Please Make It Stop

My posts over the last year and a half have been intended to explain, not complain, about what is going on in my life. I hope it doesn't come across as complaining, but I realize it might.

If you've been reading during that time, you know about my husband's illness and death, my mother's increasing dementia, and just recently our series of snowstorms that brought extra physical labour that I feel poorly equipped to deal with.

What you didn't read about over the past year, because I didn't write about it, because I was having a hard time coping with the rest of my life at the time, was that there was a fire at my workplace and we had to move to a new location, and that there was another death in my extended family - a cousin with whom I became close after my dad's stroke. She had a rare medical condition but kept going and going and in my stupid naivete I didn't think ahead to the probability that she wasn't going to keep going forever. She passed away in July 2021, something that seemed both unthinkable when it happened and completely predictable in hindsight. I miss her optimism and sense of humour and wish that life had been kinder to her.

Now there has been another death, this time in my work family. My boss of twenty years died suddenly last weekend. We are a close-knit group at the office, and although he had recently retired and moved away, he was still doing some work for us remotely. He had a big personality and a huge heart and it seems impossible that we will never see him again.

In a much less sad - yet still significant - update, we had another 18 inches of snow last weekend, and have another storm coming this weekend. I didn't take my mother to my house the last time and I regretted it, as the roads were not plowed by the time I was supposed to deliver her medications. I have a 4-wheel drive and eventually just parked in the middle of her street while I ran in with her pills, but it was dicey driving and I worried non-stop for the duration of the storm that we would lose power because I knew I couldn't get my mother to my house if it did. This week I think I need to convince her to stay with me again. This is not what I want to do. It disrupts both her life and mine, and I find it very stressful. But I don't see that I have much choice.

Please, universe: make it stop. MAKE IT STOP. 

*****

Because I know the universe is not listening and I need to take things into my own hands wherever possible, I've decided I have to consciously write about other things in my life besides the hard stuff. Lately I tend to write as a relief valve when the pressure gets to be too much. I would like to write for the enjoyment and the escape it provides, and I'm going to try to do that. So if it seems that I've done a complete about-face, you'll know why.

Some funnies to seal the deal: Dogs On Trampolines ...

 

 

May your week and your spirits fly as high as these doggos do.