It’s been three weeks since my first post on this subject and today I got a long awaited update. It’s pretty good as it turns out; Mum is doing much better with far fewer episodes of being difficult. She’s been off the Pregabalin for a while but they reckon that there’s still quite a bit of it yet to leave in her system.
Still, Mum is engaging with people once more and as long as she has the option of squirrelling herself away somewhere when there is too much going on, she’s quite happy.
She’ll be having a review next week which I’m hoping I’ll be part of so it would seem that things are on a bit of an even keel again. For a while anyway!
Once more I’m hopeful about things with regard to Mum’s wellbeing and once more I feel I have the space and time to get on with my life. This is the thing with Alzheimer’s it’s always lurking there in the background despite your belief that everything is working out as it should again.
Unbeknownst to my conscious brain, my subconscious is always on alert for the next episode with that underlying and subtle sense of unease that always seems to be present. An ever present thought that there’s no point in starting anything or forging ahead with getting my life on track again.
Strangely I’m not feeling angry about that anymore despite it also being a memory from my childhood – the persistent refrains “Don’t do that now, dinner’s almost ready” or “Don’t do it there I’ll be needing the table in a minute” or “Put that lot away; look, it’s everywhere!”.
It’s only the details that are different; the protagonist and the outcomes are the same though. Something that Mum does causes me to put everything on hold. I used to resent it hugely but now it’s just another instance of the same old thing. It causes me to procrastinate all the time – putting off starting something for weeks, months, even years – but then when I do start some project or other, finding it almost impossible to complete it for some spurious reason or other.
I’ve so many ideas just hanging around waiting for me to begin again and my intention is there to start them one day. Honestly! I just have to find the right way of getting through the backlog and sorting what goes on the “must do” or the “ought to do” list or the “bin/file/shred” list. Ahh, and there I go again; another way of procrastinating!
There must be a solution for me somewhere. I’ve started with the acceptance of things being what they are; isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t it all start falling into place now?
No? No. No, you’re quite right. I’ve got such a long way to go yet – discovering me once more; trusting myself and my intuition; strengthening my intuition in the first place; allowing myself to be educated in profound subjects as well as trivia; kicking social media into the gutter; having the courage to say no when I need to; reconnecting with those who mean the most to me and, – probably the biggest hurdle for me – letting go of the pain and regret of the past, the grief of loss in all its forms and, bit by bit giving up the destructive need to hang onto things that no longer have any relevance or joy for me.
It would seem that after all these years, both Mum and I have reached our goals in life and who would have thought that they’d actually be so similar: the need to be part of a supportive and safe community that supports our respective need for space & peace; to know that our loved ones love us; and the freedom to follow our own thoughts & desires. And all of that pursued without feeling guilty because we’ve put ourselves first or the thought that someone else’s needs are more important than our own.
Imagine the audacity of living a life that way. Sounds good to me!
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