Day: January 23, 2018

It’s 2018.  It’s 2018 people!  I graduated in 1979!  I remember singing “we’re gonna party like it’s 1999” thinking that seemed like a lifetime away!  Here we are nearly 20 years beyond that!  So far 2018 isn’t stacking up so well.  I have battled the flu not once, but twice already.  Followed by a diagnosis of pneumonia!  Add to this trying to make the right decision for the “next step” for my 77 year old father who is having memory issues, as well as health issues and the first 23 days of 2018 have been beyond stressful!  So this week he’ll come to live with us from the nursing and rehab facility that he has been held captive (according to him) since December 22nd.  They have informed us that he can no longer live alone, nor can he drive.  He has not come to grips with giving up his keys to his car, so we will take measures into our own hands and hide the car and the keys!  He can’t be trusted!  They have also informed us of indicators of the beginning of dementia.  So, after many tears and wringing of hands, we have made application to a veterans facility near us.  This has brought on a whole other realm of guilt that tortures me daily.  But I have to stick out my chin and realize that his care will require more that we can handle.  Add to this the logistical measures we have had to take in coordinating packing up his apartment and preparing a place in our home and I feel like I have aged ten years over the last 2 months.   I am beginning to understand the statement that I am now in the “sandwich generation”.  This year holds other events that should over shadow the stress of the last few months, and I hope they will.  A grandbaby in April and a wedding in November.  My husband and I selfishly were hoping to finally get around to us…. to road trips, to vacations, to fun filled Saturdays just the two of us.  But I think those days are yet to come.    I want to celebrate this new year, but so far I don’t necessarily feel in a celebratory mood.  I’m mostly just tired!  I normally love the beginning of a new year…. a chance to set new goals, to look expectantly to what the year will hold. I promise myself to write more, blog more and read more.  I start new exercise programs hoping this will be the year I shed 50 pounds.  I dream of a spotless house that resembles a magazine picture (that in remembrance of my sweet mother who tried to motivate me as a teenager to make everything look unrealistically like a picture of perfection in a magazine!).  I plan to realize my dream of being published.  I hope for a year of spiritual revelations from the Lord.  But not this year.  So far I’ve struggled through weeks of sickness, contemplating the future for my Dad and looking around at my house that is in a state of chaos over moving rooms around to accommodate my Dad’s needs.  Can I just get a witness from someone else who has survived this season of life and lived to tell about it?