Over-thinker

What does it mean to be an over-thinker?

It can mean you over-analyse situations or decisions, often with bad results, or possibly leaving you stuck, unable to make a decision at all.

It can also mean that you dwell overlong on occurrences, searching for meaning where likely there is none.

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Perhaps you ponder life’s purpose. Or the mysteries of the Universe.

Or maybe all of the above.

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As a child, severe asthma made it impossible for me to run around on the playground with other children. I sat on the sidelines with other children that had health issues.

Then, in Cambodia I was blessedly free of asthma but mostly without playmates.

In consequence, I was alone a great deal. Whether this is what caused me to become shy and avoid social gatherings, I don’t know.

It may be that I inherited the trait from an anti-social father.

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When you rattle around by yourself without interruption, or when you spend hours waiting, in airports, train stations, medical offices, or sitting in an aeroplane (there wasn’t always in-flight entertainment!), driving to and from work etc, you can get lost in your head.

As a youngster, apart from worrying which I did quite a lot of, I was more of a noticer than a thinker. I observed what was going on and apparently unconsciously filed the information.

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It is absurd, the obscure and useless bits of information the brain can suddenly present, decades on, such as names of people your parents spoke of long ago, or snippets of overheard conversations, like the shipping forecast that came over my father’s wireless! (Which is what we called his radio).

That sort of thing.

Of more interest to me are all the coincidences I’ve experienced. One really ought to keep, if not a journal, then at least a list of coincidences, for comparison and as a log. How many should one expect in a lifetime?

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Some are bound to occur, although many say there is no such thing as a coincidence.

Let’s say I am strongly inclined to agree.

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A few months ago, my friend Tim went to visit his niece in Manchester, something he very seldom does. He decided while he was that side of the Atlantic to fly from Manchester to Brussels to catch up with an old friend. It turned out that his niece’s daughter was already booked on the self same flight.

What are the chances?

You doubtless could list any number of your own coincidences.

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A week after the funeral of my aunty Kay, I had not come close to processing the loss of the person I loved most, when I took my father to visit an old friend in Rome, as promised.

We checked in at the hotel and followed a porter up to our rooms. A couple of suitcases had been left out in the corridor. One of them sported a label that bore in large script the name: Mabel.

My aunt never used it, but Mabel had been her given name.

What was the likelihood of such an unfashionable name being on a suitcase in that hotel in Rome and just as I walked down that corridor?

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At the time I was stressed, exhausted and numb, so the sight of that name didn’t shock me as it might have. Instead I mulled it over in moments when I was alone.

Was it a message? A rebuke?

Probably neither. Maybe it was intended to make me think over decisions that I’d made over recent months.

Kay’s husband had died in March. He could not be buried because in Maine the ground was frozen and over the next two months my aunt fretted about the funeral. She had been so mentally beaten down for such a long time, far from feeling released, she went to pieces. Living alone had been hard enough for her, but her daily visits to the nursing home were something that had kept her going, even though they were very upsetting.

It was obvious, in retrospect, but I was hundreds of miles away in New York, worrying at the same time about my recently widowed and very aged father, which is why I’d agreed to take him on the trip to Italy.

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Two days before my uncle’s funeral, Kay had a stroke and was admitted to the nursing home where he had constantly berated her. Her little dog was banned had to be re-homed. The outlook was bleak and I wanted to postpone my father’s holiday. I didn’t like him but he was my father. Suppose something happened before I was able to fulfill my promise?

Kay had lost the ability to speak, so I had to guess at what she was feeling. I am left with the torment of believing she felt betrayed. There was no reason to expect her health would deteriorate rapidly, so I decided to carry on as planned since it was only to be a short trip.

Putting Kay in a wheelchair, I took her for a walk. We held hands and I hugged her close. I shall never forget her sad smile and the anguish in her beautiful blue eyes when I left, telling her I would be back soon. I was back much sooner than expected, to bury her beside the husband she couldn’t live without.

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Only days later, I was pushing my father around in a wheelchair and asking myself questions. Kay had said often that she was a burden to me, but I never felt that way and did everything I could to persuade her otherwise. I have always wondered though, whether she didn’t will herself to die to release me and whether she might not have died so soon if I’d chosen to spend more time with her instead of going off to Europe with my ungrateful father who never even offered me condolences.

Possibly it was that without her beloved dog she had nothing left to live for.

This is why I wasn’t sure what the message of that baggage label was.

For years I could not think about that time without weeping. It seems I’ve come to some sort of acceptance, but I will live with regret for the rest of my life.

My father lived another six years.