It’s time to talk about my frustrations. When I’m frustrated my automatic response is anger. Rage. Fury. These emotions are outsized and out of proportion, super-sized and overwhelming.
Frustration #1. My son, my adult child, my autistic sweet giving loving in-his-own-way first born formally tow-headed little boy James needs physical reconditioning for his heart, for his well-being. I am neither inclined nor qualified to do this for him. It might be different if he were interested. It might be different if he were not autistic and could understand what exercise actually is and what it does for the body, but he doesn’t and he will never understand it until he does exercise on a regular basis. If then. But he needs more than just movement. He needs actual supervised reconditioning. His legs are almost skeletal at this point; he has very low energy. But he has no connection to how his body feels. He just doesn’t. He was in the hospital for ten days in July and he never complained about a single thing. He has always been this way. The mind-body connection, the physical awareness of the self, just isn’t there. I’m not saying this couldn’t be improved but good grief, I’m not the one to do it. I don’t have the training and working with someone as implacable as James is infuriating and exhausting.
I have enrolled him in a program offered by the state insurance program called Choices. Or something like that. There are two levels to the program. Level 1 is a program where he would actually be encouraged to work, which he has zero zero zero interest in. He also, I realize now, needs one-on-one full time health and wellness supervision. I don’t think that putting him through the frustration of the level 1 program would even be worth it. He needs the level 2 program which includes one-on-one nursing care and physical therapy, speech therapy, etc., etc. And I have realized that a change needs to be made NOW, not a year from now as I had thought. I need to move on. I need for him to move out of the house so we can establish a new routine that we will become the new normal. He would live apart from us and we would certainly be involved in his care and his life, but the health care, the constant worry and guilt that I feel, would be lessened if someone were with him every day saying–OK get up, you need to pee so you can weigh yourself. We need to take your blood pressure. You need to eat. You need to move around. I simply don’t feel that I am capable, or willing, to do this anymore. I am frustrated.
I am the caregiver responsible for my brother who lives apart from me. Dale and I have two aging parents who are well into their 80s. We will likely have another family member to care for soon. I have health issues of my own and I’m sometimes disabled by my health issues. I have too much on me and I need a total change.
Frustration #2 I am having an Identity Crisis. This has come on slowly and strangely and it’s been hard for me to see that it is happening.
At some point in the last, I don’t know, five years or so?, I have begun to equate my well-being with housework and cooking, with the possible perfection of these things, and I’m not even close to perfection in any way, so like most perfectionists, I’m constantly irritated and upset about the lack of perfection in my environment.
This is a trap of my own making. And the sad part is I’ve learned the joys of cleaning on a regular basis, i.e. when you clean on a regular basis it’s very easy to clean. But I find myself, like so many housewives through the ages, cleaning up after adults. And this makes me very angry.
Also I don’t wanna cook if I don’t wanna cook. This has always been the case but I want to make changes to this because I don’t wanna eat out so often, which means ordering in most of the time. It’s expensive and it’s often just not very good.
So I have this intention to change the eating patterns for myself and for Dale and it is too much. I have a diagnosed eating disorder and I’m not sure that I need to be making food choices for anybody but myself, because it’s difficult. It’s fraught. It is a heavy burden to carry.
I also have gotten into the habit of making Dale breakfast, which I love to do, if I’ve already eaten my own breakfast! Otherwise I end up making his breakfast first and delaying my own breakfast which infuriates me, yes I think it actually infuriates me and I just swallow it down and pretend that it doesn’t. But I hate it. The difficulty comes in the fact that I’m not getting up as early as I used to, so I would have to literally just go ahead and make my own breakfast, and then make his after I eat. And that makes me feel a little bit bad because I really, really do want to get his breakfast done for him. And I want it to be piping hot when he gets it. But he doesn’t CARE about this. He doesn’t think—Boy I hope my breakfast is just PERFECT this morning. He’s just happy to get it. But I think of everything—heat up the plate, hold off on bacon until eggs are almost up, slow and PERFECT on the eggs, keep an eye on that friggin’ muffin, etc., etc., etc.
Wow. I am so glad that I wrote that down. I feel so much better now. I need to tell Dale all of these things but especially this thing about breakfast.
I also need to tell him that I don’t want to fetch his dishes to the kitchen anymore. He can and ought to do that himself. So can James, who actually is very good about bringing his dishes to the kitchen. But the dishes don’t just need to be in the kitchen because we have a very small kitchen with very limited counter space. If the dishes are left just anywhere in any manner it actually creates MORE work for me.
This is another one of my constant frustrations–I find it inexplicable and so infuriating when Dale does not do what I consider reasonable things with his dirty dishes. There are three reasonable things that he could do with his dirty dishes starting with putting his dirty dishes in the DISHWASHER. He could also stack his plates neatly in the sink, and stack his bowels up and put them next to the WALL on the counter instead of leaving them in front of the coffee maker in front of the toaster in front of the little oven in front of the paper towels. He could just pile them up in the dining room which would be easier for me overall. I mean really.
UPDATE–I made space in the kitchen today! YAY ME!! I think I will be okay if dishes are set to the side of our fridge. Dale was using this as a bar, but I moved his drink mixes, etc., to our actual cabinet/bar. I also put the blender in a cabinet, a bottom one. I will hate dragging it out, but the counter space is more important.
I thought that I could do all of this housework and cooking myself because like, well Dale’s the breadwinner and I’m not working and and and and…
I have all the trappings of a perpetually-guilty and underappreciated housewife from the 1960s. My god. This must stop. “Homemaker” simply cannot be my identity. You know I even bought that planner that I mentioned a couple weeks ago so I could schedule housework–not so that I will do more of it but so that I will do less of it. I bought these cookbooks so that I could follow recipes and plan meals. And while this seems doable on some level it’s also kind of terrifying I think. Because I often don’t WANT to eat meals after breakfast. Not really. On most days I would like to have a smoothie, have some berries and yogurt and granola, eat a lot of fruit, and pack my Bento boxes so that I’m getting some veg and some protein thrown in there. I would like to keep noodles cooked and in the fridge, and some grain cooked up, sometimes some soup, maybe an Indian dish that’s mildly spiced, and just eat that stuff. I want to cook big batches of soup or whatever and freeze them in those Souper Cubes. I want to eat enormous bowls of cereal and banana.
When I make a meal plan that is varied and interesting I’m really making that for Dale. Not myself. I don’t want my food to be varied and interesting. It’s just not my nature to be adventurous with food. However because it might be good for me to break out of that a little bit, (well, it might actually do me a world of good) and because following the recipes in the Cooking for Two cookbook that I bought could be edifying in many ways, I’m willing to give it a go three nights a week as Dale and I discussed.
But planning and actually shopping to make these meals is still kind of overwhelming to me. Many of them are requiring special ingredients…well new ingredients, and most of them include meat which, again, I would not cook for myself. I like bacon and I like deli meat. I might not ever eat any other meats if it were just me cooking for myself. I’d do veggie burgers and bean burgers and nut burgers and lentil loaf and baked potatoes and bread bread bread. And butter.
UPDATE–I cannot approach planning in a strident manner, which is my normal way and always has been. No, if I want to plan meals I have to be FLEXIBLE. Plan 3 meals and then either make them or don’t make them. And don’t assign them to certain days. That’s just MADNESS. Same is true for cleaning. I need to have a ballpark plan and be loosy goosey about it. I will not always have the energy to clean big, but I often do. Let my body and brain be my guide.
So you can see that I’m very frustrated about all of this. However I have been undermining myself because when Dale says that he can cook I’m like oh well you don’t have to cook I don’t want you to cook I like to cook. I also tell him he doesn’t need to clean because I will do that you shouldn’t have to do that, because I feel obligated to do it, because I don’t work and he does. But really, I was thinking the other day, will this be the case when he retires? Will I wait on him hand and foot because he earned so much money all through the years?
Hells to the NO.
It is obvious from this writing that I really just need to take some simple actions. With James it’s harder but I already called the Open Arms care center here in Chattanooga this morning and left a message. And this stuff with the housework and whatnot? That’s easy. I can reprioritize. And I can have a long talk with Dale about all of this. Or he can just read this blog!
Frustration #3. My health. I am not feeling well, probably because my thyroid is low and I have dealt with a low thyroid for most of my life. This will likely be easily fixed with medication. I see the doctor next week.
On February 13th I have an appointment for Botox for migraine and as I approach each treatment date I usually get more migraines leading up to that. So the chronic pain piece of my life and actually of my personality, is one that I need to respect and compassionate. This is not easy for me. I have felt all of my life that I make up pain, that I really don’t feel pain, that the pain is not real or is not as bad as I think it is, that I use it as an excuse, that I secretly really enjoy the pain, and on and on and on and on. I know now that many many people with chronic pain and disability feel these same ways. While this is helpful, it doesn’t necessarily alleviate my own feelings–this is something I need to work on. I saw a new counselor last week and will be seeing her every couple of weeks. I also need to move. After all of the sickness in November and December I haven’t been moving as much and that’s a problem. I need to start slowly again, treat myself well, walk for 5 minutes a few times a day or maybe even once a day, build up gradually, be mindful and gentle of myself and my body. And respect that I am OLDER now and things are not what they were even 5 years ago.
Frustration #4. Lack of intellectual stimulation. Dale and I discovered a few years ago that we thrive when we have intellectual stimulation like going to lectures, reading books, listening to lectures, socializing with people who are sophisticated and intellectual and educated in the ways that we are. Since COVID began and ended we really have not had anything except for one lecture series that we watched on YouTube and the books that we read individually and share with each other. This is not enough, especially as we get older. So I have found all of these events that we can do in the spring. There’s the school of theology program during lent at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church. That’s five Wednesdays starting with the wonderful John Meacham on Feb. 24th. I found this wonderful event coming up where they are reenacting a famous debate between Baldwin and Buckley which sounds exciting and it’s at the Roland Hayes theater hall on the UTC campus, a venue that I love–I directed the Vagina Monologues there years ago. I found an artist critique group that I can attend and that Dale could attend with me if he wants to because it might be very interesting. There are so many galleries and openings that we can go to and often there are receptions and by god we’re going to get out there and do stuff and stimulate our brains. Plays. Drinks with friends. Trivia? Just lots of stuff.
It would also be really nice for us to find some kind of movement that we can do together that we would enjoy. Something that we would actually be motivated to do.
And then there’s church. I think that if we were going to be involved in church we would be actually be involved in church in some way. But we aren’t. I’m shell shocked because almost every time that I do go to church I get a migraine. And it would probably be just about any church because if there’s one thing they have in common it’s very bright lights directly overhead and in front of you when you’re sitting in the Pew. So there it is. We could go to groups that go on at the church that are not in the nave, but we haven’t. We would no doubt do Education for Ministry again if it were offered in person somewhere… I need to check into that. But I need to give up on the idea of going to church, unless I can find a church that does an afternoon service that isn’t flooded with light. Because if we are going to socialize with our friends on Saturday evening, we are not going to get up early enough to go to church on Sunday morning. And I feel like seeing our friends and hanging out with them is more important than going to church, especially if I may get a migraine when I go.
UPDATE–I sent an email to the pastor of Pilgrim Congregation Church this afternoon, asking about lighting in the nave there. I have always wanted to check them out. And here’s the thing. Their worship is at 11:00, but their Sunday school is AFTER services–12:15. How freakin’ great might that be?
So there it is–a list of my current frustrations. I see simple actions that I can take and that’s always a good feeling, so in a way this blog has been a counseling session for myself. It’s part of the serenity prayer–change the things you can, “the courage to change the things I can.”
~r.
