Today is going to be a mess and for once, it’s got nothing to do with me. Two weeks ago, as we do ever Wednesday evening we were sorting out our midweek treat of one of those fancy tear and share breads. Adam lit the oven, but within seconds, it turned itself off and refused point-blank to stay alight, our 15-year-old cooker was dead. We had hoped that we would be able to buy one and have it fitted last week, as Adam was off work, so it was just easier that way, but we didn’t know the system, so we didn’t order it until Tuesday, too late for our plans. As you will have guessed, today is the day that our new one arrives and like everything else, buying it was the easy bit. Because it is gas, it can’t be fitted by just anyone, so the system is as follows, the cooker will arrive anytime from now through to 2 pm, followed shortly after, by the gas fitter. He will disconnect the old one and fit the new one, once done, the delivery van will return, to remove the old one. It all sounds so easy, but life has told me a million times, what should be easy, often isn’t. No matter how much I want to believe it will happen the way they say it will, I just don’t believe it. Add onto that, the fact I normally sleep for part of the afternoon, and well, you can see why this is a day, I just want to end, even though it has just begun.

I had actually totally forgot that it was coming today, that in itself isn’t that surprising, nor is I suppose that I had actually planned my week totally differently. I had decided on Sunday just to enjoy my day and take it all slowly. Then yesterday, I was going to get ahead with scheduling my quotes and anything else I could out of Tuesdays routine, plus have my shower, as I was planning to make my Psyllium pancakes today. Then yesterday lunchtime when Adam phoned to say he wasn’t coming home for lunch, he reminded me that the cooker would be here today. At first, I was just plain angry with myself for once again forgetting something major was happening, then I remembered the pancakes and my heart totally sank. From start to finish, they are a 5-hour job, granted nearly 3 hours of that, is just waiting for the yeast to do it job, but it still time. In the past, I would have tied myself up in knots, panicking about how I was going to fit it all in around my routine, without it all falling apart. Once off the phone and in the kitchen, I sat and checked myself, just sitting, breathing slowly and taking the time to sort it all out in my head. Once more, I was calm and relaxed about it all, I had a new plan and I was at peace with it. Even a month ago, that wouldn’t have happened. This new me, the laid back, what will happen will happen me, is odd, but somehow nice.

Of all the things that I know has made the biggest change in how I am feeling about life, was the realisation that I couldn’t control things any longer and I had to find a new way of handling everything. Yesterday proved to me that it works, until then it was mainly theory, I hadn’t had anything happen that was major enough to be sure it would work. But there I was, everything up in the air, and I was calm about it. There were no tension tears, not banging things around in the false belief that speed would make it all happen quicker, I was doing everything the right way. I am not saying that it all passed without any issue. I did at one point find my breathing all over the place and I wasn’t able to sort it out. So there I was sat on my perching stool, cooking pancakes whilst using my nebulizer. Probably not the image that most would expect in a kitchen, but it worked for me. Taking the time to just stop, to think about it and put it all into a logical fashion, and accepting that my day was just going to unfold as it did, rather than how I thought it should, made a world of a difference. I hadn’t been sure it would work as I am fighting against many ingrained habits and also brain damage, I have tried using different theories to control it in the past, but always failed. Usually, my brain can’t cope with things not being just so, not exactly the way it expected. Until now, I have never been able to calm myself, all I could do was go with it, accept that I was going to be distressed and wound up, with no escape until it decided to let me go. It was both scary and exhausting, but there was nothing that had worked before, not even systems almost identical to what I used yesterday. I can only think that it worked because of my acceptance that I can’t control anything and that life, now has to be in the hands of others.

The whole afternoon passed not as I expected, yes busy, but I still had a nap and my shower and the pancakes were done as well. As for what I normally did online, well it just stopped, and I didn’t feel stressed by it. One of the things that I have been thinking about for a long time now, is setting up something that will aid my memory, but is still mainly run by Adam. I have looked at them in the past and done nothing about it, but I know there are out there several free multi-platform calendar/planning apps. What I want, is to set up everything from ordering my prescriptions, to the next day I have to have a shower, all my hospital appointment, you name it, anything I need to be told to do, or be ready for. With it being multi-platform, it will work on my PC, Adams phone and his laptop. That way both of us can see it, add to it, check that things have been done, or not, and it should keep us both in line. I am also going to try and find one, that sends alarms as well. When I had one just on my own PC, it was too easy to ignore, lie to and basically pay no attention to at all, it was a perfect exercise in futility. If we had had one, I wouldn’t have forgotten the cooker was coming today, and Adam would have known about my plans to make my pancakes. More than that, it wouldn’t have been in that day, when I was on the phone arranging the cooker, as I would have put it there as the day, they would run out. Adam is already my memory, the person who sorts out my meds, opens all my mail and keeps me right daily. What he has to do for me, is always rising and I think things are already getting to the point, where he too, is starting to forget about some of it. Running our own life is hard enough, running someone else’s as well, well let’s be honest, it’s a lot to ask.

To my surprise, I was in the middle of the second paragraph when the doorbell rang. It was the gas engineer to uncouple the cooker, I had been told that the cooker would be here first, but apparently not. He was still testing the gas for the whole house, when it rang again, it was the cooker. All of it was happening at once, and not the way I had expected. Once they had delivered it and left with the old one, I disappeared back through here, in desperate need of normality, to be away from all the mess, people and change. Everything was happening too fast on one hand, and perfectly on the other. We’re now an hour on and peace has settled back on my home, and I have a working and perfectly beautiful, new cooker. I have made it through turmoil without landing up as a jibbering wreck. Just all the toing and froing has been enough to leave me tired, but for once, I am pleased with myself at just how well I handled it all without Adam by my side. I’m not totally calm, I’m not totally settled and peace with the world, but I am content with that, that is a minor and irritating thing, but I can handle this and I will settle back into my day. Life is good, that’s all I have to remember, life is good and I am safe, not in control, but safe and that’s what really matters and has to be my goal from now on.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 27/10/2013 – Family breakdown

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