Trying again

Turns out I won't abandon this blog after all. I wasn't quite sure how I'd do without the daily prompts, and I'm still not quite sure. I feel like I already struggle with balancing time spent online and time spent doing things in the "real" world. I'm a hermit by nature, but it's been a little out of hand even for me.

I've  felt very overwhelmed lately, by work, by family stuff, and by life in general. I've been doing some extra work on the side, which I'm letting go of. I thought I wanted/needed the extra money, but it's not worth the working after work, working part of Sundays, and then being too exhausted to cook food for weekday lunches. I've been eating crap and not exercising for about two months straight, and I'm starting to feel it. Today is the first Sunday I've spent entirely at home for a while. It's been deliciously unstructured. I haven't done that in ages. It feels good. I have food on the stove, even if it's beans and rice. And I took a walk yesterday morning. It's a start.

The situation with my mom is getting more and more overwhelming. She has Alzheimer's, and is starting to decline a lot faster than we'd anticipated. My sister and I are scrambling to find solutions, and I feel helpless stuck up here in Seattle (they're in California), unable to lend a hand. My sister, since she's there, has had to do a lot of heavy lifting around this lately, and I feel bad about that.

Also, Mom is starting to forget who people are, and I'm terrified that one day I'll go down for a visit and she won't know me. I kind of wonder if that happened a little when I arrived at Thanksgiving; she wouldn't meet my eye, and her hug was tentative. I felt like an intruder, and it was awkward for most of the evening. This whole thing is scary and unpredictable. Things are changing so fast, so suddenly! I thought there would be more time.

Well, we will get through this. Spring is coming. I don't want this situation, or things at work, to define me or my life. I want to find more good things to reach for, to have fun sometimes. Right now, I feel like there are a bunch of things about my life that really suck, and it's depressing, and I feel ground down by it all. But there's a lot that's good too, and I have to learn to recognize that.