Today was one of those days in which I totally lost my balance and splatted on the hard pavement. Luckily no one is hurt, (At least I don't think so) but my pride is bruised and my inner competence meter bent if not broken. This eclectic work day I struggled fruitlessly to get lots of the little things done. I wasn't trying to do any big projects. I have a couple of those waiting for Friday.
An academia day during Spring break, this day with just one meeting on the calendar, was mine. This was to be an administration day. I was planning to use this student light day to catch up, clear my metaphorical desk. Silly me, I had a vision of normal clergy work, just simple things, like correspondence with congregations where I am scheduled to preach, or phone calls to their music directors, follow up notes with colleagues regarding board works in progress, paperwork for reimbursements from the treasurer, short little e-mails confirming or declining engagements, all things that previously took less than an hour or two of my day. In my fantasy I would use the time when mom's helper was caring for her, to restore some semblance of order to my professional mind space.
Well, at least I had a plan. At this point none of this is complete. That I expected otherwise considering the decisions I kept making along the way is testament to my delusion. Having Mom here has changed everything.
I am beating myself up because I did not get my "work" work done. My first thought is that, perhaps, if I changed how and where I tried to accomplish things it would help. Right now I have created the new habit of doing clerical things in places that were not designed for such activity. I began doing this because I needed to be in the same area as Mom to keep an eye on things. It seemed logical that I could do some of the computer work that I have always done from my home office by multitasking in the living room on my laptop. I was naive. It hasn't worked yet. My files are upstairs when I am downstairs. The composition is always interrupted, at least once,and my concentration is perpetually split, unfocused and, of course, fails. I fell behind. I began to cut corners, leaving things "good enough" only to try and save time. This "Workus Interruptus" had me missing important elements, and consequently I ended up doing nothing appropriately or even remotely on time.
This tends to make others unhappy.
After several months of trying to make things flow smoothly, I surrendered. I just got too frustrated. I was getting increasingly stressed as it seemed that the addition of Mom to our lives had opened up every anxiety on the planet. In retrospect the anxiety was probably mine being reflected back, but as a result all my little part time jobs began to suffer.
My identity is tied so thoroughly to my ministries,this chaos of careers in jeopardy untethered me. I was holding on to every thread of my former life, every fiber of denial, shreds of ripped relationships and the strings of hopes that would never be realized. The unrelenting storm of this disease was twisting them all into a rope to strangle me. I was lost.
I called the Alzheimer's Association Hot line. I cried on the shoulder of the angel that answered the phone. I got help. Thank God! Each strand of information, each affirmation of this new reality, each connection to another caregiver veteran brought me hope. When the packet of brochures and scientific articles arrived in the mail I devoured them. I began to see what was happening.
The chaos was actually real. I couldn't fix it. The disease was not going away. I was not going to be able to deny it any more.
When she moved in I was having difficulty making sure mom was safe as I did not yet know what she needed and she was having trouble. My house was flooded with all her belongings. I had not wanted to cause her any more stress by forcing her to give up all the contents of her apartment as well as the location of her home, so I had the movers pack everything and put it in my garage to be unpacked as we could, bit by bit and sorted here.
I didn't, however empty my own house of our own detritus of long residence before she arrived and so there was really no place to put anything. We then spent the first couple of months moving things about, trying to incorporate her treasures into ours, the goal to become one family. Great idea that seemed right at the time. Add dementia. Order isn't part of her skill set anymore. That is the hardest thing for her now. If it is going to change, those of us who are not ill have to do it for her.
We started by clearing out her room of anything she wasn't actually going to use in there. She lives in the room that used to be my office. My office is now in the room that used to be my sons. Most of his things are gone with him, but not all. My house is so cluttered,almost all in my home office, with things moved out of the way that I cannot even find my desk, let alone clear it.
So now, here I am trying to make order out of this chaos. I was beating myself up because I didn't get my "work" work done. But I did. I forgot my other "work", that of being mom's executive function. Today I did not get the e-mail done because I signed her up at the gym. It took us four hours from beginning to end to help her get the membership, the helper and she oriented to the protocols of the facility, to get her acquainted with the water exercise instructor, signed up for the class, and home again. She wants and needs exercise and she needs the safety of the helper or me with her to accomplish that task.
So, today we created another little bit of order in our universe. I forgot that on top of my official ministries I have another. A full time one. I only thought I had the one scheduled meeting after all. It is Spring break. Even the Biblical God took a day off. Now there is an inspirational story of wrestling chaos into order! Today the balance tipped to mom. It will have to do. And I need to rest. Tomorrow is a hospital day and the balance must shift there.
Great spirit, help me remember that all ministries are sacred, that work is just one way it is expressed and that rest, and recreation are also holy.
Amen
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