Can I Get Off This Ride?

On my way home from the nursing home this evening, I just basically sat in silence. There are days I feel like I am unstoppable, I can even hear the fight song playing in my head….and other days (like today) I just want to pull into my parents driveway and see what’s for dinner. I want to hear my Dad mowing the lawn, I want to see mom making blackberry jam…I want to smell lemon pledge….but instead…I go to see Dad at the graveyard and I listen to my Mom yell a lot that she’s in pain.

Life was pretty easy…until it wasn’t. I have buried a husband at the age of 28 and raised my two year old. Remarried at 29 with my almost three year old…became a stepmother, learned how to run a business….made countless mistakes.

In recent years I have fought breast cancer and won…and taken care of my parents…and I have to tell you…every day I feel as if I may just lose it.

I literally live in two different worlds. The world of nursing homes and sadness and confusion and watching your parents just fade away of who they were. Their former selves just wasting away….

I then have to keep a happy disposition for my staff and my customers. Meanwhile my adult children are flying away and while I feel blessed….I feel this amazing sadness that I sometimes wear like a heavy coat. It just sits heavy on my shoulders…makes my heart hurt and I just want to run…but where?

I throw myself into activity after activity hoping that will help…but I guess that alone in the world feeling isn’t going to leave anytime soon.

My Dad fixed everything….always. He had a solution to most problems. He loved me fiercely and I hope he is proud of my promise that I made to him that I would take care of my Mom….but other days….I just want to talk to him as I stand on the fence post petting the horses and watching the sun set. My sunburn from my swimming pool days still showing nice and red….I want to put my hand in my Dads hands and see it get swallowed up like it did when I was little. I want to hear the cicadas and smell the hay in the barn…

That vision, that picture only exists in my mind…forever kept safe….

Someday this life will be over…and we shall meet on that beautiful shore.

Until then….I will keep pushing….even though some days I just can’t.

I must continue to find the joy…count the blessings….be thankful for the gift of life.

This week I’ve been trying to remember that….here is a Sample of the week.