Five years

It is five years since Dave's accident today and I really, really didn't want to write this year. I don't like where I am in this process. Which is even more dismaying because I thought the "process" was over, that I had come to a point of acceptance. But apparently not. Apparently there are layers upon layers of process I'm still waiting to discover and I'd really like to know when it ends. I'm writing anyways because this annual check in is important to me, personally, and I make it public in case anyone else reading is dealing with something similar. (years one, two, three and four here)

This year I am angry. Angry and resentful and completely ashamed of myself for feeling that way. I'm exhausted. Our family is exhausted. I'm frustrated that every solution I've come up with over the last five years has failed or at best been extremely imperfect.

Over and over again I think I've finally given up hope (which I guess I equate with acceptance, that elusive state) and then I think of something else and manage to convince myself that this time it will be a solution. And then it fails and I lambaste myself for my stupidity. There is no simple solution. My family is not going to magically be fixed.

In August my mom got very sick and we had to scramble to find a way to take care of Dave. In desperation I ended up bringing him to work with me for a week* and then found a respite care facility close by where he could stay for another five weeks. I convinced myself that we would use this time to somehow improve things. I found a self therapy program for brain injury online (patient guide here, family guide here). I read it and felt hugely hopeful** and tried to get Dave to work through it. He was motivated in theory but not so much in practice. I struggled, trying to decide how much I could expect from him, whether the difficulty of pushing through the program might be worth it. Every day for at least an hour I would push him to make a schedule, to work on the exercises, to figure out meaningful activities for his life. I ended up wrung out and exhausted. Dave felt inadequate. We were both resentful. I was putting in long days at work (trying desperately to prove that my family situation wouldn't impact my work performance), hitting the gym in an attempt to knock out some anxiety and then heading directly over to work with Dave before going home to make dinner at 9:30 pm. I don't know how people do this. And there are so many people out here who do this, or something similar.

Here is what I hate about myself, what I don't want to admit to anyone - I'm resentful that this shell of Dave is taking up so much of my time and energy. I want to be able to spend more time with our other parents, who also need us. I want to be able to spend more time with Dustin. Our friends are buying houses and having kids and I'm so damn tired and discouraged that half the time I can't think more than a month ahead, juggling family schedules and trying to make sure that no one feels neglected. I feel hollowed out, right when I want our lives to feel full of possibility. I want to be dreaming instead of doing constant damage control.

I'm terrified and ashamed by how bitter I can feel towards Dave at times. None of this is his fault. And yet I'm still angry with him. I still manage to be hurt by the fact that since the accident he hasn't once asked me how my day went, or how work is going, or how Dustin and I are doing. I know that this isn't his fault, but it still hurts, to invest so much time in someone who has so little to give back. I worry that all this anger has displaced the love we had. But the first night I had to leave him in the respite facility, as I watched him walk into the dining room for dinner, alone, without one of us, for the first time in nearly five years, I had to fight the urge to stay just so I could make sure he was okay. I was so afraid he would be lonely or disoriented, that the other residents wouldn't understand him and he'd have to sit alone. My fear felt physical, like a punch to the gut. I dragged myself home and cried for three hours before giving in and going back to check on him. He was fine, of course. How can I love him so much and still feel so much anger towards him? I want to be a person who loves unconditionally and gives selflessly, who balances work and family and a personal life effortlessly and still has a sense of humor about it. The best I can seem to do is to look like that person at least some of the time. Inside I just feel horribly selfish, fraudulent.

There is still so much love in our family that I have to believe we'll figure out some kind of long term solution. (If I can't believe that, how can I keep going forward?) I'm not sure what we're going to do but we'll keep trying. In the meantime, I'm fighting to break myself out of this crisis mindset, to whatever extent I can. The anger and resentment were big wake up calls for me. I don't want to be an angry person and I don't want to resent my family. So I'm trying to set aside more time to just hang out, fighting the (entirely self-imposed) guilt I feel every time I'm out having fun instead of doing something for my parents. D and I are looking at potentially moving to a new neighborhood, which is no big deal when you rent, except that it feels simultaneously impossible and overwhelmingly exciting. This is how I know I need to open up my life a little more, because the prospect of moving 7 miles away feels daring and spontaneous (note that we've been talking about doing this for four years and keep putting it off because it never seems like the right time - I have to stop waiting for the right time and just start doing things).

So I'm not in a good place this year, but I'm going to do everything I can to be in a better place next year. I think I need to stop fighting this situation and just work on changing myself as best I can.




*Um, yes. This was not my finest professional moment. Asking my boss to let me bring my brain injured stepfather to work with me was difficult but taking time off would have been a bigger hardship and I'm incredibly lucky to work in a supportive environment. I try really hard not to bring my personal issues to work with me because I'd like to be known for being awesome at my job, not for being that person with all the family crises. But sometimes it's unavoidable.

** I'd highly recommend this program for people dealing with TBI. It was helpful to me, as a family member, and I think it would be amazing for many patients. I'm not sure if Dave isn't quite motivated enough or if it's my fault for not having enough time to dedicate to it, but even on a limited basis I think it was useful for us. If we could somehow get the system into place, I think it could be even more useful (apparently I'm chronically optimistic, even when I'm trying not to be).

Reading, last week (er, last month)

I don't have a good list of books for you right now because I haven't been reading as much as I'd like. I also only have 2 minutes to get this post published, even though I've had it mostly drafted for a month.

BUT - if you are looking for a super absorbing, mystery/thriller with lots of suspense and some excellent plot twists, you will probably want to check out Afterwards. I got it because I enjoyed Lupton's novel Sister quite a bit and this one is EVEN BETTER.

I don't like to describe mysteries too much because I think it ruins the surprise. The voices in this novel are strong, the concept is unusual, the characters are enjoyable and I had a really hard time putting it down during the last 1/3 of the book. To the extent where I was borderline rude to Dustin a few evenings in a row because I was so desperate to get to the ending.

It was a good ending.

And back in LA ...

A couple Sundays ago we treated ourselves to a lighting workshop at Poketo, preceded by a shared flight at Angel City Brewery and a pocket pie from the Pie Hole. I'm sure that drinking before working with electricity is not strictly recommended, but we were technically still on vacation that day.

{angel city taps}

{flight}

{strategizing}

{lighting workshop at poketo}

I've always shied away from working with electricity, so it was fun to get some experience with it in a setting where I was fairly certain I wouldn't be allowed to electrocute myself. We wired a simple pendant lamp and we're going to use them as our new bedside lamps. Pictures to follow, hopefully. You would think it wouldn't take us two weeks to get a couple of lamps hung, but you'd be wrong.

Palm Springs 2013

We went to the Colony Palms for our honeymoon and now we try to make it back out every year. We only had time for the miniest of vacations this year but we still wanted to get out of town, even if it was just for a day, really. Palm Springs to the rescue! If you're thinking that there is nothing to do in Palm Springs in September, when it is almost too hot to move, you are right! That's the genius of it. You are physically forced to do nothing but lay around and read. It's the most efficient form of relaxing I've found. Plus the rooms are on super discount.

{getting started}

{PS}

{reading, drinking}

{bar tending}

{alcove}

{archway}

{turrell at dusk}

We brought our own drinks and splurged on a few poolside meals and took serious advantage of the free coffee they offer in the morning. Vacation means having two full hours to spend in the morning talking and drinking endless cups of coffee. I read magazines and mysteries and napped. We finally made it to breakfast at Cheeky's and it was as good as everyone says it is. We stopped at our favorite vintage mall and ended up buying yet another pitcher, after a long discussion about how we probably couldn't because we can't possibly justify owning another one. But it was just such a good one.

On our way home we detoured through Claremont to check out the Skyspace and indulge in some college nostalgia. We did not attempt to crash any parties.

Update - homemade cleaners

I frequently forget to follow up on how new things are going, because telling you that I'm still doing something is not nearly as interesting as just posting about something new.

BUT ... 

I'm still on board with the homemade kitchen cleaner and it's very easy. 

{lemon cleaner}

I'm mostly sticking with the lemon + basil variation. I've gotten in the habit of saving lemon peels, cleaning off the fruit right away and keeping them in a bag in the fridge. The higher your ratio of peels to vinegar, the better your cleaner will smell, unsurprisingly. I chop the peels up a bit before I pack them in a jar to maximize the contact. 

You can re-use the peels at least once. After a couple weeks, I'll pour off the steeped vinegar into my spray bottle and then just top off the peels with fresh vinegar and let it sit for another few weeks. Works great. I always have two jars going now.

How to decorate a baby shower for $20 ...

spray paint, 10 balloons, a handful of dinosaurs and tapping into those kindergarten paper mâché skills. Done.

{dessert table}

{dino dessert!}

{letters, deployed}

{baby shower}

Okay, so this was not the most elaborately decorated Pinterest-y baby shower ever, but it was one of the most fun, laid back baby showers I've ever been to (co-ed party with pizza and pasta, minimum of fuss, and no one asked me to taste any baby food). Our friends wanted it simple but I begged for permission for a few (very minimal) decorations just to make it festive. The mom to be is one of the thriftiest ladies I know, so in that spirit I tried to keep the cost low and not go overboard.

I spent $10 on dinosaurs. The little ones came from Party City but I had to track down the larger ones at the dollar store. I have a shoebox full of spray paint, so I didn't have to purchase any. I primed them before painting them a couple different shades of green (Montana has the best spray paint colors).

{stegosaurus}

{the herd}

{greens}

$8 on balloons - they really do help let people know where the party is happening, so they're not just decorative.

$2 on dessert plates that matched the general color scheme.

The letters were a collaborative labor of love and halfway through I decided we were totally insane but persevered because I still can't come to terms with sunk costs. And I do love how they turned out. D printed out large letters on paper and used them as templates to cut out our letters (twice as many as we needed, so we'd have front and back). Then he made them three dimensional by sandwiching cardboard spacers between the front and the back. THEN I started the painstaking process of dipping colored tissue paper in watered down glue and draping it over the forms. I think I ended up having to do 5 - 6 layers (and let it dry completely between each) and it was layers 3 - 6 that had me really questioning our sanity. Unless you have hours of spare time (the commodity we were lacking), I'd recommend purchasing letters like these and maybe just spray painting them. I am SO GRATEFUL that we decided not to try to add "welcome" like we originally intended.

{letter crafting}

{paper mâché in progress}

Emily very kindly stepped in to help tutor me on the sugar cookies, because the last time I attempted decorating with royal frosting turned out so badly (although delicious-ly) that I never shared them here. Partially because I was embarrassed by my lack of skills and partially because they were for a bachelorette party and therefore mildly inappropriate. My current favorite sugar cookie recipe is this one, because it has cream cheese in it and is most similar to the one we used growing up.

{sugar cookies}

Our friends picked up catering, a few of us brought desserts (those chocolate and peanut butter rice krispy treats were so amazing that I'm still thinking about them) and there were plenty of drinks. Everyone hung out and talked for hours. The perfect way to celebrate the imminent arrival of a new addition.

I wish I'd had a tiny bit of extra time because I'd have added cute kids books and very simple, small flower arrangements to scatter around. But, you know, life happens. And we all survived.

Lately

It has been a rough month. My mom got very sick and we had to scramble to find alternate accommodations for Dave, since she's his full time caregiver. It's emotional and difficult and there aren't a lot of solutions and it happened to come during a month when I'm also slammed at work. So I've been overextended and weepy and angry and despairing by turns. It's not the best place to be. But we're getting through it, and my mom is gradually recovering and we're figuring out where to go from here.

And in the meantime, we've found snippets of time for things that are pretty great. Like baby showers with dinosaurs and mastering homemade pizza and a few lengthy dinners with friends. Because those things become even more important when life is really difficult.

{painted}

{pizza dough}

{resting dough}

{onions for caramelizing}

{wedding napkins}

This also means I have a small backlog of things I've been wanting to share with you that I'm hoping to get to very soon. So, more posts, hopefully?