Coffee Chat: Things That Go Bump In the Night

Hello dears.  Coffee?  Icy Cold Soda with Lemon?  Tea?  Have a cup or glass and sit with me awhile.

Many of you thanked me for the post earlier this week.  I wrote that about a week ago and scheduled it ahead.  I have a few more that are also scheduled ahead.  I appreciate that so many of you thanked me.  Today I am writing for me, for myself and you are the recipients of all I have to pour out.  

I've just gone with John to take off trash.  Woohoo.  Not quite the date we were planning for last Friday and put off but there you are.  Dump day.  Not complaining about that.  Not his fault nor mine nor anyone's, just the way things are and that is a small disappointment compared to the volume of things weighing heavily upon me.

Steven is doing well following a second surgery.  Katie was made aware of another injury he'd had that somehow no one heard about.  Not serious but makes a difference.  She's over the moon because he can speak now and is awake.  I would be too.  

I haven't been to see him just yet.  Between the ICU and Caleb and a virus that attacked me and Caleb I'm sticking close to home.  I don't know if I had a relapse yesterday or simply nerves that affected me as the virus does.  It's happened before when I was heavily stressed.  But I'd rather be sure and not expose anyone to a thing that might make them more uncomfortable than they must be at present, you know?

Katie is moving through it all.  She has little to say beyond updates.  She's working full time, going to school once more and trying to stay caught up, trying to spread herself to cover many bases same as I.

My mind reels with the sheer volume of things that must/should be done.  Overwhelm is a very real thing, let me tell you.  My coping mechanism at the moment is to do what is immediate and then to stop and determine the next thing I can do.  Not accomplishing any long list.  The first week, which ended Wednesday was the longest week.  

This week for me at least is better.  For Katie it goes on.  Very slightly easier perhaps but still being spread thin.

I'm not here to complain about how I feel or what I'm going through because of an accident that is not the fault of anyone.  I am simply doing what must be done.

But a whole lot of other stuff is going on inside me that was brought on by this and it was John who pointed it out, as usual.  I hate to confess it, but I so often underestimate his intuition and ability to read what is really going on under the surface of things.    And this is about me, not about NOW but about what happened a long time ago, 31 years ago.

It was a lovely spring morning, sunshining and world glistening.  I was on my way to work, reluctantly I admit.  I'd been separated from my husband for less than a week and my children and I were staying with Granny.  I'd put a deposit down on a rental house the day before.  Licensure had come in the day before at work, so it was imperative I be there.  

About a mile from work, a car suddenly swerved into my path.  I was doing 55 miles an hour.  And in that moment my whole world stopped, changed forever.  

I was injured enough that I wasn't going anywhere on my own speed for a few months.  Not like Steven who has things ahead I can't fathom.  But it was enough to alter my life into a whole different pattern and to show me things I'd rather have not seen about people in my life.  

The separation had been a trial that became a permanent arrangement and ended in divorce.  For the first time I had a glimpse into what my husband was, what my mother was, how my brother felt about me, how friends were good time buddies and who was steadfast and loyal.  Very, very few as it turned out. 

I learned how often I relied on my own strength and how seldom I was able to ask for, or was willing to receive, the help of others.  

Not going to dig up all the rest of the ugly, hard things, but it took John to point out to others that I was struggling with a bit of post-traumatic stress when all of this occurred.  And I suppose I was.  

John's own reaction was to go into paramedic mode.  Each update brought on a litany of what each injury or symptom might mean.  Then his back/hip whatever flared up and he could barely hobble around the house, which meant all things fell upon my shoulders.  He suffered his own post-traumatic stress if you must know and together, we were a right mess.  Tempers flared.  Ugly crying commenced.  

As I told Bess, for all that I profess my Christianity, I have yet to perform with Grace under fire.  I fail miserably.  

I made comment several years ago to John about the difference in children and grandchildren, that I often faced fear on my grandchildren's behalf.  I saw danger in places that I, as a parent, had never felt concern.  Suddenly every climb upon a chair, every step in the yard, every toy presented a danger heretofore unseen.

I lamented once that my mother, who had always been a "Come hell or highwater" sort about every single thing in her life had taken to blocking doors with that stop stick thingy, laying booby traps more prone to trip herself up than a stranger, hidden and moved keys so often she couldn't find them any longer, traveled with a Billy stick and slept with a baseball bat.  I couldn't fathom the fear that these actions revealed to me of a woman whom I might previously have called fearless.

Well, here's the deal.  The older I get the more afraid I become.  And the events of the past few years combined with life events just this year, not to mention the latest situation in our lives which I cannot share at this time, but which is connected to this poor boy's accident, have made me so filled with fear at times that taking a breath is the hardest thing I must do for moments at a time.   I see problems and dangers and threats everywhere.  

What came up for me, was the fact that I am frightened and afraid.  There are changes afoot and I am no predictor of the future but it's a mighty unknown sort of future ahead.  Every possible spin I put upon it has some element of disaster as far as I can see.  

Overwhelming tiredness not quite enough to exhaust me combined with overwhelming fear rendered me unable to sleep.  Or if I did rest, to get anywhere near enough rest.

All throughout this whole bout of my own self-centered concerns, I am too well aware that none of us are going through anything with any ease.  The most gracious of us all at present is my daughter who sets her face and does things.  Perhaps not all the things and perhaps not well, but she does them and she doesn't whine nor complain.  She just does the next thing.  

I know that in the end there is a purpose in this season. Of mine.  Of John's.  Of Katie's.  Of Steven's.  There is a purpose and it's all part of God's pattern, but I find it difficult to put on a happy face and wait.  Instead, I worry.  I get anxious.  I wonder about things from a future that has NO bearing at all upon the NOW.  This has been a lifelong issue with me, this desire to look beyond right now and ensure the future ahead.  I can't do that.  I have no right to do that.  I am forever having to stop and look at right NOW and do my best to recall that work will come, money will come and go, people will change/age/grow, time will move on, nine tenths of the things I worried about will never come to be and nearly everything that does happen will be unforeseen.  I know all of this yet I struggle all the same.

Here, I shall end for now.

Amazon Associate Affiliate Link