Recently, i was left alone for 3 days BUT with my children this time. One is 18 and requires a different kind of attention to the newly turned 9 year old. This may be a normal week for most mothers....but not me. I am not most mothers because i am unable mostly to take care of myself. BUT i have been making improvements, mostly cognitive but some minor physical (still bedridden though). So, whereas it use to be assumed and known i couldn't take care of myself let alone my children....this was the first time my family did not come to get my daughter. And i kind of silently waited...and then realized they knew i had improved enough to handled this and i felt i have too. So it was unspoken but nevertheless quite a breakthrough for me.
I may be my daughters emotionally safe person but not her physically safe person. And that was something i didn't think about from her perspective. She really has NO memory of me not like this! And worse. How incredibly wild. But we've already gone over this. So, the first night, a storm came in and she was already a bit uncertain of how i could fully run the show. And i of course cannot fully run a show but i can kinda. And thats all that matters. We watched a studio ghibli movie and in the mornings her ride came for school and i realized...we've got this. And she realized, we've got this. And we laughed and cuddled and played. Of course with my pacing and regular need to shut eyes to allow brain to stop shaking and body but its all improved, for me, to a new level.
It may not be that i can always tackle these...but i did. I did it.
Her and i (and my son) may have an unconventional life...but its our life and i make the best of it. I'm so grateful i get to regularly communicate with them and be conscious and experience joy. These were not luxuries i had a few years ago. We had. But i am grateful for my now moments. Whatever they may contain. Not needing to control or shift the story. Doing, as the saying says, what you can with what you have where you are at.
My husband came home one evening and i srtarted playing this song for her and i. In celebration. In honor. Of her normal month of moving another year in this realm, celebrating her birthday. And of me.....because shes a big girl now ...and in many ways i am too...relearning the simplest of life tasks. I may not be able to bathe myself but i can love and take care of my girl. And for this, i'm immensely grateful and blessed.
I may be my daughters emotionally safe person but not her physically safe person. And that was something i didn't think about from her perspective. She really has NO memory of me not like this! And worse. How incredibly wild. But we've already gone over this. So, the first night, a storm came in and she was already a bit uncertain of how i could fully run the show. And i of course cannot fully run a show but i can kinda. And thats all that matters. We watched a studio ghibli movie and in the mornings her ride came for school and i realized...we've got this. And she realized, we've got this. And we laughed and cuddled and played. Of course with my pacing and regular need to shut eyes to allow brain to stop shaking and body but its all improved, for me, to a new level.
It may not be that i can always tackle these...but i did. I did it.
Her and i (and my son) may have an unconventional life...but its our life and i make the best of it. I'm so grateful i get to regularly communicate with them and be conscious and experience joy. These were not luxuries i had a few years ago. We had. But i am grateful for my now moments. Whatever they may contain. Not needing to control or shift the story. Doing, as the saying says, what you can with what you have where you are at.
My husband came home one evening and i srtarted playing this song for her and i. In celebration. In honor. Of her normal month of moving another year in this realm, celebrating her birthday. And of me.....because shes a big girl now ...and in many ways i am too...relearning the simplest of life tasks. I may not be able to bathe myself but i can love and take care of my girl. And for this, i'm immensely grateful and blessed.
