An Old Ride and New News

I seem to live on a roller coaster.  True, this one's ups and down's are gentler than a few years ago, but the ups and downs have not stopped.  Some things make improvements and things go well for awhile, but there are inevitable slips back on to the cycle.

It is such a predictable cycle that I could write it out.  So predictable.  First this, and then this, and then this.  So predictable that we even begin to tense at the "happy stage".  We know it is coming.  We see him and know.  First happy, then not sleeping as much, then irritability, then the inevitable blow up at something trivial or just the deepening grouchiness, then settles into a silent withdrawenness for a few weeks.  Round and round we go.  Sometimes there is a season of normal that occurs to give us a break before we go back to the no-sleeping and irritability.  We enjoy life in that normal pause - but honestly, that pause is not normal; the roller coaster is.

I've begun to ask myself different questions.  Wondering perhaps if looking for a "solution" may not be even a possibility.  If instead, we ought to turn our attention on how to survive and be whole.  On how the kids and I will manage.  Things like order and routine may help lesson the roller coaster.  Managing and keeping stress away.  Teaching the kids to pause and bring conflict to me later to solve instead of their dad if he is in the irritability or withdrawn part of the coaster ride.  To let me carry their load when possible.  On how to take it less personally, get less emotionally involved, and learn to sit it out.  We do not all have to ride the coaster just because it exists.

The sort of good news of the week is that the planned travel plans have been delayed.  I am not sure why they are delayed or what is going on as we are now on the "silent" part of the coaster ride, but I have been told by others that they are delayed.  I'm thankful.  Dealing with that and all right at the beginning of school was not going to be fun.  I am thankful for the schools my kids are in and the support they get from there.  I had meetings with teachers, principals, and guidance counselors to be prepared for the inevitable stress the travel would cause.  We can push pause on those plans for awhile - maybe a month or two.  We will still need them, and I am thankful for the understanding we have at the schools.

Speaking of schools - I'm applying tomorrow for a small job there.  Being where we are, we just don't raise enough support to survive, so I work outside the home for one or two days a week.  I have been working in an old folk's home, which I love.  But it's rough work.  I was injured twice this last year by an male patient.  He slammed me into a wall and then body checked me.  My hip hit the corner of a bookshelf and bruised.  Now I have bursitis on the hip.  He also dislocated my wrist.  It is an old injury, so it popped back in again, but my wrist which had been stable for seven years is now weak again.  I'm seriously wondering about my ability to keep going at that place and allow healing.  Last week I heard about a position open at the school to assist with a student with serious medical issues.  There is another mother and I who both can not work full time due to our lives, but we can job-share.  We go for an interview tomorrow.  I'm hoping to get the job.  My husband had been telling me and telling me to get in the school and volunteer so we get to know people and are involved and know what is going on.  This may be better.  I'll be there one day a week, and I will get paid for it!  So I am hoping.  We'll see.  My son tells me that during class time, the nurse's aide simply sits and reads and is there if needed.  Hmm... with a small computer and internet, I could actually get work done while working.  Hmm.... prayer letters done, address changes made..... do I dare hope?

Then, if I can get work as a doula, too, perhaps I could quit at the old folks home, or at least take a few months off and allow my hip to heal.