Challenging Times

Life is hard some days. Yesterday was one of those days. Actually pretty much every day this week has been hard.

I came home last night and was tempted to erase the memory of the day by ingesting the remainder of the coolers I still have left over from last summer. I was pretty sure it would would not work and I didn't want to add a hangover to my list of woes, so I had a shower and washed all my troubles down the drain instead.

"Why is this so hard?" I ask myself again and again and again. Then it hit me. I have hit another parallel with the walk I walked last year with Mom.

There is a sense of antsiness/angst among my senior lady friends.

One is feeling the need to rush into spring clean up. Our snow just melted last weekend and since the moment I walked in the door on Monday, there has been a sense of urgency to get things done. I compare the conversations we had this year to the same ones we had last year.

Something has changed. It is subtle. But it is tangible. It reminds me of Mom's urgency to buy and plant her bedding plants last year. I did what she asked and it all worked out fine. But she questioned that decision as the summer wore on. "It was pretty early, wasn't it?"

Once I recognized the similarity of the situation, I belittled myself for not simply going forward with doing a spring chore slightly ahead of schedule. What does it hurt? It will take the edge off her unease. Just do it. Why in the world did I want to stall? What worked last year isn't working this year.

My heart clenches a little at the thought. It is a small thing. It really doesn't matter. But it is a change that is reminiscent of last spring with Mom. My head is trying to talk my heart out of feeling the emotion...

"It isn't the same. It is different. Just go with the flow. It's okay. It's going to be okay..."

There is really no need to argue. Except when doing a job when working with numbers, the need to balance and trying to get to the bottom of a math puzzle.

I am sorry to say I have stood my side of an argument too many times of late. This goes against my grain. It is everything I am not, nor who I want to be. But being agreeable, nodding and smiling doesn't work when you need to know the right way to the final answer.

"It's good that you challenge me", I was told yesterday. I am trying so hard not to be difficult. Either I don't understand and I'm way off base or I do understand and I can't find the right way to demonstrate it. Either way, it is so very, very hard to have these "challenges" with someone who is hurting, healing, unable to sleep and feeling the anxiety of not being able to do this on her own. But dealing with someone who challenges her? This situation is not comfortable for either one of us.

This is all far too familiar. The worse Mom felt, the harder it became for her to temper her thoughts. The week before Mom died, I wrote an email to my siblings. It was long and wordy, but the sentence I recalled yesterday as I was fighting the emotions I was feeling in the moment was this: "This "state of being certain" about something that has not quite happened the way she remembers it, seems to be happening a little more than I've noticed before. There is really no sense in arguing and I discovered the best way through these little moments is to drop the conversation, don't push the point or feel the need to be right."

I believe my knees may have buckled as I remembered my own advice and tried to re-work my strategy yesterday. I've walked this walk before.

I don't know the right way to navigate this path other than taking what I know and incorporating it into the walk I'm walking right now. One step at a time. One day at a time.

No regrets. The goal I'm aiming for is to forge my way through this time and not regret the way I have handled a situation. I know this is different but man, it feels so similar! The emotions are the same. My concern for my friends is the same.

I am dealing with people who are living within a body that is not working the way they are accustomed to it working. The anxiety I am picking up on is quite possibly the fear they have as they navigate the world in a body that is betraying them.

I remember this well.

I went and reread the email I wrote to my siblings that day. I ended it with this parting thought: "I'm going to enjoy this for as long as it lasts. One never knows what tomorrow could bring."

Mom died eight days later. Make the most of your moments. One never knows how long they will last. When we are lucky, the "challenging" ones are short lived as well.