Mosaic

Jenny here. Happy New Year!

I realize it's taken a couple of days for an update and well wishes for 2014. The new year comes with such mixed feelings for both Wil and me. For months we have looked forward to closing out 2013. Not really in an attempt to rush life, but to feel the accomplishment of making it through a tough year. But it's also ended right in the middle of a nursing home, a twist no one thought was coming. There will be no resolutions this year...only hopes for continued energy to engage in fighting the fight for health, one day at a time. I will be so relieved when Wil can communicate more, eat, and walk.

It's been a big year. 2013 started out with major surgery for our chihuahua, with complications and surgery revisions...a move into a bigger house to help a relative relocate (and the relative going MIA and leaving us with added expenses)...Wil's 40th birthday...Wil's "back issues"...Wil being laid off...me being hit by a drunk driver and my car totaled...and then this fall with the diagnosis. Those are some of the facts of our year.  The most challenging year of our our 13 year marriage.

But those facts are just details in between the otherwise good.  I can't lie, we have been defined by the details at times. There were moments, oh so many moments, of sobbing in the shower and countless nights on hospital cots and not knowing what end is up.  Brokenness.  Feeling shattered to tiny pieces.  Feeling afraid. Feeling angry. Feeling so many hues of emotions I didn't know existed. If there is one thing we do well at our house, however, it's picking up the pieces and making new plans. We are both pretty stubborn oldest children.

The great and not so great thing about being a therapist, during your own personal brokenness, is that you continue to have to push your stuff aside for the hour you are with your client. Some days are easier than others. Some days this feels like a great relief!  They don't know my situation and I don't have to answer any questions. The hour is about them. I can just forget about my situation for a little while. No lie, I'm not on top of my game every moment like I would like to be and there are some times I struggle or think, with my humanness, "Seriously?  You could have real issues like cancer."  If you work in the field, you've been there.  It doesn't mean I don't love my work, know that a problem is a problem, or not like my clients. It just is what it is. And I'm lucky to have great clinician friends I can debrief with so I keep it in check.

Other times there are inspired conversations that come from such a raw real place for me because, at times, my guard comes down more than usual.  I'm a head type/analytical most days, but I'm coming from my heart lately.  On the drive home or to Wil, sometimes the message of the session was the one I needed so much myself.

A great psychotherapist, Yalom, speaks of how we are all fellow travelers in this life. If we can harness that idea and combine it with compassion, we can truly see that all of us are not so unique, just at different points down the road.  It allows us to tap into our authentic self, which is the best space to be in while helping others...because you are using yourself and the relationship to support them in an honest way. Everyone reading this is a fellow traveler. It's  relationships that see us through the journey.

One of my last sessions of 2013 was a conversation about brokenness. If I break a beautiful vase, I can glue it back together. But it will never look the same. That piece of glass is changed. I can want it to be different. I can use as much glue as I want. It's cracked.  Like 2013.

But there's an option B. I can take the pieces and reconstruct them...Give them meaning, any way I want to, and create a beautiful mosaic out of the shards. I can give meaning to pain and struggle and see something else that is not dangerous...but in fact beautiful, in ways I could not have known;  we need to be broken open to create something even more beautiful in our lives.


So 2013...we survived!  I found things in me I didn't know existed, found laughter in the middle of the storm, cried a lot, began a journey of healing (not just in the physical sense)...our mosaic is far from finished. Some days I break a little more, but we are trying to invest in the idea that with more and more interesting scraps will come a more vivid and wonderful work of art.  This is only the beginning.

Update on Wil:  Food is still a challenge but he's had 2 days where he ate a little more. He has started some therapy. It's been a slow process and taken a lot out of me to fight, fight, fight for the care he deserves.  I've been very exhausted this week but took out time to see a movie with family and just sit on the couch and watch Sons of Anarchy, shutting my phone off for just a few hours. There's the twinge of "what if he needs me."  He needs me 24/7. It's just not physically/emotionally/mentally possible. I'm working on kindness to myself.

He is still trying to get himself out of bed at night. Last night he ended up on the floor. He rolls his eyes at me and doesn't want to talk about the situation. It's frustrating for me because he's being stubborn. He wants to be back to normal and all this is taking so long. He keeps giving up BUT he tries again later. All I can do is shake me head and say "you're killing me smalls."  There may be a sticker chart in his near future because he's taken to exaggerating about his effort (and then I get the real story from the therapists). He asked for it when he married a social worker that works with a lot of kids, right?

The clinic was calling Wil to set up his f/u so without knowing it we missed his appointment today (it was originally scheduled for tomorrow but they called him to change it....few more calls today and I think we have changed things so that I am primary contact). Now we are on the books for Monday afternoon. He will have a round of labs and see the doctor at that time.

Again, happiest of years to each of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAD-4XKBcmA