I woke this morning and as I started to stand up I found myself standing on something sharp and painful, I was standing on one of my rings. This is the second time I have found it on the floor and about a week ago I caught it on the throw on the main settee, not strange but it was on the wrong finger. I remembered at that point that I had had a dream that night in which I was trying on rings, clearly I had somehow taken it off and put it back on the wrong finger, but I had no memory of actually taking it off, it surprised me as it isn’t a ring that slips off, it had to be pulled. Finding it on the floor for a second time and without any memory or dream to blame it on, well I am a little confused as to why or what I am doing it for. The first time I found it on the floor it was actually when I was going to bed for my nap, I hadn’t even noticed it had been missing, luckily Adam had done the hoovering the day before, as it would have been gone and finding it would have been luck more than anything else. I am getting to the point that just out of interest I would like to fit up a camera and find out what I am up to once I am asleep, I may not roll onto my sides, but I seem to be able to get other things instead, like landing up with both feet on the floor with my head still on the pillows and now there is the ring thing, what next?
Last night was a lot better than the past couple have been, it is really good to not feel so dizzy that I don’t want to stand up, or worry that if I do get to my feet, I might just be sick. I was rather surprised as I hadn’t been feeling that great earlier in the day, I actually headed to bed just a bit early because of it, as the normal pattern in my life is that anything that is around during the day, will always be worse at night, it was a great relief to find I was actually allowed to enjoy my time with Adam. Time with Adam is another part of the reason that I was so upset about the way I have been for the past couple of night, he start college next week and his time to just sit and be together is going to be cut as he will have homework to do. On top of that, Teressa came to our rescue over the fact that Adam needed a better laptop so he could do that work and sent us her old one, she hasn’t used it since she came here from America as the cables for it broke. All that was needed was a new American cable and an adapter so it can be plugged in here, but it was easier to get a new one and that was what she did. It arrived a couple of days ago but we are still waiting for the cables Adam bought online to arrive, I know it is going to take up his time as it is not just new and far faster than his old one, it is also a Mac, which neither of us have really ever used, his first learning curve starts when the cables arrive and I doubt I will get much more than a grunt until he has it worked out and the fun level returns to normal. As always when it comes to family helping each other out, Teressa won’t hear of us giving her anything for the laptop and we are truly grateful to her for her gift, but both of us feel awkward about it, laptops aren’t cheap and she could have sold it with ease, so thank you again Midget.
I have always found it hard to accept help in any way and I have spoken many times about how hard it is to accept help even when I need it, but for some reason, I never thought of being helped by my daughter. I guess it probably has a lot to do with the problem most parents have, in seeing our children as anything other than just that, children. It doesn’t matter how old they are, or even how tall, they never grow up in our hearts and we are supposed to be the ones who help and care for them. I guess every parent goes through the same feelings and shed tears of love and pride when the tables turn. In a way, it makes us proud to know that we didn’t do so bad, as here is this wonderful grown up person who shines as such and has grown into a caring and generous individual. It makes me doubly proud as I know that thanks to situations out of either of our control, our relationship in her teens was totally screwed up, yet she still wants to be here for me and to help Adam without a second thought. I suppose that is partly why I find it so hard to just accept, without feeling that I somehow have to do something to say thank you to her properly.
Age is normally the reason and time when children are called on to help their parents, I suppose that is part of why I find it hard to accept any help as well, I’m not old. In fact, I am going to take that word suppose out of that statement, that is one of the major reasons that I find accepting help so hard, I would accept it with more grace if I were at an age where I felt it appropriate. It doesn’t matter how ill I am or get, I doubt I that I will ever accept my health as a reason to just accept, I still don’t ask, even when I need it and if I manage to do it alone then I pat myself on the back, with a silent “see you can do it”, but every time I succeed, just makes the asking that bit harder. There are so many metal blokes that we all live with, each of us will be able to ourselves build a list of reasons for not accepting help, all of them will be because of something someone said or did in our past, but we have held onto it and added a brick into our personal wall. I don’t care what anyone says, if we still have the ability to do the slightest thing ourselves, we believe that we can do anything, it takes failure over and over before we admit we can’t. I never really knew anyone who became ill and well before time needed the kind of help I only saw being given to the old or those born with physical or mental difficulties. I haven’t had a role model to show me the way, to help me accept that I was born perfect but I’m not anymore, I am disabled and there is no easy way of getting your head around that, even after 30 years of illness, I still can’t give into it, as I have pushed through everything as it arrived and I still believe that I can.
For the majority of my life, I have been financially independent, I have been physically independent and mentally as well, the last one is the only one that is left, but it is the really important one. Now all I have to do is knock down a few more bricks and replace them with that thought and keep doing it until I totally believe it.
Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 05/09/12 – The elephant in the room
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 