Tonight's picture was taken on December 5, 2002. I will never forget this moment in time. It started to snow and I literally opened the door for Mattie to look at it! It was the first time he ever saw snow and the result was it caused him to stop in his tracks. He was fascinated by that white stuff. He wheeled himself over to look at it for quite a while and eventually we brought him outside to experience it on his face.
Quote of the day: Do not let the roles you play in life make you forget that you are human. ~ Roy T. Bennett
Today was not one of my finest moments. I am under a great deal of stress and pressure each day, and the lack of freedom and control over my life gets to me at times. We had to leave the house at 10:45am, so that I could get my dad to his foot doctor appointment. The building where this doctor is located has a big parking issue. The garages are shut down and under repair, indefinitely. Which means that I need to valet park the car. That doesn't sound difficult but the area for drop offs is small and I can't just let my parents off because they both need great assistance out of the car and to the front door. Basically what I am saying, is I stress out over the logistics, so my parents don't have to!
I was running around all morning at home and decided to put the laundry away that I did earlier before leaving for the doctor appointment. As I was putting my mom's laundry away, I reminded her that we had to leave within five minutes. She snapped at me and told me she wasn't ready and was doing something. I did not take well to that! I walked out of her office, got my dad up from his recliner, put on his coat and put him in the car. My mom then came downstairs and was fiddling around with her shoes and other items. At that point, I lost it. We were already 15 minutes late in leaving, so I grabbed my coat and left her in the kitchen. I started the car, opened the garage door and was going to leave her behind. She started screaming and my dad then said he wanted to get out of the car. NOT an option as he had an appointment.
I did stop and let me mom into the car, but I was trying to make a point to my mom. This is a habitual problem I face with her. No matter how many times I alert her about when we are leaving, and give her a count down in minutes to when we will leave, IT DOESN'T matter! She is never on time and instead always makes me late to appointments, and then complains that I am rushing her.
While in the car ride to the doctor, I must have been screaming for at least 15 minutes. My mom then threatened me that she was going to a nursing home and today I said, 'go ahead, let's see how long that lasts.' My mom is behaviorally very challenging and emotionally exhausting. The average person would have a hard time managing her. The world revolves around her and when it doesn't she has a way of making us miserable.
After screaming, I then decided I had to calm down because this stress is going to make me very ill, and I was driving a car! Naturally after behaving this way, I felt guilty. This is NOT me. It is what I am becoming that I am not happy about. I did write to Peter while I was out and filled him in on what was happening. His responses are always normalizing and validating and he confirmed for me that most people would have lost it months ago. But the word he used was human, he reminded me that I am human, and despite that I am doing the extraordinary, I can't forget that at times I can't always be and act like super woman.
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