Like a Mother

Redefining Motherhood

Grief

My 2018 Word for the Year: Nourish

Last year, I jumped on the bandwagon of replacing resolutions with selecting a word for the year. My word for 2017 was freedom, and for the first half of the year, I embraced it and let it guide me. I wrote openly and honestly, I followed my heart, and I sought new opportunities that helped me find the freedom to be me.

And then, on July 10th, my Dad died. I became the peanut butter in the sandwich generation, shifting immediately into caretaker mode for my mother who has her own health issues, and my freedom to think, write, act, and follow my own path took a backseat to all the things that had to be done, and to the people who needed me.

If you’ve ever taken one of those quizzes that identifies your personality type, mine is NOT caretaker. It’s not even close to caretaker. It’s not something that comes easily to me at all. However, it’s something I’ve been doing for 12 years since the birth of my first son with special needs, so I’ve adapted and learned to do what doesn’t come easily, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

And when life hands me something I don’t like, I get overwhelmed, and I shut down. I procrastinate. I don’t take care of myself. I ruminate. I obsess. I don’t sleep. I eat like crap. I get stuck in the downward spiral of my monkey mind, and I let negativity win.

I noticed myself making more impulse buys. I was binge eating again. I was dropping the ball, often. I didn’t follow through on commitments. I also felt like total crap. I got sick. My body wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. And I’m still not happy.

I don’t always practice what I preach, and when a friend is stuck with something, I’ll often say, “You can be bitter, or you can be better.” Lately though, I’ve been bitter.

Now it’s time to be better.

And by better, I mean better to myself.

Nourish

Why did I choose nourish as my word?

I sat with myself and thought of all the things I wanted to gain from this coming year. Words that emerged were: grounded, balance, self-care, success, rest, and choice.

I looked at those, and it was obvious that I needed to focus on bringing myself back to center, but I also launched a new business in 2017 that is thriving. And if I want that growth to continue, it will need more of my attention. What word could support that growth and success, but also support my self-care?

And that’s when I found nourish. Nourish fit all that I’m hoping to achieve in 2018.

I will nourish myself. I’ll nourish my body with healthier food choices, and more regular physical activity, and with more rest.

I will nourish my soul by exploring new spiritual practices and making time to meditate. My soul also longs to explore new places, and nourishing my wanderlust is important, so I will find ways to travel more.

I will also nourish my business. I’ll focus on opportunities, and when presented with them, I will ask the questions, “Does this nourish my business? Will this help me grow?” I’ll also nourish the team I’ve built with training and encouragement.

In addition, I need to nourish the relationships in my life. The time I spend with my children — is it meaningful? Does it nourish our relationship? My relationship with my husband has lacked intimacy, so I will look at ways I can nourish that need as well. And my friendships… I did a lot of taking from my friends in 2017. I needed them, and they were there for me. Now I will return that favor and nourish those relationships that mean the most to me.

When I break down all the ways I can add nourishment, it actually seems like a bit too much. Can I really add all of this to my life this year? But the truth is that even if each area is only improved in small way, I’ll be more satisfied with my life, and I will be happier. Nourishing the areas that have been neglected will only make me better, and life is too short to be bitter.

The Craptastic Summer of 2017

Question: Where’ve you been, Lynne?

Answer: In short, I’ve been the star of my own shit-show!

Okay, maybe I’m being dramatic, but the summer of 2017 definitely ranks in the bottom five summers of my life.

In July I lost my Dad. He was 64 years old and died of a massive heart-attack. As soon as I heard my mom say through tears over the phone that she had bad news, I knew what she was about to tell me. And in that moment, my universe shifted. It’s a long story, but the short version is that I became peanut butter. Yes, peanut butter. Have you heard of the sandwich generation? Well I’m now the sticky glob of peanut butter in the middle, stuck on one side raising my own young children, and now stuck to caring for my mother too.

And quite frankly, it sucks.

Supposedly there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I’ve been stuck on anger for about three months. I’m pissed off. I’m mad at my dad for not taking better care of himself. I’m mad at him for assuming he would outlive my mom. And I’m really mad at him for leaving at a time when our relationship wasn’t as strong as it had been. And these three reasons are only the tip of the iceberg. Oh, and I’m not just mad at my dad… I’m kind of mad at everyone lately. So I’m super fun to be around! I won’t bore you with all of it, that’s what my therapist is for, but I’ve come to realize that I was holding on to a lot of resentment and anger long before he died, and his sudden death just brought all that to the surface.

I’m an only child, and my mom has a lot of medical issues of her own, so that has added to the ooey-gooey-ness of my new peanut butter life because there’s no jelly in this sandwich to help me. I know there are many reasons people only have one child, and my parents tried for more, but they were unsuccessful due to my mom’s medical problems. However, the past few months have reaffirmed my own decision to have three children because dealing with this stuff on your own sucks.

(Side note: I really need to find more synonyms for sucks.)

I had absolutely no idea how estates worked prior to this experience. While I’ve been to my fair share of funerals for family members, and friends’ family members, and even a few friends, my dad is the first person in my immediate circle to die. So this is the first time I have had to do the work. I became the executrix (a word that sounds a lot more fun than the actual job) of my dad’s estate, and started diving into the craziness of his finances, property, and other estate matters. The last time I had a crash-course like this was when my first son was born, and I had to suddenly become an expert in genetics, and all things medical and special needs, and this baptism by fire is almost as much fun as that one.

But what sucks most of all in the middle of all this overwhelming shit that I now have to deal with, is that I haven’t actually dealt with the most important thing. My dad is gone. Typing that makes me cry, but then I choke the tears back because I know I just don’t have time to be sad right now. And that fact itself makes me more sad and more mad.

About a month after we buried my dad, my oldest was scheduled for surgery – a lengthening procedure to extend the growing rods that correct his scoliosis. He has these every 6-9 months, and this was his 5th surgery for this condition, but 2 of the previous 4 resulted in post-op infections. So even though the procedure itself is pretty straightforward and only requires an overnight hospital stay for IV antibiotics, we always hold our breath a little until about two weeks after the surgery.

Two weeks and one day after surgery, he spiked a 104 degree fever, became lethargic, and developed a huge bulge of fluid under his incision. He was admitted that day, started IV antibiotics and was back in the OR the next day to clean out the infection. We spent a week at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, coming home the day before school started.

Thankfully this infection wasn’t like the last two — this was a different bacteria, just under the skin and not down in the hardware, so it was much easier to treat and didn’t require long-term IV antibiotics. In fact, he only need oral antibiotics for a month. So even though it was an unexpected setback, it could have been much worse.

In mid-September though, we took a break from everything, rented a house in North Carolina on the intercostal waterway, took the kids out of school for a few days, and got some much needed respite from reality. But unfortunately between the hospital stay and the vacation, I let things slide. The three weeks since returning home have been a blur, and while that blur included some awesomeness like a trip to attend the Type-A Parent blogger conference, things have continued to pile up, and I’m feeling even more overwhelmed by all the things on my figurative plate, and by the actual piles on my desk.

When I get overwhelmed, I shut down and can’t deal. I quit. I don’t go to bed when I should, and instead I scroll Facebook for hours exhausting myself by essentially doing nothing. Because I have no idea where to start. I look for easy fixes, and spend more time on those than the actual task would take. I also have no impulse control. (I’m looking at you, Amazon purchases, and you, entire batch of brownies I ate.) And when I’m overwhelmed, I don’t write.

So publishing this post is a big step for me. This post has been in my head and heart for a while now. I worried though… about talking about it. I worried what my mom would think when I talked about being angry with my dad, and how I’m feeling overwhelmed by caring for his estate and, by default, for her. We don’t talk about the hard things in our family. And maybe that is part of my problem. I don’t even know if she’ll read this, but in the end, I wrote this post for me, not her.

Grief is a funny thing. Even though people talk about stages, those stages don’t happen in sequence, and they never end. I’m trying to allow myself grace through this. To forgive myself for being angry, and show compassion for myself when I feel overwhelmed. It’s not easy, but I’m trying. And really, that’s all I can do.

No. Everything Does NOT Happen for a Reason.

I’ve heard all the platitudes since becoming the mom of a child with special needs. Whether it’s “God never gives you more than you can handle,” or “God only gives special kids to special parents,” or my personal favorite, “Everything happens for a reason.” Well, I’m here to tell you that they all suck.

I totally get that people are just trying to say something comforting, and the good angel on one shoulder wants me to keep smiling politely and say, “Thank you” like a good girl to keep the peace. But that smart-mouthed devil on the other shoulder (the one who actually isn’t afraid to speak her mind) – she’s ready to call bullshit on your supposedly comforting statements.

The comfort given is supposed to comfort the person receiving it. When you tell me that my son’s disabilities happened for a reason, you are basically telling me that I needed to learn some life lesson from the Universe (or God or whomever decided this so-called reason) and that the only way to teach it to me is to give my child a life-long hardship. Well, gee, thanks, because now I feel even shittier about myself.

“Oh, but Lynne… can’t you look back and see how having your son has changed your life for the better?”

That’s the typical argument – someone ultimately points out how a fight with a spouse led to being late for a bus that crashed, or how a terrible accident led someone to find their life’s purpose, or how a child with special needs made me a better person. But I still respectfully disagree. Things happen by chance or by choice.

How do you know the changes you made in your life would not have happened anyway for another reason? There are always choices and catalysts for our decisions. We have no idea what would have been and if that reality would be better or worse than the one we live.

No, it’s our perception of the events that leads to the changes we make. I can see where unexpected circumstances led me down different paths, but it’s the decisions I made and how I reacted to what happened that made me who I am. Believe me, I could have reacted much differently, and many people do.

I have trouble believing in a world where getting hit by a car or having a disabled child was “meant to be.” A higher power that thinks the only way to get through to us is by making someone else suffer would have to be one spiteful mofo, and I just don’t think that’s true.

But I do believe in a world where your circumstances don’t define you or me. They might force us to make tough choices and blaze a new trail than the path we thought we would take, but we are still in control of those choices because life is a choose-your-own-adventure book, not a how-to manual.