When Mom Takes a Powder

The whole last week has been Pretty, Happy, Funny, and Real. And there are no pictures, because I got a new laptop and am still trying to learn how to handle photos. (I thought I had it figured it out, but when I tried to upload something here -- nada. That's real.)

Blank page. New computer. Healing wrist. No writing for more than a week. Before rustiness turns into intimidation and intimidation turns into avoidance and avoidance turns into dread, I am sitting myself down for thirty minutes to get something on this new page on this new machine with this getting-better-I-hope wrist.

Funny how different I feel with this Mac Airbook, not only my first “real” laptop (a long and funnily bitter story) but also the first non-Windows model to find its way into our part of the family. I have been so debilitated by an apparent onset of carpel tunnel syndrome in my right arm that I’ve been able to do little else besides left-handed scrolling through cyberspace during much of the last week. That’s been fun in a way, but ultimately frustrating and dissatisfying as I find I cannot get to any serious work, although I am completely up to date on all my friends’ doings on Facebook and Pinterest.

So, observations:

~It was the easiest Christmas I have had in one way, and one of the hardest in another. I was both more rested and more exhausted. I enjoyed it more and I had more frustration to cope with, all because of not being fit to do the tasks I normally do and having to watch others do them for me and also having to give many verbal descriptions of what to do that took twice as long to think of and say as it would have taken me to just do if I’d not had a hurt arm. But I did. So I had to watch and describe. Hard, exhausting, and frustrating.

~One can do a good bit with one’s non-dominate hand and arm with a little thought. One of the things I could do best, but the one which I think my mom most protested over, was carrying boxes or platters of food with my left arm if someone gave them to me. I found I was able to make the best-part-of-waking-up-but-with-something-better-than-Folgers pot of coffee completely independently, which was a very good thing since everybody else wanted to get another hour or two of sleep in at that time of morning. I could stir but not chop, pull out and put away ingredients but not open many of them, dry most dishes but not really wash. I could write lists that took as long to decipher as it took me to crab them onto the page.

~Watching my family step up to take over my lack left me heartened or dismayed, depending on which side of mine their ages fall. That got me to thinking about how often I send the individuals in any group through a mental cascade of age rank – on the subway, in somebody’s living room where there aren’t many comfortable chairs, when approaching an establishment and choosing who should hold the door for whom. Most of the time I’m unconscious of doing it, but I am often categorizing people according to their need for my service according to age and circumstances – younger than me but pregnant, older than me but male and therefore possibly-insulted if I try to give way to him, older than me and frail, younger than me so why doesn’t he get off his behind and show some manners…

~As to supplying my lack, it is heartening and humbling and even humorous to watch the way various personalities react. The Husband just seamlessly and matter-of-factly helped with whatever I asked or he noticed I needed – washing, dressing, cooking, cleaning up. (To younger-marrieds: This is growth on both our parts. Twenty years ago, I would have expected him to know without my saying what I needed and he wouldn’t have ever noticed if I didn’t spell it out, which caused episodes of unmet needs and resentment and annoyance and how-am-I-supposed-to-read-your-mind and if-you-really-cared-you’d-figure-it-out and, oh boy, am I glad we got past that season!)

The Adult Female Offspring appeared to realize This Was a Crisis and swung into helping as though she was taking on a Project. I could see her step out of Daughter/Assistant mode into Be Mom mode as clearly as if she took off her post-college jeans and hoodies and put on my hopefully-classy-without-being-too-dull-without-being-too-trying-hard-to-be-what-she’s-not wardrobe. It was an awfully tender thing to see, and it reminded me rather too much of how I probably behave when it hits me that one of our parents is going to need a sustained higher level of help for awhile.

The Late Adolescent Male showed great concern for short bursts of time, but he cheerfully helped when asked. On the morning I woke up unable to function, the Mid-to-late Adolescent Male didn’t appear to notice anything was different at all until I explained why I was holding my arm as still as possible, doing everything left-handed, and wincing every minute or two. Then he listened to me without expression, said, “Oh,” and went on with his life. If asked to do something, he did it willingly. If not asked, he, uh, went on with his life.

Mom, who is certainly on the plus side of me age-wise, listened, as she does to any description of anybody of any age who is hurt, with sympathy and an apparently-immediate jump to what she has suspected all along – the person never was that strong and she knew they shouldn’t be doing whatever they were doing before they got hurt and they should have let her do it because, of course, she is able to do everything and now if everybody will just behave as they ought and let her do everything, then everybody and everything will be fine.

As for me, I have found myself complaining and apologizing in the very same way all temporarily non-able-bodied people do – the way that ultimately ends up being kind of annoying to the people who are helping them. I notice that I am doing it and try to stop and am only semi-successful. And, trite though it probably is, I have been spending lots of time being thankful for the health I have enjoyed these forty-four years and regretting the times I feel sorry for myself over health challenges which are far less than many people cope with for decades of their lives, and also thinking about the reality that my health and abilities will inevitably decline as is common to man and wondering if I am using my relatively good health in the best way while it is mine.

It has been a week of contrasts – frantic and quiet, rich and dull, full of lessons to learn and too much Pinterest.

So, how’ve you been?