Some days, like today, are completely up-ended to ensure survival. I'm always running on survival mode these days. It's been quite a few years since I wasn't. The things to survive have only been added to rather than escaping or being rescued from. Maybe that's what life is. But I miss not being in survival mode. Especially now. I keep pressing forward most of the time. Because my choices are to press on or to give up. And the latter is abhorrent to me because of all that would be affected. However, once in a while a day comes along when I just know that pressing on will destroy me. I come to a complete stop those days--not always by choice. But I have had the wisdom to recognize and not push myself at those moments.
It usually takes a day, but I have had it last 2 or 3 days a couple of times. And these halted days feel a bit like I have given up. If outsiders were to observe, that is probably what they would think I'm doing. But I know what giving up would entail. And I haven't done that. I have retreated into some semblance of a shell to wait out the inner storm. There may be tears. There may be no eating. There may be Hallmark watching. There may be blank stares into nothingness. There may be mindless playing of my Harry Potter Puzzle game. There may be little communication from me. There is likely not going to be any cooking or cleaning or any other responsibility done because if I do I will crumble completely.
Today felt especially hard. I had been doing all right. Then one thing from yesterday started a chain reaction, spiraling me into fear, hopelessness, questioning. Everything that I have to do for the next several months swooped in to suffocate me. I hurt at every angle and my body decided to feel all the pains, too. I'm still not great, but I was able to rally enough to eat dinner and handle bedtime with the kids (including beginning the next book in our family reading of the fabulous Captain Underpants series--which is saying something for my improvement).
Two things bother me in all this:
1) being a female with spaghetti brain and emotions and how one thing set off all of this. I know it means I need to do so much more to get me off the cliff I'm at. But none of the well-meaning suggestions from others really work for our family right now. Not unless you can finagle us to qualify for home health help, or reliable, trustworthy, FREE child care or house cleaning services. Or a free secretary to come help me with all the mental load things I had hoped Mon Amour would one day step up and help me with but now is physically and mentally incapable of doing.
2) wondering if this halted state is going to occur more often after Mon Amour dies? I finally finished reading a very difficult-for-me book by a widow who had some similarities to me in being a caregiver to her dying spouse while caring for little children. And I remember her saying that her recovery after his death was actually faster than spouses who deal with their partners' sudden deaths. Because we spent much of the mourning phase as we watched the terminal illness take our spouses.
So maybe I have "hope" that it won't be as much. But I have no doubt that they will be there. As long as I keep finding relief in my Savior (a great message I got to listen to at a Women's Conference this past Saturday), and holding on to the hope He gives, I will make it through. I just needed to write about it. Because this blog is to lay out all the stuff--the good and the difficult. To help me one day and maybe help someone else, too.
