“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Sunday

I am such an inconsistent blogger, but I've just been busy lately. As was the case with the first surgery, Mom has been a handful during recovery. The after effects of anesthesia and the pain meds do a number on her. She becomes downright delirious and much like an Alzheimer's patient. Plus, she has been in a lot of pain. And there's always that fear of her falling again. We had to take her to the ER a few days ago because she scratched her incision and it started bleeding. She was convinced she was bleeding to death and got very angry with me for not being as concerned about it as she thought I should be. Five hours at the ER to tell her that she was fine and send her home. 

I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. It's just frustrating. I don't make a very good nurse. 

Warning Signs

Mom came home from the hospital yesterday and is doing pretty well. Mainly she sleeps. Pain meds pretty much knock her out. The surgery was a success. Now if we can prevent her from falling anymore she should be fine.

The picture above is from one of her discharge papers. The warning signs of a heart attack are the same symptoms I have during a panic attack. So you can see why I'm afraid when one hits. I'm sure an actual heart attack is even more intense than what I experience but when I'm having a panic attack my mind always goes to the what-ifs. 

Sweet 16

I had my daughters over this evening to celebrate Emily's 16th birthday (it was on the 9th). Per her request, we had tacos and nachos and Coca-Cola cake. I gave her a keepsake box that says Color Guard on the top, and a gift card to go shopping with. She seemed to really like her gift. They only got to stay a couple of hours but we had a fun time. I hope to see them again soon. They just live down the road but they stay so busy. I cherish the time I do have with them, though. I love all three of my children so much. I am very blessed.

Courage

I read my piece to the writing group yesterday evening and everyone said they liked it. The author said I was a "deep thinker" and that my writing was "lyrical"...I suppose that's good? He gave me some insightful advice about how to make my writing even better, and I'm very grateful for that. Turns out I actually enjoy this kind of setting with like minded writers. I was still a little nervous, even after taking two anxiety pills that day, but now that I have made it through I feel like I could do it again, maybe without the pills next time. I feel like I've opened a window out of my social prison. Just a little window, not a big huge door, but even the small amount of light on the other side is enough to make me want more of it.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." (Anaïs Nin)

Books, Writing, and The Weekend

This is the current stack I'm working on. The top one was kind of silly, but it gave me some ideas for more books to read. The second one was much better and gave me better ideas of books to read. The third one I abandoned halfway through. Typical mental illness memoir. I wrote about that the other day. So now I have three more to read, and I'm going to the library tomorrow so I will probably come home with several more. I have a fear of running out of things to read, even though that's not even possible. I bought several TBR books at the library sale last month so I have back up in case I run out of library books.

I worked on my writing assignment this evening. I literally broke out in hives thinking about reading it to everyone Monday. So, I'm just going to take things step by step and work on one thing at a time. First write it (done), then rewrite, then don't think about it until Monday, then pray for mercy and courage. I'm going to get up early in the morning so I can edit in peace. Getting up earlier than my son is pretty hard to do, though.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Project Organization

Yesterday I started a huge project of rearranging and organizing the house. I had to move some pretty heavy furniture, but amazingly I am not very sore from it. I made room for some more bookcases, which are desperately needed. Now I just need to find some. I am pretty tired today, but I still have a lot more to do. I'm glad I finally got started on it.

Mom's surgery has been moved to Wednesday.

I Did It!

The other day I wrote about how I chickened out of going to the writing class. Well, they had another one today and I went! And I survived! It was actually a lot of fun and I have an assignment for next week.

I am so proud of myself. All day I tried to talk myself out of going because I was so scared to be around people. But I knew how lousy I would feel if I succumbed to my fear like last time. And I feel terrific now that I actually did it.

There were eight ladies besides myself there, and the male author who was leading the class. I didn't really have to talk to anyone, and the author was very insightful.

The scary part now is deciding whether I will be able to read my assignment to the class next week or not. For now I'm just going to write it and see if I feel up to it then. Chances are I may not get to go to the next one because my mom may be in the hospital. She is having surgery to correct the wiring around her breast bone that has come loose. So who knows. We'll see. I'm just glad I took a step out of my shell. It's exhilarating!

Memoirs

I'm so often disappointed in memoirs about mental illness. I feel like if you have read one you have read them all. The ones I have read have all been written by extremely intelligent people (their words) who had their breakdown while going to some big shot college. There's always lots of self harm, risky sex, an eating disorder or two, and some great psychiatrist that saved their life. I am sorry these writers went through what they did and I'm sure many people can relate to them, but I just can't. It's not the story I have lived. Well, parts of it are my story, but with a lot less shock value. I guess my story wouldn't sell, but I still want to write it. I just feel like my tale would be too boring and not risky enough to be published. I'm no one special. No one knows me so why would they want to read about my life?  So, that's probably why I haven't written it yet. Too much doubt. Not enough focus. It's hard enough to write a blog post these days. Meds have taken a lot of my creative abilities and smashed them to little nonexistent bits. Sometimes I wish I could find the girl that's underneath all those pills. For all the problems that are under control now, she had something that just isn't there anymore. But stability is worth the loss, right? Sometimes I just don't know.