Done for the Week: Shit Happens, Once Again

Another short week.  And a huge bite out of the middle of it.  (See item #6 on the list below.)

I'm not sure I have more than my share of mini-crises, though I have been told that my life reads like a bad soap opera at times.  And here we are at the beginning of December, and my family is on its second baffling medical mystery and third fairly significant trauma since October.

The challenge for me is to respond each time with love and courage and flexibility--and not to completely abandon my life plan in the process. 

How am I doing?  Not great.  But not awful.

Done for the Week:  Nov. 28-Dec. 4, 2011

1. Biked twice--still recovering from injury
2. Read No Signposts in the Sea, by Vita Sackville-West
3. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
4. Published 2 blog posts
5. Continued work on current clients' projects
6. Spent 24+ hours in a clinic, a hospital emergency room, and the hospital with my son, ruling out Guillain-Barré syndrome
7. Spent a day catching up on lost sleep and recovering from stress
8. Meditated three times
9. Attended 1 yoga class
10. Went to my tap class
11. Watched one episode of Eureka with my son
12. Watched one episode of Boss with my husband
13. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
14. Made Sunday soup
15. Saw my doctor for injury evaluation
16. Went to dinner with my husband
17. Did laundry 
18. Orchestrated hanging of our outdoor Christmas lights
19. Read draft of my husband's journal article
20. Took my grandson on his day-long birthday train adventure 
21. Printed out a copy of the Unschedule

A great deal of my energy last week was spent "rising to the occasion" of my son's frightening physical symptoms, which came on suddenly midweek.  Doing what needed to be done to shepherd him through the medical system and support him in enduring the necessary workups and tests and procedures, including approximately thirty attempted blood draws in his dehydrated state, was the most important thing I got done.  At this point, we don't really have an answer as to what caused his progressive numbness, or why it began to abate after 48 hours.  But the scariest things have been ruled out.  And he is back at school, though the ordeal has put him behind at the end of the semester.  We will continue to follow up with doctors, and hope to put the experience behind us.  And I have yet another chance to learn how to move forward from the periodic derailments that continue to visit my life.

Last week's focus goal was "to resume work on my novel."  Ahem.

It was once suggested to me, rather unkindly I thought, that the drama in my life, both good and bad, served the purpose of protecting me from the risk of failing (or succeeding?) at my most important work.  Never mind that the person making this suggestion didn't know me well; mistook for my "most important work" the work she thought I should be engaged in; and was most ultimately offensive in focusing on the adoption of my son as the great interruption she saw it for. 

I think it bears examining the pattern even a stranger, albeit a rather perceptive one, could observe in my bumpy history.  For whatever reason (Could it be the six kids my husband and I share?  my large, close extended family?  the dark intensity of my Irish-Catholic roots?  my embrace of a slightly offbeat lifestyle, grounded in the '60s? bad karma? psychological instability?), I seem to have a penchant for "coming a cropper," as they say, and for being blown off course in the wake of personal and family disasters. 

Perhaps I need to start seeing this stuff as, in Thomas Moore's words, "nourishing to the soul."  And perhaps I need to draw on all this unsolicited nourishment and develop a routine for righting myself in the aftermath.

So once again, I need to get back on the horse, and focus on resuming work on my novel.  I don't want to believe that I choose or allow the frequent big-deal interruptions to "my work," but I do admit that they have functioned, at times, to let me off a hook or two.  And I vow to get better at resuming my work, and my focus on it, in the periods of calm between the storms.  This week, I will try to make better use of what calm spaces there are, to more proactively protect my time, and to complete at least a chapter of my novel.

Done for the Week: Time to Power Up

Over the year and a half that I have been writing this blog, I have reported several colds, viruses and injuries that have served to interrupt my productivity on various fronts.  Last week I was visited by yet another bug.  One that has felled several friends and family members, and apparently borders on the interminable.  

Was I always so frequently plagued with minor physical difficulties?  Is this just some of that rain that, "into each life . . . must fall," according to Ella Fitzgerald and the Inkspots?  

Should I be 

• eating better?  (Yup.)  
• worried that I've contracted some immune-system compromising condition/illness?  (Probably not.)
• sucking it up a bit more?  (Yeah.  I admit it.) 

Despite my virus-caused general malaise this past week, I got a fair amount done.  And undone.

Done for the Week:  June 27-July 3, 2011

1. Completed Week 8 of 15-week triathlon training program, modified to accommodate virus I caught; ran once; swam twice;
2. Swam twice, ran once with my training partner 
3. Registered for Danskin Triathlon
4. Registered for Open Water Swim clinic
5. Made hotel reservation for tri weekend
6. Finished The Film Club: A Memoir, by David Gilmour; Thursdays at Eight, by Debbie Macomber
7. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
8. Spent some couch time suffering from a virus being passed through my family
9. Welcomed my grandson back from his vacation
10. Resigned from Search Committee
11. Blew off a couple more meetings
12. Resigned as volunteer backup secretary for nonprofit organization
13. Saw my therapist
14. Published 3 blog posts 
15. Meditated 2 times
    
16. Had lunch date with my husband
17. Went to Happy Hour with my husband
18. Watched one episode of Treme with my husband
19. Finished caring for my out-of-town daughter's dog and house, days 10 and 11
20. Got various family members, including our dog, to walk temporary foster dog with me
21. Met again with major new website client
22. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
23. Participated in driving my not-quite-licensed-to-drive son to his job
24. Volunteered with recall campaign
25. Continued supporting my 20-year-old in his return to the academic environment; lent moral support to completion of final project and online final
26. Went to Summerfest with my husband, and couple friends of his
27. Attended 50th wedding anniversary
28. Attended wake
29. Watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, with my sons and husband, in preparation for Part II's upcoming debut
30. Made progress in cleaning/straightening/decluttering work room, bedroom & kitchen 
31. Bought new bedding to celebrate our newly unearthed bedroom 

In my view, my most important accomplishment last week was finally signing up for the triathlon I am training for.  My delay was partly a matter of securing the necessary monetary outlay; partly related to procrastination of an intended action, due to residual feelings of inadequacy and fear; and partly the result of an unwillingness to put my own needs (to sign up in, and thus be measured against, my own age group) ahead of the imagined needs of my first-timer partner for companionship in the mixed age-group category.  It turned out to be no big deal, when I finally brought it up with her.  All that remained was to pull the trigger.  Which I did.

Last week I continued to focus on the goal of decluttering our house, and involving my housemates in the excavation, starting with the kitchen, my work room, and our bedroom.  As you can see, in green above, I continued to chip away at this goal.  Housemate involvement?  Not so much, though my husband joined me in uncovering (and re "cover"-ing) our bedroom.  At the moment, I can see more of the floor of my work room, and occupy most sitting surfaces, but I still have a ways to go in there.  The kitchen?  I find some of it, I lose some of it, I find some of it, I lose more of it. . . .  It's a perennially moving target.  The whole project needs at least another week.  Hopefully, I can be healthy soon, and bring a bit more energy to it.

As I head into the coming week, I'm going to be thinking about just that--energy! 

## Today makes me think of my poem, Independence Day, posted on ReVersing Course.

Done for the Week: A Bad Cold Ate My Week

I am less than thrilled with the list that follows. But I should be okay with it.  If I learned anything from reading Mary Pipher's book, Seeking Peace:  Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, it is the importance of self-forgiveness.  And why should I even need to forgive myself for the hardly cardinal sin of being sick, or being human?  

I think my reaction is a residual of being raised as a doctor's daughter--the healthy one, at that.  Growing up, we chided each other that being sick was bad advertisement for Dad's medical skills.  And I secretly disliked the not-so-sick who called at all hours of the day and night, interrupting every family outing and celebration.  

As an adult, I have seldom done the kind of work where sick days were an option.   I have been blessed with darn good health overall, but when I do get sick, I generally try to work through it.  Succumbing to the need for rest and a reduced work schedule feels like malingering to me.  

This morning, after three days of  inactivity forced by fever, body aches and a racking cough, I awoke feeling slightly better.  Just in time to start another hectic week. And disappointed, mostly, about my inability to complete Week 9--what should have been the final week--of my 5K training.  My daughter/coach has been admonishing me not to resume training until I am well, and reminding me that even great athletes (whose ranks clearly do not include me) get sick, and injured, and have to rebuild.

Perhaps I am most troubled that my list for last week doesn't really look all that different from those of previous weeks.  

Done List--Week of Mar. 1-Mar. 7

1. Completed Day 1 of Week 9 of Couch Potato to 5K Training
2. Got sick, and then sicker
3. Finished Sold Down the River by Barbara Hambley; Seeking Peace:  Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, by Mary Pipher
4. Walked my semi-grateful dog one day, got family members to do it 2 others
5. Took my blood pressure daily
6. Survived two part-time jobs for another week, working while sick
7. Attended 2 meetings
8. Published 5 blog posts
9. Meditated once
10. Started letter to my dead father, as instructed by therapist

My plan for the coming week is to get over my illness, and get over myself.  As I cough my way into the first hours of Monday, I will try to ease into the resumption of routine, and to leave time for resting.  I look forward to getting my potato uncouched when my lungs clear.