If I try to picture my brain, it is filled with banker boxes.
Probably because I spend 20+ years of my life in a very paper heavy profession (only to join a more paper heavy profession) that required we hold all forms for 7+ years. Hence, I am very familiar with storing in banker boxes (look it up, I’ll wait) and the exact labeling of what was in each box before it was sent offsite for storage (so you could ask for it back if you needed it; yes, you would need them back).
Sadly, my brain is not that organized. I like to think that things are stored by topic or idea or heck I’d even take color, but I fear they are not. And some boxes, well some boxes have been marked destroy without my knowledge. I look at picture that I am in, on a vacation, at a place, and have no memory of this.
And then sometimes, life is going ok, and I am doing my thing and a box falls off the shelf and just implodes all over everything…
My MIL is one of the strongest women I have ever met. I love her like my own mom but more importantly admire deeply her, and I have bumped heads with her on things we do not agree. But we always end up in a place of mutual respect. How many people can you say that about? One of my best memories of her that I will carry to my grave, is her throwing a banana at me and calling me an asshole for not eating it after doing the Indy Mini (uh yes, I did eat the banana). I’d give her the shirt off my back or my kidney if she needed it. She is a quiet badass, sometimes she forgets that part of her. She is battling aggressive breast cancer right now… like the ninja she is. But it is hard on everyone.
I strongly believe we go through things because we are supposed to help others with that hard-earned knowledge that we gain going through that. There must be reason to have to go through those things and what better reason is that. So, I try to help with this… I has primary advocate for my mom for years, I learned more in 3 years about our health care system than I knew in all my years before. I try to share what I know with her and her family, not in a I KNOW THIS way but more, yeah, that is a landmine, we should step around it. (like the clock resetting if you stay out of skilled nursing or hospital or a certain number of days for Medicare or in a nursing home they are required twice a week showers)
It has been years since I dreamed of my mom. And about a week ago, I dreamed she and I were in a car, driving down a tiny gravel road to a dry creak (uh, for those that are not aware a dry creak does not mean no water, it means less water that you could probably drive across). And I was like uh, seems high might want to just a back up. And she was all NOOOOO I got this and she tried to turn and the car started to float (uh yeah, IRL this did happen more than once, welcome to my childhood). This ended in an argument and her telling me that I always thought I knew better (uh did we NOT just try and float down the creak?)
I woke all messed up and needed coffee and shower. I was upset. And angry. Looking for meaning and answers and …
The box had fallen off the shelves. No hidden AH HA moment. No spirit reaching from the past. Except for this. She told me one time, You do the best you can at that moment with what you have and you have no regrets. And she was right. I forget that sometimes especially when I’m floating down that Crazy River.
*Robbie Robertson – Somewhere Down the Crazy River
kkdonk 