A-maze-ing

This has been a strange year. I would never have seen it coming, not for all the clues in the world.

You can probably guess that it is difficult going into this holiday season without my daughter, but there are so many other things to deal with as well. My son is going to the doctor on Monday to have his blood pressure checked again. It was pretty high today, so I spent some time talking to him about his diet, exercising, etc. I know that the root of it is this: his sister died. She was his best friend, and she's gone. They talked about everything, and she's gone. It's the holidays, and she's gone.

He's depressed but doesn't want to take medications. He needs to lose some weight (don't we all?) and is "not motivated" to go to the gym that he joined a few months back. He has a sedentary job (and stressful, too - doing credit card collections calls) and is taking classes online to finish his degree in computer science. PLUS, he's taking care of the house and 5 animals (a dog and 4 cats), since his dad is traveling a good bit of the time.

I'm worried about him, yes, but he is a grown man now. This requires me to pull back and not jump into the kind of codependent relationship I had with my daughter. I need to let him handle his life while still staying involved enough to let him know I care. He is dealing with the same crushing sadness that his dad and I are dealing with, but he finds himself now an only child. And I am far away. Communication between us takes place daily by phone, text, email, and chat. He has been to see Thelma and I twice since I left. In fact, we celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday early with him and his friend Travis. He is already planning his next visit down in January - this time with a girl friend of his (notice the distinction). He likes her, but she smokes. She seems to like him, too, and she's taking him hiking tomorrow - a very good thing! We'll see what plays out there.

That is all just the latest in what has come to be normal for us.

At the ranch, we've had visitors nearly every month, so we've been busy and a tad bit stressed out from time to time. Okay, sometimes we're really stressed out, at least I am.

I can explain it this way--have you ever had one of those days in which nothing seems to go right? When everything you say or do comes out wrong? When all of your best intentions fall flat? On those days, you just want to give up, right? You just want to throw your hands up in the air and then go back to bed. Except when it's your whole life that is going that way, you can't just go back to bed and solve anything.

If only one bad thing had happened this year, then maybe I could keep my equilibrium, but I've had

• the decision to leave my marriage (January) immediately following two months of battle with my daughter to try to get her into a recovery program for her drinking
  
• finding the long lost love of my life (late March/early April)
  
• the loss of my daughter in April after she'd been sober for 3 months (accidental death)
• a move to another part of the country in May which led to a brief battle with the ex (we've since worked things out so that we're on friendly terms again - if for nothing else but for the sake of our son, who was drained by the whole ordeal)
• a trip back to my former home in June that was part of the whole battle with the ex
• a visit with and falling out with my eldest sister in September
• a visit with Thelma's family and my youngest sister in October, which went well except for her brother (who has secondary-progressive MS as was on leave from the nursing home) getting sick and ending up spending most of his trip in the hospital (thank God he's alright but is still on antibiotics at last report)
• and a visit with my son last weekend in which his best friend exhibited the same signs of alcoholism as did my late daughter (as if I needed that reminder of how things went at home last holiday season!)

Now, I don't want you to get the idea that life is all bad, but I wanted to put it in perspective for a moment. Just re-read and digest that. Now...add to it:

1. Thelma seemed to hurt herself in late September. We thought it was something quite temporary that resulted in a swollen upper thigh and bad pain. Two ERs and a trip to Atlanta later, she is still waiting for a final diagnosis. Meanwhile, she missed the entire fall horseback riding season and has spent a good deal of it on heat/ice/medications/rest/stretching. My poor woman has been sidelined, and she's not the type to be sidelined! Trust me on this one. December 7th we will return to Atlanta for her to have an EMG test on both legs and another visit with the neurosurgeon. Remember her telling you that she was injured when she fell through a stage floor in 1994? Well, the MRIs of her lumbar spine don't look good at all. It seems as though she may be dealing with the gradual deterioration of a disk catching up with her.
2. I was diagnosed with MS and am going to see a neurologist in Atlanta 12/30. It's the soonest I could get in, but my nurse practitioner said that this is the neuro she would see if it were her.

So how do I keep my equilibrium? How does she?

I haven't had the energy to do as much writing as I used to do, nor have I read as many books. But then again, I'm with the girl I've always wanted to be with, and of course I want to spend time with her. I haven't made plans yet to return to school, but when I do, it will be online by necessity. There are no universities close by. With our health being what it has been, we haven't gotten out as much as we did in the beginning, but we did go out to dinner on Thanksgiving, and we went to a movie together tonight.

She has pulled away from many of her old friends, as some of them are in the ex's corner or are very anti-gay. She has not been able to horseback ride, or do much of anything. She has missed a lot of things she used to enjoy.

The end result is that we've both been through a tremendous amount of change and associated stress in the last year (including a major surgery she had in January). It isn't just one of us; it's both of us. We're both trying to find our center again.

We don't ever mean to let any of that get in our way, but how can we help it? There are days in which we miscommunicate or fall short of being the perfect couple. But I've really given up on being perfect at anything, truth be known. Since my daughter died, I have begun to realize that there is no perfection, there is only one's best effort.

That's what I'd say I'm giving life most days - my best effort. I try to be cheerful and hopeful and positive, but there are days during which I just want to pull the covers up over my head and give up. I can't imagine why she puts up with me. I just can't imagine.

As we make our way through this maze, we may make a few wrong turns or find a few dead ends. The key, I think, is to keep correcting our path and moving forward. As long as we're together, we'll get through it all. Otherwise, we risk wandering aimlessly through the endless hallways and right angles, the dark corners and frustrations. It's far less scary if you just reach out and take the hand of the one you love.

Peace - L