No Regrets

Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best benedictions—“If I had my life to live over again, I’d do it all the same.”

The last few weeks, actually, the whole of May had been a series of missteps, oops, weather and disappointments…oh, and doctor appointments, which is kind of like all of those rolled into one. I don’t do doctor appointments well. You’d think I would be so use to them, what with my mother’s long list of appointments and my own while I was sick that I’d take them in stride. You’d think, but, no.

And the weather/gardening has just plain been frustrating, but finally, I have the vegetable garden in and my lettuce, chard and spinach sprouting. That makes me smile and gets me anxious for some fresh produce. Not that I’ve been without completely. I’ve been enjoying my chives and parsley for about a month. The asparagus has been a big disappointment. Only about two feet of my twelve foot row of the vegetable has come up. But then, the weather hasn’t really been very sunny or warm.

I did finally get my annuals planted. I had to do it in bits and pieces, between rain storms and cold. Frankly, not exactly the way I enjoy planting. No marathon day of planting tons of flowers. I’ve had to scale back over the last few years, eliminating many flower beds and pots. While scaling back there was a huge sense of loss and sorrow, but that loss has turned out to be the best thing for me. I think, sometimes, a forced hand is actually wisdom catching up with you.

It seems this month had been particularly difficult in the caregiving area, too. My cold turned everything so topsy-turvy that my poor mother is a bit out of step. I feel bad about it, but I’m doing the best I can and thank goodness, for my husband. There’s road construction near her house and it is bringing another challenge into the mix, for both of us.

I read an article in the Reader’s Digest, My Daughter, Myself, about caring for a disabled child. There was a lot of information about the caregiver. Though this article addressed caring for a disabled adult child, it really doesn’t matter who you are caring for, so much of the difficulty is the same. The writer, Sallie Tisdale, writes that caregiving is not just another job. I tend to look at it that way, as another item in my long list of to dos.

But there is objective burden—the physical labor— and subjective burden—emotional burden (often negative) like stress, tension, worry, guilt.

I’ve written all my life. I let so much of that go when my kids were small. You lose words, plots, ideas in the minefield of motherhood. Interruptions are a way of life and you simply pray you do not lose too much. When the kids grow and leave home you think you can devote yourself to this work of yours that does not let you go. You don’t expect to be faced with another, different role as caregiver.

It’s not as if I didn’t know there was an emotional cost, but seeing the words, reading about this mother struggling to care for her adult child, does put my situation in perspective. There is much to be grateful for.

Sometimes I’ve thought that this is what I should be writing about, though my heart wasn’t in that. This…my life as a writer, and wife, and mother, and daughter, this journey that I’ve found myself on. I wished I kept notes, thoughts, writings about each detail of this journey. It might help someone else going through this. It might help me. To see the struggles, the heartache, the decisions I’ve made that have impacted my writing. All of it.

Because now, if I was to write a memoir, I’m afraid I’d leave out the best and worst and yet….This was much the same decision I made when I was a young mother. I didn’t write my novel waiting in the bleachers while my oldest son played soccer, I didn’t craft poems while my youngest took drum lessons. I didn’t write essays while my middle son added to his insect collection. I helped catch bugs and know how to spread a Monarch’s wings for display. I saw when my oldest son made a goal or lost the game. I know just how long it took my youngest to learn paradiddles.

So, while we sit in the waiting room for another doctor appointment, my mother and I talk. There are hundreds of words I haven’t written, the book I’ve just finished took longer than it should have, I’ve written fewer poems, to be sure. And I pray I’m making the best life and writing life I can, with the fewest regrets.

I’ve written about this before, but when I have a month like May has been I need reminders of why I do what and how I do. I need hope that I’m not going to lose too much.

Hopefully: There is something in us that is wiser than our heads. —Arthur Schopenhauer