Cafe Hitch-hike

2023-11-17

My former boss

It all started from a police safety check.The police then called the person who made the check, and when they arrived they weren’t recognized by the one they checked on. They were taken to the hospital where they were diagnosed with heart and kidney failure. Then, they went unconscious and are now on a ventilator.

It’s another one of those liminal states. My former boss could stabilize, undergo therapies and surgeries, and likely end up in a care home. Or, they can bounce back after a while, or this is the beginning of the downward slide.

My FB complained about feeling sick soon after their retirement, then got a flu. They went to a Gulf coast town a few weeks later to attend the funeral of their estranged father. I guess my FB drew the short straw and had to represent the family since none of their siblings wanted to go. They still weren’t feeling well. The former boss also went to the doctor 10 days ago and their vital signs were all over the place, and they went home.

The FB lost some very important people in their life in the last 2 years. They undergone their special version of professional torture in the building throughout the years. I knew they didn’t like the changes in management just over 5 years ago, a reason for retirement, but they also said, to me more than once, “I just ran out of ideas and I’m tired.”. I heard it in their voice. They really were tired, but maybe they got tired from life?

It makes me feel so sad. Of course we don’t know how things will turn, but it really doesn’t look good for the former boss. It makes me wonder if the last 3 years has worn us down or tired us, or accelerated the aging process.

I think of the people I’ve written of these past few days who are either not well or people close to them are not. I’m discovering the health of some people in the building has corroded, and it’s likely my former boss was in that group.

Am I being told to run from that place and run for my life? Be gone before that building takes any more from me?

Oh, my…. maybe I’m just reading too much into things, but one really starts to wonder when quite a few things slowly unravel at once. Things feel just as weird now as they did in the thick of the pandemic, except we can leave our houses. I dunno, just my thoughts today. Please let me be overreacting as usual, and this haze eventually clears.

downwind | upstream