acceptance

March 18, 2014

Reading with Ariel

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Reading with Ariel

I hope readers of my blog will forgive me: I have not posted anything this week, because I am narrating the audiobook of “Trapped: My Life With Cerebral Palsy”. Doing so is heart-wrenchingly difficult.

The audio producer kindly asked me if I would like to read. The word “like” suggests enjoyment, fulfilment. So when I said ‘yes please’, that was fine, and doubtless they see no reason for me to be unhappy about it. Of course, I would do it, even if they asked me again, I would give the same answer, but that does not mean it has been easy.

Writing about the painful episodes of my life – that would be from the age of five to about forty-two, then – is one thing. There is something reassuring in writing that conveys meaning which, while it may have to be spelt out, nevertheless maintains a dignified silence. Articulating the same passages with sound, brings a whole level of new pain to the experience which can hardly be appreciated by those who do not have to endure it. Actually, I am familiar with being told what to do, and my obedient persona complies easily with requests to repeat difficult passages. These are the worst, of course, because they are the hardest to get right, to do calmly, and so have to be done again. I pray continuously, not to break down and weep. I ask for help from my guardian angels. I clench my fists hard and beg, and swallow and wait and hope for the next storm to pass, because there are timetables to meet. Because there are only so many times I would like to cry about this, again.

Brosen Bielsk - Podlaski Aniol
Brosen Bielsk – Podlaski Aniol

It has something to do with feeling humiliated, and having to expose truths and lies that I have held beneath a dignified silence for so long.

Whatever way I might have chosen to play this, there were always going to be disadvantages and benefits. I learn, the storm passes, and a smile is always waiting to lift me up. Thank God.

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March 14, 2014

Learning to Float

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Learning to Float

I always loved floating, knowing I was totally relaxed and safe on my back in the swimming pool. Later, in the waves of the gentle Indian Ocean, I felt the same boundless freedom and joy, with nothing to hold me back.

When I was older I encountered the Atlantic and the story grew rougher, heavier and more ominous. The sun hid behind dark clouds and was a long time showing itself again. I pushed my way, buffeted by storms and big, fathomless deeps below me, filled with gap-jawed monsters. The depths threatened to swamp my small strokes and to pull me under, salty seawater in my mouth. If I drowned, who would notice out here?

I felt an affinity for other drowning souls, the ones I passed in circles to nowhere. The times we met, we would wave at one another, exchange a joke and carry on swimming.

One evening, just as the sun was setting over the horizon, a small double-oared boat came. I was hauled out of the water into unfamiliar, warm blankets and handed a mug of warm tea. It felt very unusual and I suffered from emotion sickness for a while longer, as my legs, thin and wobbly beneath me, learned the painful art of taking their own weight again, finding strength and standing as tall as I could: I just had to push myself upright and after a few tipsy wobbles, there I was, with the rest of the dry crew.

But I was unused to life on dry land. Like a fish out of water, I missed the wet – the depths of sorrow teeming with slippery, quicksilver life – that felt so real but slithered away out of my grasp. It took a while to accept that rooted trees were valuable allies in the battles on land. To learn to look up and enjoy seeing their branches unfolded above me, especially when I noticed colours again. Yellows, oranges and reds became such a cheerful change from my usual blue. The heart pinks that blossomed in the arms of trees in Spring, brought home the value of love and friendship.

I marched forward with the rest of them and worked on smoothing my stride. It grew longer and more confident, though my body remembered going round in circles, feeling familiar slapping eddies that went no-where. As I pushed at sands, they rose in front of me. I struck at roots, at edges and ledges. I pushed past, always searching. I tripped and fell, though I moved forwards, always on the way to somewhere and something else. I hardly know what I was searching for.

I made out lamplight that burned constant and cleanly over the landscape. It brightly promised hope which I reached for, and answers for when I might stop to listen. Always the answers waited, in the piercing brilliance of the light, which gave me hope and courage to keep searching when evening came and darkness fell. With each declaration of strength, “I am strong. I am powerful. I am peace” my light shone brighter. The ripples these beliefs sent out – first resistance, then acceptance led me forward to a different knowing.

Each statement we make is like the arrow shot over the bows of our “difficulties” and landing in the soil of our fruitful future. It is our soul task, to flex our muscles and state benign beliefs strongly. As we move, we select and refine our choices. That we can do, seeing our choices all around us, after familiar eddies of disbelief come and go.

Regardless of which sea we swim in, we can learn to float again on the currents of our desire. Learning to float again, we do not need all the answers. We only need to decide what we choose, and the rest will come, so long as we can wait peacefully. A peaceful life is a happy life. A contented life is one that accepts. Accepting what we are, what we have and what we desire, we are in a state of allowing, and All comes to us in the best way it can.

 

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March 13, 2014

In The Driving Seat

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In the driving seat

For me, one of the hardest disciplines is waiting patiently: waiting to hear from other people, and having to accept more immobility than I would prefer. I have always wanted to run, skip, dance and move more than I could; and it has indeed been the work of years, to learn patience in the face of silence. Now, I prefer to reframe that unwelcome lesson with the reassurance that every silence is kind, and allows others – who are working hard on my behalf – to procure small miracles quietly. When I remember that “The Universe is constantly conspiring to work things out in our favour”, the most important thing is to decide, clearly, what I choose, and to let go.

Next week, I have to get myself to a recording studio over several days. It is out of town, on a route I am not familiar with. It also leads across one of the biggest and scariest roundabouts – with turnoffs and leads lanes of fast traffic – that I have ever encountered. I haven’t ever flown over it solo – My brave husband or the jolly taxi drivers do that – but I yesterday I did at least manage to get to the approach, before swinging off at a petrol station, just before showdown. I was rather petrified. But pleased with myself for driving so far.

Again, that fear mirrors much of the hesitancy I have about life, the indecision. It could be that, because I didn’t walk until I was five-and-a-half, I am simply unused to taking things in my stride. In the old days, my failure would have brought up feelings of loathing and despair, but now, I understand sadly, that forced immobility could excuse a lot, and there is no point being upset because I fail with what I set out to do. Maybe I will never be the best driver in the world, but I will always do my best. That thought will have to console me meantime. I will take cabs, which will cost far more than I can afford. Another hidden cost of disability? Not quite, but close.

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March 11, 2014

Believing in Best

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Believing in best

I have been browsing the website of the Society of Authors, which offers reasonable and very practical advice. Thank you, SoA. Membership is a possibility, and I shall reflect on that in the next little while. However, reading through their eye-opening material I cannot help detect a certain amount of realism creeping in. Of course. Realism is what everyone needs, isn’t it?

An advocacy group or a trade union rather specialises in offering realistic advice. Artists often need practical help, perhaps more than other professionals might. Before you rush to condemn my blatantly prejudicial pronouncement, I mean merely to suggest, tentatively, that those accountants, lawyers and architects who enjoy their jobs are probably better equipped, on the whole, to tackle the world of business, money and hard fact. Artists are perceived as nurturing dreams, rather lost in the realms of colour, music or written whimsy. To be creative, artists allow themselves to be carried away on the wings of fancy; and history is littered with examples of artistic geniuses who could not manage the transition to hard-headed marketing guru; which is why I suspect that artists, on the whole, benefit greatly from practical advice.

However, we have to tread a careful line between heeding practical advice and believing it. We may listen and learn, but to take into ourselves the wisdom that, for example, “(Writers) are appreciative and supportive of any efforts a publisher makes to promote their book, and entirely understand that in the vast majority of cases, given the number of books being published every year and how busy PR departments are, all an author can expect is a couple of weeks of effort around first publication” is to feel a toe-curling anxiety that is hardly beneficial to our prospects.

To succeed, whatever our private weaknesses and reservations, we need to believe that what we have already achieved, and what we are about to achieve, amounts to success. ‘For what we are about to achieve, may the Lord make us truly thankful.’ Without that belief, which often flies in the face of all the practical advice that others offer, we will surely sow the seeds of our failure. Writers achieve miracles every day, in blogs, letters, in emails carefully crafted, and witty replies on FB or a perfect Tweet. We need to believe in miracles, and keep seeing them everywhere in what we do. Success is not what other people tell us. It is what we believe about ourselves.

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March 10, 2014

Fear

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Optimism, faith and relaxing with Life were yesterday’s theories. God bless Sundays.

Today, I am wondering about the wisdom of having shipped out copies of my first book, “Trapped: My Life With Cerebral Palsy” to my long-time friends. I worry that they will read my story, and, filled with a new and worrisome incomprehension, they will flee from me, and possibly never speak to me again.

The older, wiser me steps in and attempts to arbitrate this fear, “Ah, but is fear of the reactions of others – even our friends – ever a reason to not do something which we feel impelled towards?”  And I know, of course not, no. If we let our fears of disapproval dictate our actions all the time, we would have very small lives. Ruled by fear, what do we become? Mere shadows. Intellectually, logically and spiritually, I know this. I know too, that my friends like and love me for who I am. In most cases, a mere book will probably not come between us. But emotionally, I am less robust, frightened of my steps into the unknown, this uncharted territory. My resolution wavers wildly, and I am prone to unexpectedly fierce bouts of weeping. How will my kith and kin react to this latest bout of independent action? When my neighbours see me again, will their minds rove constantly to the sorrowful and shameful revelations of my story? Will their eyes flicker in disbelief or widen in disgust? I doubt it, yet part of me is sorrowful in fear.

The answer is in what I have written earlier, that the Universe is constantly conspiring to work things out in our favour. So then, everything I do is part of that process, in which there is nothing much to think about, far less actually worry about and a great deal to enjoy. Okay, that sounds gentle and reassuring, so it works  meantime. Now, who else would like a copy of my book?

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March 6, 2014

Brian 2 – continued

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Brian 2 – continued

I wis a good kid. In primary I did well and enjoyed bein’ at school, but at the end of second year in the high school, I got bored. There was too much banter in class, disrespect and not what I was used tae, so I just left. Started bunking off a couple of days a week, but I would amuse myself, you know, go to the museums and that. I used to read all about everything, and I remembered a lot o’ it. That was interesting, not like being in class where the teacher threatened you all the time and the boys never sat still. Which was worse than doing nothing, really. I got used to making do for myself, and though I have no exams and that, I did well, learning to cook. It was just something I could do easily, after watching my ma cook for eleven of us all those years. It came naturally to me, and I enjoyed thinking what I could do with food. So I got a great job in one of the big hotels, really good money, got all the stuff, you know. I had the wife, the kids, the flash car and the great house. I used to think nothing of going for a drive with ma wife on my weekends off, somewhere to a nice restaurant for lunch, maybe. She would look at me as if I was mad, said she could easily cook us up something, but I liked treating her special when I got the chance. I always told her the money wasnae a problem and it wasn’t, not while I was working and bringing in maybe hundreds of pounds a week, especially with overtime and bonuses and all that. It was going well for me, and I was still young. When you’re young you feel like nothing can get to you.

The job was stressful. I recon I was sweating maybe ten hours a day, making meals over and over, and you just get to feel strong, a bit like a machine. Just plug it in and on we go. So when one of the lads started larking about with the white stuff, I took a hit and thought nothing of it. I could control what I was doing and anyway, that first time was a Saturday, after my shift. I remember it so clearly, now, that I didn’t even really think. I never had that feeling of, “What are you doing here, do you want to do this?” Nah, I just took what I was given and said, “Ta, mate” and “I’ll see you right” and all the things you say, when you think someone has done you a favour.

I got on with my life, with going home to the family and getting into work, but now I had two secrets. I had the drink, which was creeping up on me, and I had the new drug, which I didn’t take often, but then, you don’t need to, do you? It is never the same as the first time, though, and you have to keep taking more to get the same high. Just tiny bits more and more, so you hardly notice. No-one said anything to me, and my wife just thought it was the booze. A couple of times her face swam in and out of focus when I was driving, so she took the wheel, but she just let me cool off after. It crept up that slowly, by the time she noticed, I was far gone and didn’t care about anything much except earning enough to keep my habit going. As far as I knew, I was earning, so that was alright, and so long as I could do that, no-one could complain, could they?

Until the boss found me weaving about the kitchen, sweating and swearing and brandishing knives. Paranoia is not good in any kitchen. Straight away he knew what it was, and he warned me, said he would be within his rights to fire me on the spot. Can’t have chefs threatening to slice open the waiters, can we? But he gave me one more chance and, of course, I blew it. I was all mixed up, completely out of control most of the time. Charging around like a demented dog, it is no wonder I was run out of there very quickly after he found me threatening to slice a delivery man into pieces. That would have done nothing for the reputation of his hotel, would it? I can smile now, but actually, I feel ashamed that people have given me such good chances and I’ve let them down.

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March 5, 2014

Brian 2

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Brian 2

“Oy! Watch where you’re going, won’t ya?!” Suddenly, there was this woman yelling at me to keep out of her way, rolling forward on the balls of her feet and standing over me, the bulk of her body blocking out the draining light of a late afternoon in August. She had a fag in her fingers and the smell was drifting unpleasantly up my nostrils, but you know, the burnt heat of it sort of woke me up. Dozing on my patch where I always sit, she had just walked up and almost past me, about to kick me and then thinking better of it. “Gerra life, ya lazy bag of shite…” she mumbled, suddenly aware of her mistake and that I was alert and not actually a dope-head. I pulled on Gazza’s chain and just waited.  Maybe she hadn’t seen him tucked under the blanket at my side, or maybe she felt caught out, but she mumbled, hocked and spat just next to me, and then moved on, taking her shopping bag, her dripping fag and her bad attitude away with her.

I am getting used to it, but after more than twelve years on the streets, and being settled here where most people know me and respect my patch – I leave theirs well alone, too – angry outbursts from stupid people are getting a bit predictable, you know? Like, I have a brain in my head, I have good eyesight, and I know all the best places to get a warm bed or a meal for under a fiver. I can spot trouble at forty paces so I’m quite savvy enough. It’s a wonder to me, that people see me sitting peacefully here, just minding my own business, but they think I’m out of it, a fuck-head, witless, away with the fairies. I’m not, as it happens, and what happened to me could happen to any of youse, too.

I was the youngest of nine children. Me mum was always after me to tidy my side of the room, to brush my hair or my teeth, wash my face, make myself neat. Though her pestering annoyed me, something must have stayed, because I find myself becoming more house-proud as the years pass, which is daft. My house is currently a static caravan looking out onto a field in Midlothian. I’m renting it, courtesy of a friend of my da’s who has two of them, and lets me have that one for me and my dog.  It looks out onto a big field at the back. And I have my pitch here, just next to the bank and down from the High Street. It is a good place to sit, though I would not call it comfortable being on my arse for hours at a time. I’m thin under my padded jacket, I know, and I don’t much like it when well fed people point that out to me, either. It’s not as if I don’t know about food, after all.

People sometimes don’t see me, like when it’s crowded, like just at this time of year when the streets are mobbed and nobody’s looking where they’re goin’. They really don’t notice me down here and I get kicked in the shins. My dog, he gets stepped on, which isnae fair on him. People throw things too, bottles, cartons of half-finished food, they just throw them down and expect the Council to collect them up and take them away. Or they leave half-finished bottles of alcohol on the sill next to my head and the smell sends me back a few years.

I was a drinker, but it wasnae that did for me. Not really. Yes, I was mixing my drinks, drinking at work, but it was the coke that finally got tae me. One mistake. Really, that’s all it was, because with some drugs, ye just cannae dae it the once and expect tae leave it. It comes efter ye like a cloud of promises that make your mouth dry and your body sweat and your eyes see things that areney there. That’s the worst, the not feeling right and not knowing how long it will tak tae feel solid again.

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March 4, 2014

Brian

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I’m just sitting on the window ledge – smooth, warm marble, generous deep recesses and near the ground so I can comfortably rest – having a chat with my pal. I think his name’s Brian. I’m around most Thursdays and Sundays and now that summer is slowly coming out of her shell I like to sit here with my face tilted up to the sun. I can see why Brian likes it too – it’s is a great spot for being warm. When I reluctantly rise to go, I leave a few coins or a five and then I’m on my way. On the return leg I try to remember to turn back and wave goodbye, but with the thinking going on in my head, sometimes I forget.

It was his dog that I first saw, a barrel-chested black Staffie with a great big grin and a tail that wags so hard, he skites all over the place when he comes to say hello. I’ve always liked Staffordshire Bull Terriers. My mother had one, Susie, who was so excitable that Mum got rid of her. Anyway, I like this fella, who does the same dance with his back end when he is pleased. Took me ages to realise it was a boy, not a girl. But that is me. Always slow to know these things.

Brian is about my age, I guess. Just something about the flecks of grey in his hair which, despite being so badly cut, is thick and shiny when it has just been washed. The sun catches it, and it’s good to see him looking like himself. He looks better with his hoodie off his face, less caught up inside his poor clothes.

Anyway, one morning we were sitting just having a chat, and two young men came up, abruptly stopped and stood opposite us. They were moaning something unintelligible about getting together, being pals and doing stuff. Not looking at me, just at Brian and waving their hands about. From his spot on the ground he quietly looked up at them and said little. Nodded, agreed, doing nothing to aggravate them. He looked so vulnerable sitting on the ground, but if he was anxious, he hid it well. Maybe the dog concealed under the blanket at his side helped with that. I said after they left, “Pissed, you think?” and he said, “A bit of the other….”

How vulnerable the homeless are to being abused. Almost every encounter is with someone standing over them, in front of them, above them. I am glad I was sitting near him that morning, watching the strange interview.

After that, the whole story came out. How he’d had a great life, the fancy car, the big house, a wife and kids and a great job as a chef with a top hotel making obscene amounts of money. He had it all, and I asked if it was a slide into booze…Naw, though he was drinking, it was one mistake with drugs. Cocaine. Just the word terrifies me. Not a great idea being a chef in a kitchen with sharp knives when the paranoia starts to bite either, he said. It didn’t take long to lose the job, the car, the wife and the kids, though his daughter still comes up from South to see him when she can. It takes her twenty-four hours travelling on the bus. She stays the weekend and then she’s off again on another long bus ride home. I said she must love him very much.

I caught myself tearful later on that week, wondering what I might do to help. Would he prefer a large sum, or a smaller weekly amount, I asked? He is realistic, and said that he would prefer the small weekly amount, or it would all just get spent very quickly. So it’s harder to leave the street then. But maybe he would not want a job with a pay-packet. He gets bored easily and he likes being at his pitch, meeting his regulars and having his independence. He can take his dog for a walk in the middle of a sunny day whenever he likes. What will it be like for him when he gets older, though? I wonder about that as I get to the car and drive home.

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February 28, 2014

Waiting

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She sat and waited, trying to draw interest from the usual chic lit plot, in a fat book that drooped into her lap as she slept, and woke with a start, desperately hoping for something to happen. These situations always brought out the worst in her, she reflected: her books that were going to be delivered, but had not yet arrived. Should she stay in for them, forfeiting whole days of sunshine for the slim chance that a burly chap with a large box would arrive to signal the end of this latest, small obsession? Or the email that would signal a trip to a studio – which could be anywhere – and some recording time that she felt, would have filled last month in nicely.

These situations brought out the worst, the very worst of her fears, her impatience. Others, seeming to hold her life in abeyance, appeared heedless of her silent endurance. They were so busy, while she waited for them, and suffered, as she felt she had suffered in many previous lifetimes, crucified, just waiting for something to happen.

The answer to powerlessness, she recalled, was not to react like a scared rabbit frozen in the headlights. It was to ask, “What would a powerful person do, now?” What indeed. Go out, and not wait for others to come. Finish the countless stories waiting for an ending. Prepare, rest, write and pray: she knew that the Universe was constantly conspiring to work things out in her favour. Now all she had to do was believe it.

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February 24, 2014

Menopausal Mama

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Menopausal Mama

When I was a child I confidently declared that I would marry the man of my dreams. These things would happen easily and tidily to order: fall in love, marry, have kids, peacefully grow old and journey in bliss towards the bright light of old age, with heaven waiting at the end of the tunnel. All little girls paint this kind of picture as they compare notes, asking, “How many kids will you have?”

The story turned out less organised. Not many boys were interested in me during my teens and twenties. Their eyes were all over other longer-limbed beauties with looks that would make them quite at home in a Hollywood movie, strolling nonchalantly across the deck of some hundred-metre pleasure cruiser. When I lifted my eyes from my books and found true love, I was into my thirties, trying to hold down a crummy job, clinging to the wreckage of my independent, lonely life.

Luckily, Eddie came to me single and unburdened by heavy personal belongings. Still we put off marrying: life was fine, so why change it? And babies? What about them? Even after we married, they were something that came later and most probably to other people, not to me: not to an undomesticated, complicated woman with a disability, whose only physical blessings were dark hair and good teeth. Not until I was peering over the horizon towards the big Four Oh, were we blessed with a child. We spent ages calculating: “Do you REALISE that when she is twenty-one I will be almost sixty? If she waits ‘til our age to have kids, we will be too doddery to babysit.” The sums made me both wistful and rather grateful.

I flung myself into motherhood. One drawback of being an older mum is that doting grandmas and grandpas are rather rare. Not being blessed with lots of family around, I had little choice but to immerse myself in the practicalities. One of these was breastfeeding. If my daughter ever reads this she will blush, but the point is that nature’s nurture acts as a natural contraceptive. An older woman might watch out for irregular or non-existent periods signalling early menopause, but patchy periods at this time could equally have been caused by breastfeeding so when nothing started happening every month I rather carelessly ignored it. At the other extreme, I was too tired to care that bleeding for six weeks was unusual, a hint that my body clock was erratic. When my bleeding stopped for good, I was just forty-two. At first, I was simply so grateful not to be haemorrhaging blood down the toilet. Then, when the hot flushes and waking at four am became a regular feature, I reluctantly conceded that I was menopausal. And I had a three-year-old to look after.

For a day or two, I railed against Fate. Menopause was supposed to fill the gap, the space of quiet after the kids have grown tall and gone off to broaden their minds or to set up home in the Urals. Menopause happened to youthful-looking women in their mid-fifties, not to careworn hags just after being forty. Where was the justice in discovering that I was quite a good mummy BUT I couldn’t contemplate having any more kids, sorry about that?

Ever the realist, I made the best of my shameful situation. Feeling ancient before my time, I dropped, “Of course, when you are menopausal, as I am…” into conversations, just to test the reactions of my friends. No-one fainted, or gave any sign of being surprised, but then, I probably looked older than my age: knackered from lack of sleep and chasing a breezy pre-schooler, my baggy tops and dark elasticated trousers splotched with cheesy mashed potatoes and toilet training traumas.

Loving and caring for children is exhausting, and often there is no-one to turn to. The loss of workplace networks, the loss of status, of income, and the isolation of being the main or sole carer for many hours at a time, are just some of the burdens of modern motherhood. I could have found childcare and gone back to work – in theory – but on top of everything else, menopause flicked a switch in my internal systems and changed everything around just enough to be a total nuisance. Sleep was a piecemeal affair and my energy and emotions swung about. Night sweats, hot flushes and the loss of my appetites didn’t bother me, but the pain did. Suddenly my right foot could not take my weight and it sang with nerve-juddering agony almost continuously. If I wanted to stay awake during the day, popping pain relief pills didn’t work.

No-one wants to be seen crawling around on their knees when their neighbour pops in for a chat. Even for a mother with mobility issues, this just wasn’t the example I was hoping to set my daughter. Crawling, rocking and howling in agony were what she should have been doing, not me. She watched as I wept. A useless visit to an orthopaedic surgeon gave me the shot of indignation I needed to go on a quest for a pain-free life. It helped to galvanise me, when I realised that no-one knew me better than I did.

Looking back, I can see how lucky I was. Timing is everything, and when Seline started weaning and demanding lots to eat, that was when the pain in my joints really kicked in. From first noticing that sugar gave me mood swings, I began to re-educate myself about eating healthily, not just once and a while when I was feeling virtuous, but all the time. Having responsibilities forced me to grow up. I also pondered the whole subject of ageing, reading books which offered plenty of food for thought. Bathroom cosmetics were in at the start of my campaign. Squinting down the long list of ingredients written in tiny writing  on a bottle of frothy shampoo, I discovered a skin irritant….that got me thinking.

Since menopause, there are foods I avoid, because eating them makes my body hurt like hell. I used to enjoy them anytime, anywhere, but they now go on the rampage through my system and cause acute pain or coughing, wheezing and general discomfort. I have arthritis all over my joints and live with knowing that “someone like me” is often confined to a wheelchair by the age of forty. So taking care with what I eat is a small price to pay.

Whenever I feel deprived and wish I could have that double choc-chip burger with chips and salsa which everyone else is chomping with such relish, I take the plunge and eat some. What the hell – it can’t hurt, can it? If the answer is OUCH – YES IT CAN, I nod and sigh. The pain and irritation convince me, once again, that I am not “making it up”. If I wait a day or two, the pain leaves.

Tea and coffee, sugar, milk, beef, potatoes, tomatoes and a few other bruisers are all rare visitors to my plate. I count that a small price to pay for being able to walk with my daughter, live independently and sleep well without taking medication.

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