Thursday, January 22, 2004
I'm waiting for snow.
It's been difficult for me, keeping up with my mother's hours, tweaking them to work with what business needs to get done, tweaking mine to make sure I am up when she's up and not leaving her alone too long when she's not...and continuing to attend to those things I want to do and those hours that are important to me. Lately I've been having to sacrifice most of my very-early-morning-in-the-dark walks to later in the day, usually at a time when I can use a shot of endorphins and a physical warm up. Over the last few days though, the wintry conditions have reminded me how much I love the very early mornings outside, how much I miss them, and how my favorite days are snow days. All day yesterday my mother's peculiar hours required adjustments that didn't allow me maximum time during my own favorite hours. My sleep was sharply curtailed and the exhausted nap I had 36 hours ago only seemed to aggravate the condition. This evening, while my mother was up watching TV, reading, smoking, drinking coffee, I decided to allow myself to fall asleep on the couch. I had come to the end of my ability to be aware. I told Mom to awaken me when she was ready for bed. A little after 0200, with a blissful 6 hours of sleep on the couch under my belt, Mom awoke me. I intended to crawl into my down bed and polish off a few more hours. I accomplished the crawling part but discovered I was rested and curious about what it would be like outside at that hour of the morning on the edge of snow. So I walked. Then, I made coffee, discovered we were out of half and half, hauled ass to Circle K and discovered they are still selling eggnog so decided to purchase that for my coffee. Now, here I am, deep into my second cup, still waiting on the snow, watching the every-8-minute radar track the slow moving storm ever closer to us from the southeast.
Her favorite hours. My favorite hours. Her favored bedtime is my favored rising time. Her favored rising time is in the middle of my day. We both know how important the character of the hours can be and have our life-long preferences. One of the pleasures of being only my mother's caretaker is that I am able to give her the dignity of her preferred hours with trusted company and with pill, meal, Sorry and exercise schedules adapted to her preferences. It is not always easy but it is always worthwhile to try to honor her hours as much as possible. Honoring her circadian rhythms contributes to her alertness.
I manage to honor my own preferences about half or perhaps a little more of the time. Since I've mostly honored my preferences my entire life I don't feel desperate about the changes being my mother's caretaker has fashioned in my preferred schedule. My preferred schedule has mostly been at odds with my working life, as I've tended toward professions that involve primarily day hours. I think this is true of most people but I know, too, that most women aren't completely familiar with their preferred hours because they have spent a large portion of their lives adjusting to the preferred hours of others. This is still true. I got lucky, I guess.
Hmmmm. It seems that snow may not reach beyond the south slope of the Bradshaws. We may not get any. I hope we do. I was looking forward to walking Mom up and down the driveway this sunny afternoon after a morning of snow. Despite the "expected" snow, this afternoon's temperature is expected to reach 50. It would be a glittering afternoon if it would snow this morning.
Her favorite hours. My favorite hours. Her favored bedtime is my favored rising time. Her favored rising time is in the middle of my day. We both know how important the character of the hours can be and have our life-long preferences. One of the pleasures of being only my mother's caretaker is that I am able to give her the dignity of her preferred hours with trusted company and with pill, meal, Sorry and exercise schedules adapted to her preferences. It is not always easy but it is always worthwhile to try to honor her hours as much as possible. Honoring her circadian rhythms contributes to her alertness.
I manage to honor my own preferences about half or perhaps a little more of the time. Since I've mostly honored my preferences my entire life I don't feel desperate about the changes being my mother's caretaker has fashioned in my preferred schedule. My preferred schedule has mostly been at odds with my working life, as I've tended toward professions that involve primarily day hours. I think this is true of most people but I know, too, that most women aren't completely familiar with their preferred hours because they have spent a large portion of their lives adjusting to the preferred hours of others. This is still true. I got lucky, I guess.
Hmmmm. It seems that snow may not reach beyond the south slope of the Bradshaws. We may not get any. I hope we do. I was looking forward to walking Mom up and down the driveway this sunny afternoon after a morning of snow. Despite the "expected" snow, this afternoon's temperature is expected to reach 50. It would be a glittering afternoon if it would snow this morning.
