. Those who are grieving can hope for a time when joy might come again. If work is difficult, people can find happiness in planning a vacation.

In other words, happiness is not generally found in the present; it’s a construct of both the past and the future, which seems to make happiness irrelevant to the present.

Perhaps oddly, I have never considered happiness something to pursue. Even before I realized happiness was something lived in retrospect, I never thought it was relevant. I thought other things were more important. Trying to be a good person, for example. Doing the best I could for myself and others. Learning, for sure — I have always pursued knowledge, have always searched for a deeper truth.

I wasn’t happy very often, but it didn’t seem to matter. In fact, being not happy (neither happy nor unhappy) is my default state, so perhaps I’m not the best person to be blogging about happiness.

Still, having said all this, whatever your conceptions of happiness are, I hope you find what you are looking for.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Growing

June 18, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What is one way you have grown this year?
View all responses

One way I have grown this year? Older. I’ve grown older. I don’t really feel any older than I did a year ago, but there is one indication of that growth: some things don’t heal as fast as they once did. Well, one thing — sinus congestion. So far, I’ve tried just about every possibility, both medical and natural, and still, I have that sinus pressure and post-nasal drip. I’m waiting it out now, hoping it will cure itself. It did once upon a time — when I was young, I had allergies so bad I was almost comatose, but for some reason, I got over it. Maybe I will again.

Maybe not.

That acceptance of what life deals out is part of growth, I suppose, though such acceptance isn’t a recent growth experience for me — it came from years of grief over my various losses and all the living that followed.

I’m sure this blog prompt is about personal growth, though I tend to think I’ve grown up as much as I am going to get. I’m not even sure I want to develop further. At this point, will any sort of growth make my life better? I suppose it’s possible, but I also suppose it’s possible that a period of de-growth will be coming as I continue to age. I hope not — I appreciate the lessons I’ve learned in life, and I hang on to whatever wisdom I gleaned from them. I’d hate to think I’d forget those lessons and have to learn them again. It was painful enough the first time!

Personal growth supposedly contributes to fulfillment, self-awareness, mindfulness, well-being and happiness, which I’m all for when it comes to younger people, and was all for when I was young. But me now? I’m as self-aware as I want to be (any more awareness would turn me too far inward); I try to be mindful whatever I am doing for safety’s sake if nothing else; I have as much fulfillment as I can handle; and my sense of well-being is doing as well as can be expected. Does that sound smug? I don’t mean to be. I am grateful for where I am in life.

Gratitude. Acceptance. Mindfulness. Those are all lessons I’ve learned, things I practice. That seems enough. For now, anyway.

As it is, the only growth I celebrate is what is in my garden. That sort of growth I can get behind!

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Talking to My Twenty-year-old Self

June 17, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?
View all responses

Hypothetical questions like this make me think — not about the question I’m supposed to blog about, but the mechanics of it.

Truly, assuming there was something I wished I could tell my twenty-year old self, how would that work?

At first, I thought of leaving a message somewhere for me to find when I reached this age, but then I realized that’s the reverse of the question. Besides, there’s nothing my twenty-year old self could say to me today that would make any difference. If there was something that was important enough for that younger version of me to want forwarded into the future, it’s already been done. First, there is a little thing called a memory. Second, even if I don’t recall the important thing itself, it would be written in my very life — everything that ever happened to me stemmed from the thoughts of that year (and every year) so any message would be redundant.

As for the logistics of getting a message back to that younger self — reverse email? But email hadn’t been invented back then. That twenty-year old self would have to wait several more decades to receive the message, and by then, she’d be almost as old as I am now. If not that, then what? Time travel? Okay, so assume I went back in time, how would I ever convince that person I was her? I’m sure she’d think I was a relation, perhaps a great-aunt or some such because I did at one time bear a distinct resemblance to my mother.

I remember when I was young not ever actually thinking that old people were forever old, but I somehow presumed it. I knew people grew older, but it just seemed to me, in that accepting way of youth, that they were old, and had always been, just as I was young, and would always be. It makes sense, I suppose — when you’re young, you can see the changes in yourself as you graduate to a new grade every year, but the older folks always looked the same. I don’t know when it struck me that old folks had once been young, that they’d lived a whole life before getting old, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t happen until later in my twenties or even in my thirties. (I knew people aged, of course, but old age seemed so alien to my young self that I never made the connection.)

So there my young self would be, seeing this old woman, and no way would my twenty-year old self ever believe that I was this old. Oddly, I doubt that my current self would even recognize that young self. Odder still, now that I’m old, I feel as if I’ve always been old, as if I’d never been young. I mean, I know I was, but . . . who can remember that far back? Or care? It is easier just to accept what I am today and go with that feeling rather than give credence to a past.

Which means, I suppose, that even if I could go back and tell my twenty-year old self something, there’s nothing I would wish to tell her.

As for the photo accompanying this article, I realize it’s not my twenty-year old self, but nowadays, one young age is as remote as the other.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, culture, history/myth, internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 6 Comments »

Eight Years Ago

June 16, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I hadn’t realized it until my blog reminded me, but my Pacific Crest Trail backpacking trip was eight years ago. Actually, the blog detailing the trip was written exactly eight years ago today, so I can only presume that the trip was a day or two before that, but still, it’s close enough.

It’s funny that eight years doesn’t seem that long ago. When I’ve mentioned hiking and backpacking, people nod at me, thinking it was when I was young, and I might have been younger eight years ago, but I was still climbing up in years while I was climbing up those hills.

What surprised me about the blog post, No Resfeber for the Weary, was the reminder that I took the overnight hiking trip in June. In the desert. What was I thinking? I also remember that I was just getting over a cold, so again, what was I thinking?

I do remember, come to think of it. I was thinking that if I didn’t do the backpacking trip then, I never would. And I was mentally ready.

Apparently, despite my hiking with a filled backpack for months before that in preparation, I wasn’t really physically prepared. Since I’d planned to be gone for several nights, I needed to carry one heck of a lot of water because there was no water up in those hills. I wish I could have been out longer than that one night — it really was incredible being by myself on that isolated trail, camping alone out in the middle of nowhere — but physically, I gave out. I’d heard of “hitting the wall,” but had never felt it. And then I did. Hit the wall, I mean. I was lucky I didn’t tip over and fall down a mountainside. Oddly, I wasn’t sore. Just unable to move.

My one regret is that I was never able to do a long backpacking trip, but I am very glad I managed to do that particular overnight trip. Hiking, of course, wasn’t anything new, nor was camping, but the combination of the two was what made it an unforgettable experience.

I was right about that being my only chance. Exactly one month later, my homeless brother died, which in a roundabout way changed my life. And now here I am, a thousand miles away from where I hiked that day, living in my own house, tending my garden, and trying to hold back the years still creeping up on me.

After Jeff died, I was determined to live despite the agony and angst of grief. I didn’t want to waste the years of freedom he gave me (his dying freed me from further care and I’ve always been cognizant of that sacrifice, involuntarily though it might have been). And looking back, not just at the past eight years, but the eight years before that, I see how much I have done. I bet he’d have been glad I experienced life in the way that I did — he felt bad that the constraints of his illness stole my spontaneity from me, and I made sure that I got it back so he wouldn’t have to feel bad. (Odd how that worked — he was gone and it wouldn’t have mattered to him, but it mattered to me.)

I’ve lost that spontaneity again, at least mostly. I’m certainly not going on any backpacking trips (though I still have all the equipment, just in case), but then, I have nothing left to prove to me or to anyone. Nothing left to make up for, either.

Still, I do sometimes dream of a long trail hike, and I wonder . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in Adventure, dealing with old age, grief, life. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . 8 Comments »
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