Yesterday I went to yoga, to the pool, then went back home for lunch, to the pool again, and then went to visit my friend Govi and her husband. Govi is a gregarious person whom I like a lot, as well as her husband, but their group of friends is almost unbearable to me. Govi invited me for dinner to check out the new apartment they had recently purchased to relocate her father from Ecuador, since he’s getting older and needs support.

Here I want to establish an opinion that I didn’t communicate to her, which is that the worst thing you can do for an older person’s health is to change their living place against their will. Her stance is understandable, taking a sabbatical from her job, she spent six months taking care of him in Ecuador and he would have probably died is she hadn’t done it, and now that he is healthy she wants to bring him over so that she doesn’t find herself in the same situation again.

There are many details to the situation, and plenty of which I am not aware about, so that my opinion is better kept to myself, I just want to make the observation that it is very difficult for older people to adapt to new places, especially to new countries. Even when they move into retirement homes where they have a social life and their needs cared for they often wither into depression, simply waiting for death to happen.

Govi originally proposed dinner with me alone but informed me last minute that P. would be coming too. I wrote a paragraph on P which I just deleted, there’s no point in describing why P. is unpleasant to me. I endured dinner, he left and in the last 15 minutes I some time with my friends. As we said goodbye Govi said to me “when are we going to see each again, on our own?” (when she says this, she means her husband is coming too). I felt like saying “yah that was supposed to happen today but you changed the plan” but I answered “when the chance comes up again” and she said “but you never have time” and I said “I remind you I tried to schedule twice and you changed the date, this was the third attempt” [and you invited P].

I seem to be itchy with my friends lately while finding solitude more comfortable. I don’t think anything ought to be done, we should simply notice the mood and take it into consideration. I still consider it was necessary to meet up despite P’s presence, to much time had passed since our last encounter, and I can endure two hours of mindless blabbering from P. in order to accommodate that.