Illusion Crumbles
Age has crept up on us
like a thief in the night
I think
as I watch the clock hands
remain stuck on 1:30
as I wait
in the third doctor’s office
in six days
with my newly retired husband
ill again
with the illness
that drove him
from his beloved work
with the poorest of the poor
mentally ill
and I wonder
as I worry
about him
how did he do it
and why
and why
did he marry me
taking my major mental illness
as a dowry
and I wonder
how did it happen
that we got so old
we look at people
30 years our junior
on the TV
in the waiting room
and think ourselves
like them
but we are not
old age has crept in
like a thief in the night
were we always broken
cast under a veil
of delusion
which now becomes
seen at times
as bodies
fall ill
and age creeps in
are we finally seeing
the unreality of the “reality”?
MOONSIDE 
shedding tears of empathy here…
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May 6, 2016 at 9:44 AM
Oh,Paul,you bring tears to my eyes!! Thank you, dear Paulo!
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May 7, 2016 at 5:22 PM
Ellen
Oh how much I felt so many mixed emotions resounding through your post. My heart cries for you and your husband.
Prayers for you both.
Your words and the art were so together. They added to the sadness I felt for you both.
I love you. And please try to find goodness through it all.
Much love
Yisraela
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May 6, 2016 at 11:41 AM
Thank you, dear Yisraela! Have thought of you often and wondered how your doing. I hope your health is better, especially as your big day approaches!! Love, Ellen
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May 7, 2016 at 5:26 PM
Beautiful. Interesting how emotionally we feel young even as our bodies age. Send you and your husband my love and keep you both in my prayers.
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May 6, 2016 at 11:45 PM
Thank you so much, Kitt! Hope you got to that spa and got some care for yourself!! Love and prayers for your difficult situation, Ellen
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May 7, 2016 at 5:29 PM
Thank you.
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May 7, 2016 at 7:32 PM
Amazing photos and a sense of Edgar Allen Poe. I’m saying this hoping that the suffering you’re experiencing is not so severe as you cannot see the beauty in it all – I suspect it’s all of a oneness. Life can have this dark elegance at times. “Age has crept up on us ike a thief in the night” I’ve had this feeling recently.
“…are we finally seeing the unreality of the “reality”?” It may well be, discovering the great caverns of emptiness in what we thought was real life. I suppose it just gets like that sometimes…
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May 7, 2016 at 6:59 AM
Tiramit, Thank you for responding though I know you are in pain. There IS a dark elegance to suffering. I first felt this long ago while having a turkey sandwich one Thanksgiving in a hospital cafeteria as my mother lay upstairs in her last days. Yes, age catches up with us all if we make it that long. Wishing you some pain free time! In the unreality of it all, Ellen
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May 7, 2016 at 5:39 PM
Hard, but beautiful, Ellen. Love the photograph.
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May 7, 2016 at 7:03 AM
Thank you so much, Richard!
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May 7, 2016 at 5:41 PM
Your dear husband saw more in you than mental illness, your dowry to him was and is: Soulfulness.
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May 7, 2016 at 2:12 PM
What a beautiful thing to say, Genie!! Thank you! Glad to see you are still going strong!!
Love, Ellen
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May 7, 2016 at 5:43 PM
beauty in the old!
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May 15, 2016 at 12:07 PM
You are right, Joshi!! Thank you for writing.
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June 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM
Very touching …
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May 21, 2016 at 6:39 AM
Thank you, Bert, for taking time out your busy life to comment!
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June 6, 2016 at 11:08 PM
Your writing is exquisite, Ellen, and I think Genie hit the nail on the head. Love involves seeing truly. It is the greatest gift we give one another. I do hope, as Tiramit said, you can contact the richness and the beauty that is within the structure of the sorrow and the looking back you are finding. Much love to you both, Michael
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June 5, 2016 at 2:13 PM
Oh, Michael, so very kind of you!! Thank you so very much. Humbled by your comment!
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June 6, 2016 at 11:10 PM
We climb stairs to discover,
we are in a waiting room.
Waiting for high school,
waiting for college,
waiting for that meaningful job,
waiting for a soulmate,……
waiting to be.
Somehow, we always think
that we are at least three decades off floors
from where we actually are,
still dreaming to be.
Take care. 🙂
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June 7, 2016 at 12:57 PM
How wise and true! Thank you for your poem!! Best, Ellen
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June 13, 2016 at 3:47 PM
Dear Ellen, I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to get to this marvellous post. The images and the poem are both beautiful. I love the palette of the photos and the compositions, and they go so well with your poem. I feel that ‘Am I really that old?’ too. x o x
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June 11, 2016 at 8:35 PM
Thanks for stopping by, Ashley!! Thank you for your encouraging remarks. And you feel old???!!! From what I can see of you in your photos, you look to be quite young. Nice to see you here. xxoo Ellen
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June 12, 2016 at 10:37 AM
I’m 56, Ellen. And most of my self portraits are blurred or distorted in some way. Plus I tend to avoid including my jowls! Haha!
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June 12, 2016 at 6:45 PM
I had you pegged for 40s. Anyhow I beat you at 66. 🙂
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June 13, 2016 at 3:50 PM
Ellen, Malin is about to set an assignment on her blog –
http://malinehphotography.wordpress.com
and the theme will be ‘decay’.
I don’t know the deadline yet but I think one of these images woud be perfect as a contribution. 🙂
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June 11, 2016 at 8:39 PM
Thank you so much, Ashley! Very generous of you to think of me. I don’t know Malin’s blog. Will have to check it out. Right now can’t even get to the computer. Busted my ankle but deadline is June 30. Are you sending one in? And how are things going? You seem very productive! Not blogging but do check in to your blog and a few others periodically on my phone. XXOO to you, and thank you again, Ellen
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June 12, 2016 at 10:32 AM
Yes, I’m contributing. I hope your ankle is healed soonest.
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June 12, 2016 at 6:47 PM
Look forward to seeing your contribution! Thank you for your good wishes! xxellen
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
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June 13, 2016 at 4:19 PM
Poignant as always, Ellen. You know to create beauty and tears in one fell swoop.
Blessings & hugs ~ Wendy
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June 13, 2016 at 5:12 PM
Thanks so much. Wendy. Liked your latest, too.
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June 13, 2016 at 8:58 PM
Love the image – a great metaphor for your words
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July 1, 2016 at 5:06 AM
Thank you so much, Sue! And thanks for stopping by.
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July 1, 2016 at 5:17 PM
You are welcome!
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July 2, 2016 at 2:26 AM
Words and image — honest and strong.
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July 27, 2016 at 9:51 AM
Thanks so much, John!
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July 28, 2016 at 3:03 PM
You love someone, not so much as for what they are, but more in spite of what they are. Even more so when we get older.
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May 15, 2022 at 12:36 PM
Thank you for your wise words!
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May 15, 2022 at 12:57 PM