Written Saturday, March 17, 2012
About a month ago, we received notice from our landlord that
the house we had been living in for 10+ years had been sold. They gave us a 30
day notice to vacate. My first response, no emotion. I just thought, this is
something that was meant to be. I thought, maybe this is a message that we are
to find a better place that where we had been living and as my husband always
says to me, “We will be fine.” We always are.
The next week I ended up in the hospital with some medical
problems and then 2 weeks later was back in the hospital. During this time, my
husband was looking for a place for us to live, with no luck in finding a
place. This may have been because he was trying to take care of me, take care
of our daughter and trying to run the auto and marine shop, AND trying to find
a place to live… Whatever the reason, he wasn’t able to find a place.
Eventually, we did find a place to live 2 weeks ago and then my WORRY started
to set in…
I kept telling myself that CHANGE was a good thing. I kept
telling myself all the positives of moving. I would tell myself that we would
meet new people and new friends; that the place we were moving to was much
bigger than where we had lived before; that it was a much newer place than
before.
My real fears: I have short-term memory issues… How will I
remember where things are? I know where everything is in my old house. It’s
taken me 2 years to figure out where everything is. How will I find everything
once we have everything all boxed up? What if I lose important things and I can’t
find them?
My husband kept saying, “Everything will be fine.” I trusted
him.
I told him that I thought the faster we did the move, the
better. I said if we did the move over a weekend, we could get a lot of help
and we could just box things up and then move and unbox everything and I wouldn’t
forget too much. So we agreed to that. Then I got notice from my doctor that I
wasn’t supposed to do anything, because my heart wasn’t doing so well, and I
was supposed to stay off my feet, so our plan wasn’t going to work so well.
I had a friend come in on a Monday who started packing
things up for me, a couple more friends came in on Tuesday to pack some more
things up. By Wednesday the doctor said I could start packing and lift light
boxes. So I started to do that. Then my husband said we could start moving some
of the light furniture and then we planned to have several people help us on
Saturday to get the BIG stuff moved… I thought it would all be done by
Saturday.
As the days rolled by, I couldn’t believe how much we had
accumulated over 10 years. Half of it was in the basement and since I had lost
my memory, I had blocked out of my mind what was there… My brain could only
handle so much.
By Thursday, at 11:30 pm, the last of everything was moved
out of the house.
By Friday morning, my brain was on overload and although I
had spent several day working in the new house putting things away and keeping
most every room situated like I had “pictured them” in the old house for
familiarity purposes, there was still so much that was missing in my brain.
There were close to 200 boxes in the Garage that needed to
be handled – weeded through to figure out what needed to be given away, garage
sold, or kept – a task that is difficult for a brain damaged brain… This is a
task that I have been doing for almost a week now – setting parameters – only one
parameter – Do I really need this? Does this fill my brain with cluttered
thoughts? If it does, it goes. If it helps me, it stays.
I’ve become a minimalist. This is good for a survivor of
brain injury. Keeping things as simple as possible.
Have I found JOY in this process? Definitely! I have found
things that have brought back memories from my childhood. I guess before my
memory loss I kept everything that was sentimental to me – clear back from when
I was a child – and those memories were GRAND! Has it been an emotional
process? Absolutely! I have cried most every day – but with tears comes growth.
Has it been worth it? Yes! It’s getting rid of the Old and Starting Fresh! It’s
getting rid of the cobwebs and seeing things in a whole different light and
perspective. I feel a sense of newness, strength and vitality…
Written March 28, 2012
Life is so interesting… Just as you think you are moving
along, accomplishing what needs to be accomplished, roadblocks begin to spring
up in front of us, reminding us that we aren’t completely in control of our
lives. When we least expect it, things happen to remind us that, even though we
have plans of how we want things to go, shifts sometimes need to be taken, and
wake-up calls are, at times, things that we don’t think we can handle.
On March 17, 2012 (the day I wrote the above), as I was
carrying in groceries, after a long day of running errands, taking a day off
from the process of going through boxes, I was walking up the stairs, hands
full of groceries and “POP”, I felt as if someone had shot me in the back of my
leg! After a trip to the Emergency Room, and a trip to the Orthopedic Surgeon 2
days later, I ended up in a non-walking cast and crutches because I tore the
tendons attached to my Achilles! My first thought when all this happened: “Now
how am I supposed to get through all these boxes? How am I supposed to
unclutter this mind of mine? Can this really be happening?” Then reality set in
and I realized that I couldn’t do anything for myself. Simple tasks that had
become so routine each day, I could no longer do: Make breakfast for Savannah
and I; make lunches; carry things from one room to the other (or from one end
of a room to the other end). I couldn’t carry anything because I needed both
hands on my crutches to get from point A to point B. Constant pain in my leg.
So many obstacles! How was I to get anything done?
Could I find JOY in this new challenge? I searched each day
trying to find meaning in all of it. I teach JOY. I live JOY. I start each day
out feeling JOY. But could I really find JOY in everything that was happening
to me?
There are moments of peace and tranquility where I do feel a
sense of JOY. There are moments of intense sadness and intense pain. There are
conversations with God where I ask why? The answers I receive are of comfort. Thank
heaven for those feelings of comfort. It’s what gets me through the day!
There are times when I think all of this confusion, with all
of my health issues, moving and now being injured and not being able to sort
through and unclutter my confusion is a test on whether I really can feel JOY
all of the time. Well, I’ve earned an “A” on the test. Right now as I sit here
I’m smiling and actually laughing at the whole situation because I do feel JOY.
It is actually quite funny! It has reminded me that all of those boxes sitting
in the garage probably don’t really need to be dealt with because I’ve been
doing just fine without all of their contents for the past 2+ weeks and maybe I
should just become a minimalist!
With all joking aside, I won’t be in this cast forever, and
I will be able to resume the task of weeding through the boxes and will be able
to get back to what my task was that I spoke of earlier. This injury has just
helped me to be so grateful for working limbs that I did have and grateful that
I didn’t hurt myself any worse than I did. It makes me grateful for a loving husband
and daughter and many friends who have selflessly given of their time to help
me out and help me to do those things that I would normally do myself. I’m
learning patience (a trait that I may not have had much of before), and
although I would rather be spreading gifts of charity to others, I’m learning
that RECEIVING charity is as important as giving service (not an easy one for
me to learn).
JOYfully,
Cathleen
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