Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Tuesday, April 25, 2023 -- Mattie died 708 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2008. This was typical of Mattie! He loved examining how things worked, how parts went together, and he especially enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together again. I am not sure if Mattie ever saw a mechanic work, which was why it fascinated me that he created a car lift out of tinker toys and was checking out what was underneath the remote controlled car. It wasn't unusual for Mattie to pull out screwdrivers from our tool drawer and use them. He started this kind of stuff at age 2!

Quote of the day: No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

It is 5pm, and don't even ask what I did today! It was another blur of a day, of non-stop chores, driving around, and caregiving tasks. In the midst of this dysfunction, I was on a conference call with our research team. Honestly it is very humbling to be on this call, because it reminds me on a grand level that my life is NOT normal. These women are working, focused, and getting things done. 

Unlike them, I feel exhausted, scattered, and at times hopeless. My days are intense and given the nature of caregiving, not likely to improve. The challenges with caregiving is that the tasks are constantly evolving, because the needs of  older adults only magnify, not lessen. 

The research team tasked me to begin pilot testing the family caregiver survey we designed. When on the call, I freaked out inside about the stress of one more task in my day. However, after taking a deep breath, I addressed this task and started reaching out to my network. It is easy for my to get flustered and overwhelmed now very easily. Mainly because I live with chronic stress, have no down time, and each day I am expected to operate at a high level, responsible for two people who need support. 

What I learned today is I have to take it one task at a time. That I have the ability to figure it out, and not to forget that unlike the research team, I am a survivor in ways they can't possibly personally know.