going through changes

It's been too long since I posted here, and I just wanted to give a brief update in case anybody was looking for one. I am alive and doing fine. My mom has been home for a week now since her fall, the four-hour "lumbar fusion" surgery that followed, and a week-long stay in the hospital. She is on a slow path to recovery and is working really hard to get better. I try to get down there as much as I can to help...which I am happy to do of course, but this means I have no time off whatsoever to relax and regroup. That can (and does) make things very stressful.

I feel like I've grown up a lot in these last couple of weeks. People keep telling me that in situations like this, our parents become the children and we must step up and become the adults responsible for them. But that is not true for us. Not now. My mother is a strong, capable woman who knows what she needs and how to get it. She is just weak right now, and needs my help. And after all she's done for me these last 29 years, who am I to refuse that call?

I think that even if the time comes when my mother loses all capacity, mental and physical, I will never think of her as a child. I'm sure that when people make these types of references, they don't mean to be offensive. But I feel like that way of thinking is demeaning. People grow old and become more dependent over time. That's a fact. But it doesn't mean they deserve respect any less.

So anyway, I feel like I've entered into a whole new stage of my own life because I've had to play a role that I've never played before. And besides the abrupt way that this was brought about, it has all happened quite naturally. I am evolving into the person I was raised to be, and that feels good. Feels right.

I am anxious to start documenting it all again. Thanks for reading.