Well, it’s March!
And how the hell did we get here??
I feel like time has just flown by in the last two months after a December that seemed to take forever!
Of course, we took all of December to move to into my 98 year old Mom’s small, and dilapidated 1100 square foot house. At the time, we thought ”oh taking the month of December to leisurely move all of our stuff over will be so much easier”. We were so….wrong!
I wouldn’t recommend it.
It felt like we somehow managed to drag out all of the exhaustion and anxiety of a weekend of moving to 30 days rather than just a few! The miles and strain we put on my little car as we slowwwwwly moved box after box after box…after booooxxxxx!
Unlike moving into a new clean place, it was necessary to clean and make space in both locations rather than just one. Mom began having panic attacks at night early in December, and after a night in the ER, it was decided that she couldn’t be alone anymore. The time had come to take the step we’d been working towards, but never quite achieved for the past 9 years.
What had been a theoretical discussion for the past few months as we grappled with the possibilities, was suddenly real. From the night of December 7, 2024 our lives have taken a decidedly dramatic turn.
For two weeks, I slept at Moms and cleaned things here, while Scott slept at the old house and began packing things there. Each night was a new adventure as we struggled to figure out what was happening with Mom’s legs. She had come to dread nighttime. She was in such pain and discomfort that she couldn’t sleep. (It took about a month for us to come up with the proper diagnosis of Peripheral Neuropathy with her doctor and another month after that to figure out the right combination and dosage of medications to treat that along with her insomnia and mild depression.)
December wasn’t an easy month.
I don’t know that I’ve found anything to be easy since, but then I suppose “easy” is highly overrated.
And yet…as I said in my last blog “But there’s lace”, I manage to find moments.
Things have kind of settled into a routine over here, and I find myself ready to share the experience and the lessons of completely changing one’s life in order to care for an elderly and well, frankly, dying parent.
Don’t get me wrong…her death isn’t imminent. For a 98 year old who is in a wheelchair, legally blind and mostly deaf, she’s in remarkably good health. It’s simply that she’s 98. We just don’t know how long she has.
And I swear…I absolutely swear that I am not trying to make her death come sooner, but some days, my inexperience and lack of a medical degree take their toll and I make mistakes.
Fortunately my mother is one tough old broad and has managed to survive my inadequacies
So…it’s time…
It’s time to share some of the stories and to share what it’s like to grieve the loss of the Mom I knew while I find ways to be patient and loving with the Mom that I now have.
Well, and then there’s my marriage, that has, so far, managed to survive the onslaught of crazy that seems to come our way on a daily basis. I would love to tell you that my husband is a saint and that he has managed all of this with patience and stoicism.
I’d be flat out lying…because I divorced that kinda guy not once but twice.
When we met 10 years ago, one of my requirements for a life partner was to have someone who is emotionally intelligent and actually feels and expresses their emotions. That means there is no stoicism, thank you very much.
What there is, is genuine healing. Genuine healing means that we manage the emotions as they come and we honor them. We don’t stuff them down, we allow them the space to exist. What that looks like in real life is kind of messy. We don’t always get it right.
We just keep trying until we do.
This works pretty well most of the time until it doesn’t. I manage to deal with it until both Mom and Scott have their meltdowns at the same time. Consider what the first year of marriage is like…this is what I compare it to. We’re learning to co-exist. It is bumpy as hell some days.
I learned early on about the double meltdown factor when I found myself out in the backyard screaming one day.
It was an intentional scream, meant to release the energy. It was not uncontrolled, it was simply what I knew to do when the stress got to be too much.
It was ONE scream followed by a quick look around to see if anyone had heard me.
I needed to remember to prioritize my self care in the face of difficulties.
This is something that I preach on the daily to my clients.
We all know the phrases…
“put on your oxygen mask first”
“You can’t give from an empty well”
We know them…practicing them is where the challenge lies.
Because we forget…
So this is the new direction of this blog. I’ve always written about my experiences and this is simply another level, another journey and another set of lessons.
As I began yet another transition, I asked Spirit what I was to do now…
I was given “Plant your garden and write”
It’s not what I thought I would be told, but here we are…
I’m planting things…and now I’m writing about that, and so much more.
I hope you’ll join me as the seeds planted and my consciousness begin to grow.
