Camped Out

 

I'm camped in my office while the cleaners are vacuuming and dusting and generally making our home shine. They don't know that Dearest One and I spent many hours this morning tidying things up so that they could find their way to washing floors and cleaning bathrooms. I hired them before I had surgery to take the pressure off Dearest One. Covid has been stressful enough without more on his plate. He has been in care homes all semester with students. It's taken its toll. And even though he normally does all the floors and I do bathrooms, it's been a luxurious respite to do neither. 

I am still carrying around a drain tube almost 8 weeks post surgery. My hope is for my family doctor to remove it this coming week. No doubt it has partially grown into the surrounding tissues so that won't be fun when he goes to yank it out. Which is how you get a drain tube out. Yank. And out comes more tubing than you could ever imagine fitting into the space it has occupied. I will be glad to see it go. Glad to shower with abandon, after I ended up being allergic to water proof adhesives, and most of all to sleep on that side again. The little habits one takes for granted. 

I am very glad I had the surgery. No longer lopsided. No more pull on my body as it tries to navigate with extra weight on one side. No more ever wearing a bra again. My physiotherapist has said it's a win win for my body. 

Restrictions are such right now that one is not allowed to have anyone in their home who doesn't live there, housecleaners exempt. Neither are we allowed to gather socially outside either. It will mean a very quiet Christmas. I'm grateful for Facetime. And kids who don't mind calling to let us catch up with them and their kids. Some of them have had covid. Thankfully it was manageable. Pre covid one of them had a medical emergency and went to the hospital via ambulance. The thought that many people in similar circumstances don't get to talk to their loved ones again, makes anxiety go right up my throat. 

I have learned no new skill during the pandemic. I have not pushed myself to do anything out of the ordinary. Surviving it is enough all on its own. Our numbers continue to go up. We don't go out of the house except for the essentials that can't be delivered. We see no one. 

Well, I do see my therapist. We are working through hard stuff. We are always working through hard stuff. I have learned to let the tears flow instead of swallowing them. I've become secure enough with her to say it all out loud. The stuff one normally thinks but never expresses. The long held beliefs. The irrational. The awful. The dark. And in the midst of all that we find enough to laugh about as well. 

It is worth every moment, even the moments I hate. I am aware that I am not only changing my present and my future, but I am also changing the course for my descendants. If you would have told me at 25 that one day I could look at the behaviour of little people and accept it as it is instead of something to be fixed I would've laughed at you. Scorned you for being so stupid and short sighted. Grandparenthood has freed me to delight in all of it. I had no idea of cognitive development when my kids were little. No idea what was reasonable to expect. So I expected far too much. Unattainable expectations. As I find compassion for myself I find all the compassion and more for my grandchildren and their parents. 

I may go camp out there next.