Coffee Chat: In September

I seem to be more drawn to coffee chats right now, though I've a long list of ideas and inspirations for posts I want to write upon.  It's just that my mind is so occupied with our present situation that I can't seem to find any oomph to do more than prep meals and very basic housework.  I know that at least three afternoons and one day every weekend, I shall be occupied with Caleb.  That is time consuming to say the least.  We pick him up from nursery three days and keep him each of those evenings until Katie has had time to visit at the hospital after work.  We are all doing our best to give him routine/schedules that he can live with, and he seems to be handling it all fairly well.

I've never done well with these sorts of things, these interruptions.  Logically speaking I am generally not busy at the time of day in which I go to fetch Caleb, except to do any supper prep and clean-up that might occur each evening.  My mind however insists upon seeing it as an interruption, something I must plan ahead for and be aware of all through the day (sort of like knowing an alarm clock is going to ring).  A It is at a heavy traffic time of day and that is something I'm not accustomed to dealing with.  Those are my sole complaints about the travel back and forth.

Then there's the process of going to Caleb's home.  Most days he insists on sticking close to me and that means he will insist on distracting me from what I'm working on in order to gather my attention to himself.  I figure he must need that one-on-one time and I try to give it to him.  Our routine is fairly simple: feed him as quickly as possible because the boy is apparently in another growing spurt and he is starved, though he's just eaten a substantial snack on the way home.  If I'm not actively in the kitchen obviously preparing food, then this little guy will do all he can to remind me that he is hungry.  I've found it's easier on those nights that I've made a meal and all I have to do is heat it in the microwave.  On the rare nights when I need to cook, then it's got to be under 15 minutes.  So early meal prep is very necessary. 

Then I change him into pajamas, and we snuggle on the couch watching either 'Trash Truck' or 'Corey Carson'.   My personal choice is 'Trash Truck'.  For any of you who remember Bill Keane's Family Circle cartoons, his grandson is the illustrator and author of 'Trash Truck' and it's a lovely little series on Netflix.

I try to let him stay up a bit on the nights I have him, just in case Katie is in early, but most evenings he's genuinely sleepy by 8pm and doesn't argue if I say it's time for bed.  I try to do a load of laundry or load up dishes and wash those if there are enough while he's watching tv, but never mind thinking I'll do any of that while supper heats.  

Katie continues to hold up well overall but every now and then she breaks and who wouldn't?  I break now and then myself and I'm not carrying nearly the load that she is.  Steven has had a rocky road.  There's some infection to be fought now in addition to his other ails.  Continued prayers on his behalf would be very welcome.

There are big changes ahead for us all and I can't say that I personally am welcoming them exactly, but there you are.  Change comes.   We cope and adjust, don't we?   I wouldn't have chosen these changes but then we're seldom offered the option of choosing that which we must accept.

Katie and Caleb will be moving nearer to Steven's family, where they hope to have him rehab from the accident.  She's already rented a house and has a job waiting for her.  She's on a waiting list for a nursery and checking out others to insure she has childcare.  

I won't lie, it's been a real struggle to accept these things, but after an emotionally draining week of wrestling with self, John and I have accepted that this is the obvious next step for her to follow.  We struggled hard with the idea of her abandoning what we feel is a strong support system but as I've come to believe over the past few weeks, perhaps it's time she didn't have that.  Perhaps we've been too quick to protect and too quick to provide a safety net.  It's high time she was on her own once again, but I can't help but wish the circumstances were a bit different, easier and less stressful.  Yet who of us ever makes these sorts of life choices without circumstances?  

Not a thing about our retirement thus far has been how I thought it might be.  Indeed, for my part, I'm working harder than ever, so it seems rather moot to even say that I am retired.  But the life we'd planned to have has been nowhere in sight, not even a glimpse of it.  Virus shutdowns, collapsing stock markets, ridiculous inflation, crises of all sorts both financial and physical, some foisted upon us and some things that happened for no reason we could name.  

We didn't have big plans.  We had very modest plans.  We thought we'd go to the beach a couple of times a year.  We'd have a date a couple of times a month, sometimes involving day trips.  We'd planned time with grandchildren but not an overdose of them.   And what we got was a whole lot different.  Lots of famine and no feasting.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself in sharing this.  I'm just pointing out how vastly different our plans were compared to what we got.   It has been what it's been, and no whining is going to change that, but I confess that with John's hip/back issues and this situation with Katie/Steven, I've really struggled hard.  I've felt like this, too, is a change to our retirement that we hadn't planned for.  I can keep my head down and work hard.  I can continue to be careful with our funds.  I can forgo the trips and dates.  But to have my husband sidelined has been a game changer, while two grandchildren become distant from me, has been a bitter pill to swallow.  

It's hard not to look at this as something that is a game changer, whether I want it to look like that or not.  This is Johns second long bout with the same ailment.  He's stubborn as a mule and won't see the doctor.  He's constantly saying he can 'work it out' but all he's done thus far is to be a man about it.  You know what that means... 

And this has been going on while we're dealing with the aftermath of this poor boy's accident and all that extra coming and going and doing.  Just a touch more pressure to add to the stress I've been under.  You know...in case there isn't quite enough to fully occupy my mind.

That's why I felt so stifled by fear a couple of weeks ago.  It was all just too much at once.  But all grief has stages and this week anger struck.  I was MAD about all the things.  Not at any one person, because none of us has purposely chosen these circumstances.  That just happened.  But I was mad at the constant stress and then the natural season has made an obvious change towards the next one a bit earlier than usual and I felt almost betrayed by it all.  I wasn't ready for another change.  I wasn't ready for autumn.  I wasn't ready to let go of more in my life.   I was MAD at being so afraid and feeling anxious all the time.  I was sick of the constant chorus running through my mind:  What will we DO?  What will we DO?  And then the 'what if' symphony screeching in the background behind that...

What will we DO?  We'll move on.  Life happens.  We will change and alter our plans to suit what we've been given, and we will be grateful.  Yes, grateful.  There's good in this, even if we feel we can't see it at the moment.  It's been that way my whole life long.  I have to trust the Pattern Maker.  Without trust, I have nothing to stand on at all.

I won't tell you I am anxiety and fear free.  I'm not.  But I'm hanging in there a bit better than I was.

We will travel to see them when we can.  I don't know that it will be frequently, but we will go.  They are all, all of the grandchildren who are in the state (or very nearly) are about an age where we might consider having them all at once to visit.  I'm sure their parents would be more than amendable to that.  I just need to have John on his feet when I do it, lol, because I don't think I can do it on my own, but who am I to say even that?  It might not happen often, but it could happen...Yet, I shall also say I'm not setting my heart on even that at present.  I'll see how it goes.  We will do what we can, as we can.

I've mentioned a change of natural season...Here in our area we've got cooler temperatures.  Mornings have been in the high 50's and while afternoons heat up the evenings cool off quickly and deposit loads of dew.  The roses want to bloom again, and the October lilies have popped up with their lovely red blooms.  Granny always called these Spider Lilies.  I dug up a lot from Mama's house this past Spring and should have gotten them in the ground by now, but I haven't.  I will though.  I've already set out some iris that I'd moved from another spot.  I have more to divide and some daylily to sort out as well.  All those will make for pretty plants somewhere in the yard.  Why not use what I have, right?

We had a day a week or so ago where it was misty rain all day long and the temperatures dropped.  The breezes that day caused the damp leaves to rustle like dry ones on the trees.   The day of misty rain set the golden rod to blooming profusely, along with many other blooming wildflowers aka weeds.  It's lovely to see.   Though our grass hasn't been cut for three weeks, it's only just a bit over ankle high.  Yes, it does need to be cut, but it points up the slow down we were sure we saw in August, really has happened.  And that too is early.

Admittedly I feel grief over the change of season.  No doubt this year it is compounded by all the rest of the life season changes we're experiencing just now.  I've felt genuine and very real sadness this year.  I'm so grateful, I mean this truly, that some instinct took over and made me consider the pleasure of summer for the month of August.   It's a consolation.  

All of this time, over the whole course of the summer really, we've debated buying a mower, which mower, etc.  Really all of that has been left to John's discretion but I've heard enough of the debates over this brand vs. that, that model over this, until I could spiel off facts that would bore you to tears, so I won't.  The ultimate hold-up has been the constant cry of "But how can we afford it?"

We have savings.  It's not a huge amount of savings but it's a nice cushion.  We don't use it.  In fact, we pretty much ignore it.   Not to the point of neglect, but we just don't use it.  I know what it took to get that money into savings.  If you don't mind me saying so, it's more my hard work than anyone's that got it there.  Yes, John had a job, but I was the one who had to make it happen with the salary he had.  Not bragging.  I'm not.  It's just fact.

So, when all of this came up again yesterday afternoon as we were on the way to pick up Caleb, suddenly I was just sick of the whole thing.   I asked John, "Just what do we have savings for?"  He looked surprised and didn't answer.  "I mean it, John.  WHAT did we do all the saving for?  I agree 100% that it wasn't put there for eating out or vacation...but if we can't use it for a NEED, then why did we, why did I, work so damned hard to save it?!"  

No kidding, y'all.  I've been going round and around this mountain of "How can we pay for it?" long enough.  Why not use what we have.  Yes, it will be spent.  But seriously, why had we saved it in the first place?  So, he could look at his bank statement and feel smug about it?  Finally, he realized that I was right.

On Monday, we're going to go purchase a mower.  If the store still has the one in stock that he wants and if not, we'll find another one, but no more waffling on and on about "HOW?"  

John tells a story frequently, one that we might take note from just now.  It's about a couple who go on a cruise.  They are on the cruise for a week and when they return everyone asks how they enjoyed it. "Well, it was all right.  But we got mighty hungry because we paid so much for the cruise, we couldn't buy any meals.  We've lived off Saltines and water all week long..."  The man had been so concerned with what he was spending on the cruise, he'd never taken time to explore the boat nor discovered that meals were included in his ticket...

I told John I'm tired of being the man on the cruise ship.  I won't fuss about working hard to find savings in our budget.  I won't harp about what I'm going without nor how we must 'make do', but I am over going without necessities and needs and worrying because we've spent money set aside for a specific purpose.  I've always been adamant that money saved for a set purpose was for that purpose barring extreme emergencies.  Which means that John can fuss over the spending, but if the taxes are due the taxes are due, and that money was set aside to prevent unnecessary use of savings.   I've planned for the taxes.  I've just not had the ability to plan for a new mower in our current situation.

I don't expect to buy the upright freezer from savings.  That might sound illogical to you all but hear me out.  As far as I am concerned, the upright freezer is a want.  I have a perfectly good freezer.  I have been setting aside money for a freezer for a little while now and I'm doing well with my savings on that end.  I did decide to use a portion of it to buy the electric pressure canner when I found it at such a very good end of season price, but I've a plan in place on how to replace those funds without sacrificing any future amounts I might squirrel away towards the freezer.  

I shall leave off my chatter here.  We've just today heard that there is some traumatic brain injury related to the accident which isn't helping to promote overall healing.  But it is not something that can't be overcome.  God has created the body to work in miraculous ways.  I hope to have better news in the weeks ahead.  I'm so appreciative for all the prayers for Katie and Steven.   Thank you all so much!

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