Doing time

I’ve had a rough couple of days in my personal life and it led me to wonder how much of my “personal stuff” is bleeding over into how I care for and relate to Miss Cathy. I mean, duh, I know one effects the other but it wasn’t till now that I stopped to really think about it.

So, before addressing some of my own issues yesterday I lay in my single bed right after waking and thought about how Miss Cathy and I are really getting along. The conclusion I came to is that I’m just “doing my time”, and if that’s the case then like any “prisoner” that means I’m just counting down the days till I’m paroled or released (and lets face it-I’m only four months into a twenty-four month sentence and that’s at a MINIMUM). Wow! That’s a sad way of looking at things and it’s one helluva eye-opener for me.

I always felt that if you can’t “name your truth” then how are you going to work through it? And my “truth” is that “I’m not happy here.” I knew that I wasn’t adjusting to being here as well as I’d hoped but after coming back from my trip I had to acknowledge that it was more than that. Having said that I don’t regret my decision to come, it was and is the right thing to do and where I need to be. It’s just that (now) it’s up to me to choose how I want to spend the next couple of years (or heaven forbid more time than that depending on how her disease progresses).

I lay in bed looking at the improvements I’d made to my little room; buying a funky, mid-century bookshelf/room divider, hanging some of my favorite pieces of art on the walls, rearranging the furniture to create better “zones” and editing out things that I don’t need to “live” here.

I thought about mom and how little it takes to really make her happy. Don’t get me wrong, she can be a nightmare but it seems I’ve only been focusing on that part of our dynamic and forgetting that we used to be really close and had a great rapport. I spend so much time avoiding her lately, so worried about hassles that I forget that there can be happiness, too.

I realized that I don’t want to just “do time” here, there needs to be some quality in my care and the time I spend with her needs to reflect that.

I decided that “I” should make an effort to be more cheerful and engaging in the morning and “I” should listen to what she has to say and not just let her words turn into white noise until there’s a silence, which means I can utter a generic response, and make my exit. I also decided to ask her each day what she might like to do or if she’d like to go somewhere.

With that plan in mind I got up, greeted her with a big (sincere) “Good morning” and actually engaged her in some light conversation while my coffee brewed. I asked her if she wanted to do anything and she said “yes” that she wanted to go grocery shopping for some sale items (our favorite past time) and we made a plan to go out together at noon.

I had time to work on some of my personal issues and I don’t know if one fed the other but I found that taking positive steps in one area seemed to help me sort out things in other areas of my life.

Miss Cathy and I went out for an hour or so and it was time well spent. I was patient in the stores (we went to two different grocery stores to price check and compare different foods) and I actually listened to her when she talked and participated in the conversation-no matter that we’d had this same conversation before.

Back at the apartment, she cooked and chatted as I tended the plants (I seem to be turning into Martha friggin Stewart with those things). She told me later that she had a “really great day” and thanked me for taking her out. I told her that I had fun, too feeling a slight bit of guilt that I’d not been this person earlier BUT I’m “here” now and not just doing time.