the balancing act part 2
Welcome to the Sunday post.
When I took the photo above last Monday, I was feeling hopeful. I hadn’t been on my regular walk/hike with my dog since before I had covid in June; I’d gone earlier than usual to avoid the high heat; I was capable of the uphill climb and looking forward to future early mornings when I might see some of the folks on the trail that I saw on that morning, people who were probably also trying to avoid the heat.
A couple of hours later I was taking my mother to the Emergency Room.
Over the next several days, I was back in the mode of handling all of my mother’s care and her affairs, wondering if she would come out of the hospital (she did, four days later).
Amid my mother’s health deteriorating, there is also the matter of my partner going into major surgery this week with a 6 week recovery at home to follow. This is the best case scenario. The surgery may reveal things. The surgery may just be a surgery. Between my partner’s condition and my mother’s, I’m in a place of waiting and seeing, a place of not-knowing.
Meanwhile, the dog still needs her regular vet appointment, the kid is starting school, I have a library talk I hope to be able to do, onboarding paperwork for the teaching I’m about to embark on, my clients, house duties, and on and on.
There are lists. I have to breathe. I go to a dark place. I come back. My mind tries to work out a future where I have to find care for my mother, or I become the care, with what energy I have left. I snap back to the moment. I remember to take things day by day, then revise it to hour by hour.
Asking for help outside of our household is something that both my partner and I have a super hard time with. This week I asked a select group of friends for help in the coming days. When I was first formulating the ask, trying to nail down what I think we might need, I was only planning around my partner’s surgery. By the time I was sending the email, I was factoring in the wild card of my elderly mother’s care in the coming days.
It’s all a wild card, really.
Next week’s Sunday post is going to be a guest post, and the one after that might be, too. In the coming weeks you’ll see some Process Notes and other features. These were posts that would normally appear on any given Thursday, but because I can’t predict at this point what my weeks are going to look like, except for vague outlines based on today’s guess, I may be leaning on others’ contributions to the content of Sunday posts in Mommy’s El Camino.
Yesterday, early evening, after a day of running around the San Fernando Valley attending to my mother’s groceries and care, we came home and sat in the backyard. My partner watered the bamboo on the porch of my office and the numerous succulents. After a certain hour, I realized I could officially turn my brain off to the day. We walked the dog in the dark.
We laughed a lot yesterday. If I can keep a sense of humor about the absolute chaos that is my life right now, I think I’ll be in decent shape.
Wishing you all ease and peace.