11 July 2012


I have been reviewing material for the second Lay Trainer meeting.  One of the topics covered tomorrow is emergency planning.  Just reading through the power point slides makes my heart race.  I am in no way prepared for emergency.  I have carefully avoided any such planning since David died.  I bluntly refused to put an emergency contact down on any form until very recently.  I have no complete list of Julia’s providers or her medications or people who are willing to step in if anything happened to me.  I never had these lists when David was alive.  There were two of us and one of us would certainly be capable of dealing with any emergency.  Right?  Even that was pretty foolish.  I need it now.  
Wow!  Am I in denial or what??
Breathe.  
I’ll finish preparing for the lecture tonight.  And add emergency preparation to my to do list.  I love making lists of what I need to do but then looking at the lists can be very anxiety provoking.  Too much of all of that today.
Breathe again.
Try to remember the small steps.
And breathe.
Therapist chaos these days.  My intensive team, so solid and dependable for the last two years is disintegrating.  People are moving on, which is understandable, but the replacement therapists are working for a few weeks and then fading away.  This is not personal but it is a pain.  My concerns are mostly that Julia works best and learns the most when she has developed relationships with people.  She works best when she is not spending time and energy testing people’s reasoning and resolve.  
I almost panicked today.  
And then I breathed.
I had a dinner party on Monday evening.  Pretty impromptu.  Some neighbors invited on Sunday and Monday, after Maria and I went to see a Shakespeare’s Richard III on Saturday.  It was the first Shakespeare I had seen in more than a few years.  A good production and I ate it up in big bites.  Julia and I have to go to more theater and then, maybe next year, I can take her to a Shakespeare comedy.  
But back to topic.  I asked Maria to come over for dinner one night and comparing calendars, it was either Monday or scheduling for late August.  We collected a few more neighbors and I had a bit of a crowd to cook for.  Ok, not a crowd, seven.  And I enjoyed the cooking -- gazpacho, sweet potato quesadillas, guacamole, enchiladas, and a corn salsa.
It was great fun to cook, straighten the house, and set the table.  I showered just a bit of time before people were due to come over and reached for a favorite shirt that I always wore for summer gatherings.  Just like old times.  No, not like old times.  Over and over during the preparations there were rememberings of so many parties, meals and gatherings we had hosted.  When I went though my belongings a few months ago, I wondered whether I should get rid of things I love to use when people come over -- candle holders, cloth napkins, bowls and serving trays -- because I could not foresee when I would use them again.  In the end, I kept only what I really loved but still wondered.  
I took out some on Monday.  
If I want the social life of dinners at home and theater evenings and movies, I have to instigate.  Friends, particularly Marie who is my theater buddy, have pulled me out for the last two years, but I need to take charge.  I have to make the time, find the child care, invite the friends, prepare and host.  I don’t want to live without the reasons for collecting candles and table linen.  My house has not been full of celebration, I have missed laughter.  
I have hosted practice get togethers in the last two years.  Mary and Robert, Amy and her family, but I hardly cooked.  Lots of take out and I lit no candles.  
Making a new life is so much broader than I imagined.  
I am walking better today than I have since my surgery albeit still using my boot.  Damned metaphor of healing that foot of mine is.  And I wonder if I should have had the foot surgery in 2009 when it was first suggested to me.  Maybe we, that is David and I, would have had some better reference for his healing body if mine had taken so long to heal.  None of this healing is wasted on me.

1 comment:

Traci said...

A dinner party at your house sounds lovely.

Take out is normal around here for our gatherings. I'm so very simple minded. :/

love you! Only 2 1/2 more weeks.

(Sorry about the therapists. I hate that for you.)

Love, Traci