Читать книгу NORMAL Doesn't Live Here Anymore - Barb BSL Owen - Страница 11

It’s only 10 o’clock in the morning and the familiar fatigue has already arrived. I’ve prepared breakfast and lunch for my husband and managed to swallow a few bites of food between trips up the steps to care for my mother. So far today I’ve made sure that she had breakfast, dealt with bedside commode issues, washed multiple loads of laundry including sheets, towels, and clean up rags, given Mom a shower, dressed her and made sure that she’s comfortable and contented, hopefully for a few hours.

An unending list scrolls through my brain… grocery store… pharmacy… doctors’ appointments… don’t forget Mom’s hair and nail appointments… plan meals… make a sandwich for Mom and loosen the cap on the Ensure bottle so she can “open it herself” at lunch time… fold all the clean laundry… run the vacuum cleaner… dust the furniture… clean the bathrooms… spend time with Mom… feed the animals… relax… take a quick nap… deal with the piles of bills and bank statements… balance the checkbook… take a bath and put on fresh clothes… always be prepared for the unexpected… check the schedule to see who stays with Mom tonight… and try not to borrow trouble… live in the moment… this moment… one moment at a time…

As I catch myself staring out the window I notice that Spring has begun to emerge from a seemingly endless winter. It’s been colder and snowier than in past years and I wonder when the daffodils, hyacinths, and forsythia began blooming.

The past few years are blurred as a spiral of despair threatens to pull me downward. My spirit, fading to grey and withering beneath the weight of responsibility, somehow hears a tiny voice whispering, “Writing can heal.”

As I listened and remembered, the story began to spill onto countless journal pages.

What we call despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

− George Eliot

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