Eleven Years? Truly?

The wonder of the internet. Somehow, through the magic of Google, the blog that I kept for two and a half years more than 11 years ago is still here and accessible. Not only that, but easily I have found myself still connected to it. It’s true what they say: Nothing ever goes away on the internet.

While I haven’t read all of those earlier entries, I’ve read enough to remember why I started and why I stopped. So many health issues in our core family unit, with myself as the primary caregiver, initially I found a need for an outlet and so I started. It’s tough to share so much that you want to say to even your closest personal friends without them coming away with feelings you’d rather they not have. The beauty of a blog is the ability to connect with persons experiencing similar challenges or maybe just persons who can provide a needed cushion or viewpoint that you won’t - or can’t - get to on your own. 

Those early years of RSD (now CRPS) and fructose malabsorption were more than challenging, but this blog and the people who responded helped to sustain me. They gave me a place to share, anonymously in my case, some tough truths without impacting my family or my friends. Again - and I know I said it then, but it bears repeating - thank you for being there for me! Simple acts of kindness that made a very large difference in my life.

Now 11 years later, I will at some point need to change my tagline which says something about caring for the needs of my parent. My mom, who had Alzheimer’s, passed away in January 2016. I’ll write about it at some point, but just not today.

There have been other significant changes in our lives: My youngest daughter, the one with fructose malabsorption, is 24 years old, still living with us as she navigates college. She has her AA and is currently working on her BA. Her grades are outstanding, I’m so proud of her. Late in high school she presented with a seizure disorder, which is now kept at bay with meds, but as a result has put off becoming a driver, which works for me. 

My husband over these last eleven years has had multiple medical incidences (MRSA in a leg bone, heart attack, multiple surgeries on both legs, nearly losing one or the other), but having kicked the opioid meds introduced by his CRPS doc, he’s now using marijuana as his pain management tool, a fact about which I am very happy. He and I had made it into our sixties never having done drugs of this type at all (yep, we’re geeks), this choice has brought him back to us as a whole person and allowed him to manage his diabetes better, so much so that he’s now off insulin. Hallelujah!

All of our little dogs over time passed away (yes, there were four, who together totaled about 30 pounds, so like having one midsize dog in four little bodies, haha), and we have added a bigger dog to our family. Not intentionally - she was supposed to be a mini, but I guess that ship has sailed. She’s about 45 pounds, so much more dog (and hair!) in the house than the four little ones. She’s the love of my life currently, though she has some serious behavior challenges - anxiety, leash reactivity, resource guarding - and we’re working through those challenges slowly but surely.

We now have five grandchildren! At the end of my writings before, we were only at one. Amazing! Grandparenthood is the best!

And we’ve so far survived COVID-19. By that I mean as far as we know none of us has had it, but mostly I mean it’s been more than two years since we’ve had a family gathering that included all of us with the grandchildren. My husband’s conditions make him more compromised than most people, so we have been pretty diligent about not exposing ourselves unduly. We have had Zoom calls, Echo Show calls, I’ve stopped and seen them on my own, we worked through how to do remote Easter, Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I have really hope that this year (THIS YEAR!) we may have an actual Christmas gathering with the whole family.

This post is just a “catch-up” of what’s gone on for eleven years. Obviously that’s not everything, but the highlights. On to new and better things, I hope to find time to keep the blog fed in the future. And, who knows, maybe some of you who were here with me before are still out there. I’m going now in search of your blogs. I hope I find you! Happy 2022, people! I can’t wait to reconnect!

A trainful of friends...

I have great friends. Very close friends, not as close friends, wonderful acquaintances, work friends, school friends, parents of other kids friends, friends who work in the same field as me, past work friends, and friends who I can't even remember how we became friends; all just amazing friends.

Our local fair just came and went. It was there, at the fair, that I experienced this latest overwhelming epiphany. I have great, wonderful, amazing friends. And the having of these friends is what makes my life full, completely, almost to bursting. The kind of full I have felt recently when holding my first grandchild for the first time, the "I don't deserve this much happiness and goodness, but I'm so thankful for it" kind of full.

Three is usually the minimum amount of times I go to the fair: once to work, once for my daughter to ride the rides, and once to just take it all in. If I can fit in more, I do, but three is usually my minimum.

My trips to the fair this year included the more-than-normal amount of running into friends. A number of them were ones I haven't seen in 15 to 20 years. It was a beautiful thing to reach back in time and hug these people again. And in doing so, to realize that, though my journey has been long, there have been other people on their own journey, too, in a kind of parallel universe, all happening at the same time, in the same kind of order, all of us giving birth, raising toddlers, working through the middle school pains, into the graduation years and, most recently, the reinvention of ourselves as grandparents.

The cycle of life, we all have our ticket and have gotten on board and, though we may be on a different track, most of the trains are going in a very similar direction. There's no turning back, but our train does now obviously seem to be on a circular bent - quite surprising! Just like the earth circles the sun once a year, my train has made a wide loop around its original, more tight path so that now, from a distance, I can see back to the significant events in my story that directly relate to the happenings in my children's lives: Childhood, friendships, graduation, choices in dating, career paths, marriage, children.

What does it say that the last in the series, children, is the first one to hit me so smack dab in the middle of my forehead and wake me up to what's been going on around me this whole time? :-)

This, now, I know, is what our parents experienced, and their parents before them. And, in time, 25-30 years from now, what our children will realize, too. Life. A returning of all things to the cycle. Get on the train or just watch as the trains depart, but the trains are leaving all the time and to really fully experience the journey you have to get on board.

My friends, then, have been passengers with me on this wonderful, ever-evolving train ride. There have been stops along the way, some get on, some get off, but my train seems to be specifically mine and I seem to have become the conductor. I, alone, determine the track and its direction. I don't, however, determine all of the passengers! Serendipity, really, plays a part. And to be completely honest, I do believe at times I have let Serendipity be the conductor. :-)

I love my friends, I love my journey, I love my family, I love my life.

Half of a century it's taken me to be able to embrace all the pieces and understand their meaning; I hope that I will be fortunate and have close to another half of a century to share in the train rides of my friends and family, and *this time* to be more cognizant of the ride and my role in it. To be more of a participant and to give to each of my riders what they have given to me: The ride of a lifetime! A chance to let go completely and feel the joy that is the ride!

I love my life.

Grandparent-hood...

Goodness, it's amazing how time flies! I've been away too long, so much has gone on, it's hard to know just exactly what to write about. I jest really - there's nothing I want to write about more than my new grandchild.

Beautiful. Though I've tried to describe her in so many ways, it really does just come back to one single word: beautiful. Beautiful fingers, beautiful toes, beautiful eyes, a beautiful bend to her knee, simple, tiny little beautiful fingernails, completely and utterly new baby skin with not a single flaw. Beautiful in just every way.

Having had four children of my own, I thought I knew - or had a clue anyway - what being a grandparent might be about. I was prepared for this more than most, I thought. I really probably considered myself something of an expert on children and the asundry items that accompany them.

But no, it was untrue! The first time I held this new being it hit me like a wall of bricks, that she, too, is a part of this family unit, that there's a part of me in her just as surely as there's parts of me in my children, that her life will now be a reflection back to her parents' lives, that my son lives through her, around her, with her, and that I was really only right about one thing. That being a grandmother is a great, wonderful warm gift. It's a gift that your children give to you almost unintentionally, just as a part of the intricate scheme of their own lives, happenstance almost. As a part of their building a life together, creating a family of their own, they have children. And the having of children brings to their own parents the most unbelievable second chance at living again through the eyes of a child. A truly special present, one that should be given the utmost attention, handled carefully, and never kept on a shelf.

My granddaughter just recently celebrated being five months old. In that time she has grown already so much, from a newborn unable to focus on a face, entirely dependent upon the goodness of her mother and those caring for her, to an exuberant personality bubbling at her own seams. She smiles always. She has few bad moments - much like her father was, she is easy to decipher, most times it's obvious what her immediate need is. An easy, happy baby, her mother loves her completely and almost to fault, as do we all. Already it's clear she will have the clear strong blue eyes of her mom and those eyes seem to bring you in, all the way from across the room.

A stroke of luck for me, I have a daughter-in-law who seems to understand my need to hold the child. :-) Just teasing really, but I only have to walk in the room and she hands her over. What a joy! I've babysat a few times, but this weekend I'm scheduled to have her overnight for the first time. I don't believe I'll sleep! I expect to just watch her sleep all night, as she's been doing for months now. There is the remote possibility that her teething will keep her up - in which case we'll be awake together! I better get a rocking chair...

And a personal note: Thank you, Meri, for your kind words. It helps to write, but is even more helpful to know that someone is listening. You are yourself an inspiration - I'm not sure how you keep it up! I love your photos and musings... Since I'm not sure if my reply to your earlier comment will get back to you, I'm also trying this method. Hopefully you'll catch this post and go back and see my comment. :-)

New life on its way!

Less than four weeks to go. It's a fact impending, though not certain. First babies can be early, can be late, but rarely are they exactly on time. :-)

Not that it matters; I will be here waiting, listening, caring, working. I will be here. Very little seems important now except this. Waiting for my first grandchild to arrive is carrying more concern with it than I remember with my own. Obviously that can't be true, but I do believe the uncertainty of this future is greater, as I will only be on the periphery. This life will be dependent upon my offspring and his spouse. For a person who likes to maintain control in all areas, what a tough prospect!

They are good, they are concerned, they will love this child with their entire beings. All will be well - all will be wonderful.

Grandparenthood: It's supposed to be wonderful, being able to spend time and then hand them back in time for baths, burping, bad times. There's an edge to the world right now, like I can't get a deep breath. I'm hovering on the edge of the next generation and not clear where the edge really is. All while I listen to Karen Carpenter's silky voice softly singing in the background. Raising children is really best done by the young; the old get lost in their memories.

What's the saying about seasons? To everything there is a season - and the birth of this child will knock me perceptibly into the fall of my life. Maybe I'm already there, but I've been unaware. It's all around me and yet I don't see it. But I am not alone here, there are others living in this season, too, thinking they're in another. It helps us to continue. We're not really delusional, but while deluding ourselves to some degree; not purposefully.

I love that I am here, I truly do. I can't wait to be called "grandma" or "nana" or whatever works best for this wonderful new person who will only be a quarter of me. And then not necessarily a whole quarter, more like a part of a half.

I must stop watching the old videos, they are making me somber.

Children. The best things in life. They grow so quickly. They procreate. A plan, a good plan, a way of life. A great, wonderful plan.

Now Sarah McLachlan. Building a mystery. How appropriate.

I can't believe how quickly the fall of life has arrived. The next thing I know, it will be winter. Ah, well, I do love the snow...