The speed at which I work
Recent events have been a painful reminder to me that I’m not being entirely honest when I say that “I’m fine, I can manage.” It appears to me now, that the speed at which I work is not what others – nor what I – suppose it to be.
Yes, I can manage, and I do. But the effort of managing takes its toll, as does the effort to maintain the appearance of being able to do what others do, at their speed, and with the insouciance that seems almost universally expected: just because they understand what they are talking about and always work at the run, does not mean that I do, or can.
Recently my mother was discharged from hospital – again. Only this time it seems to have been done in a hurry. Perhaps that is down to my mother’s own very clearly expressed misery at once again being in hospital, and her doubtless acute desire to get home as soon as possible. But the end result has been, that when the physio, the staff nurse, the OT, the carers or the GP surgery manage to contact me, I’m expected to leap up, agree with their requests and do what I’m told immediately. “Go here, fetch that, yes, now.”
And I have no objection, in principle, to this. I’m glad to know what I can, or need to do, to help matters to settle satisfactorily. But whereas a walk round to my mother’s would, for an Anita or a Bob be a matter of cheerful moments to be leapt into and thereafter instantly forgotten on the way to the next thing, for me it requires at least a half hour of thought and action, the interruption of my hastily cobbled together sandwich, and a traipse through the complex morass of my emotions to achieve a fresh accommodation with my other priorities.
Does having to meet the taxi driver who is bringing my mother’s medications from the hospital mean I won’t get any lunch? Will yet another trip to my mother’s front door – the third in a busy morning – mean that I can’t go with my daughter to do what we had previously planned? After well-nigh four years of leaping and sorting and late-night emergency dashes in the car, what’s the best way to do this next thing quickly?
(to be continued)
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September 10, 2021
Do people forget?
Fran Macilvey cerebral palsy, Fran's School of Hard Knocks, Happiness Matters 0 Comments
Do people forget?
By now, I’ve been intimately involved with my mother’s affairs for several years. And whereas even members of my family will say on occasion, “It’s just to collect Mum’s meds, she’s just out of hospital!” or “It’s only one day, what’s the problem?” I can’t help feeling an ache and exhaustion in my bones, nor can I escape the regret of knowing that doing any physical task – let alone tasks for my mother that have become loaded with worry, regret and sorrow – takes me three times as much energy as for someone who walks easily, who can stroll at the run twice as fast as I stagger, and who doesn’t have to worry about falling off pavements and such like. For me, there are no longer any ‘simple’ things.
Do people forget to see that? In the midst of others’ busy lives, I find that my very real limitations impede their expectations of what I will do for them. Even my nearest and dearest sometimes appear to be oblivious to my exhaustion. But though I’m still here, still working, I have finally begun to accept that the end result of continuing to work as I have done, navigating and dealing with constant demands and a shifting landscape of imperatives and semi-disasters, for me will be complete physical and emotional collapse.
I have no wish to go down that route. So, as a first priority, I have to do what I can to set my own agenda and stick with it. Faced with seemingly endless and tiring jobs to manage for other people, this is the only answer I can summon: I must do first what I need to do, and the rest will have to be dealt with by others, or simply not dealt with. Any and various disasters that crop up will either have to be endured, allowed to languish, or sorted out, and not always by me. It’s what we planned for in any case: no-where has it ever been writ, or stated, that I am my mother’s physical carer, or that I am available for her every beck and call.
In recognition of that, I have to truly begin to accept my limitations and step back, so that, little by little, I can reassert my right to make choices which, though they may not always be the best, are at least my own.
My mother will approve of my desire to reassert my freedom in what is, after all, my own life.
Thanks for reading.
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