By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
To start the ball rolling, I started telling people randomly I would start reporting to the office last Monday, January 26. Since I had been away for a long time I expected I would just be twiddling my thumbs and the day would be uneventful. But a number of the people who came, long acquaintances, came loaded. Not with chocolates and all things nice, but with the usual stuff that had been bothering them for a considerable length of time. The kind that festered over decades and decades. Nothing new really as these are what make relations and life, in general, interesting.
So towards mid-afternoon of the day, I was starting to feel heavy from the things I was hearing. Things were turning out that the world, after all, was full of problems. It was more than what I bargained for. I thought I was strong enough already from comorbidities I have already overcome and those still persisting.
Towards the end of the day I was actually convinced I was not well enough and time for me to accept I needed more time to gain strength. That is, to concentrate more on my yoga daily regimen which goes also with health food supplements and other New Age mumbo jumbo. By dark that day I was dizzy and nauseous from lack of energy. It was one of those days when the people you interacted with drained instead of energized you.
Yes, I need to stay away from the world’s troubles until such time I can really say I can emerge from my cave ready to face whatever I will be comforted with. It will take some more time. And that I will have to take or endure. So goodbye for the mean time.
And then yesterday I received a message from a friend about the much-ballyhooed Aphelion phenomenon which, to many, is about a lot of hot air depending on what angle you are looking at things. There is one thing though that is settled about that. It results in colder temperatures, and for me that is a cause of serious concern.
Already, I had been sleeping with a portable heater by my side. It assures me of a sounder sleep without having to be bothered scrounging for more comforters in the wee hours of the morning or in the middle of the night. In short, in my neck of the woods, I have undergone some precautions against Aphelion but I must do more to “cold-weatherproof myself.”
For fellow elderlies take heed. I am sure that like me, you don’t relish becoming a part of the statistics of fatalities of pneumonia or the super flu and other similar deadly nemesis of the elderly.
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