Sublety, thy name is not Jess.

 There are some days when I cannot pivot as well as I would like.  There are some days when interruptions can make me go off the rails and I will, for lack of better term, have a tantrum.  Turns out there is a reason that I like my routine and if it is not followed, I will go "off the rails" in varying degrees.  I always pegged it as OCD - I must do this at this time, I must do that and that time, so on and so forth.  OCD may be a nice way to put it, but its actually the part of me that's on the autistic spectrum.  

This is one thing that my Mom had going for me.  She always had me on a very regimented schedule when I was a kid.  I had a schedule for everything.  When we moved to the suburbs in Northern Indiana, my Dad wasn't there to run the schedule that my Mom had set forth for me.   No wonder she thought I was running wild those first couple of years post divorce!  I was no longer on a schedule and as much as she had everything scheduled in her agenda, it had always been my Dad that ran me from activity to activity.  

Over the course of my life, I have had many routines and they have changed over time.  Currently, my morning routine is alarm goes off, look at memories on facebook (seeing pics of my kiddos and me and Kacy first thing in the morning always makes me smile).  After that, I get up and take a shower.  Then, I get dressed, put product in my hair and let that soak in while I do my makeup.  After the makeup is done, I do my hair.  There are some days that I skip the make up thing (depending on whether or not I am feeling "lazy" or not) and go straight for the hair, pulling it back into a clip or hair band.  That part, I seem to have no problem pivoting in.  It's the next part that I cannot have any interruptions for.  

Once I come into the kitchen, I generally do not want anyone to talk to me until after I've taken my meds and scrolled my social feeds for at least half an hour.  This is my wake up time.  I'm watching Business Cats, waking up and woe to anyone that interrupts that.  

Unfortunately, having Dad here, my routine gets interrupted quite a bit.  There are some days I can take it like a champ, there are others when I am internally cringing, my anxiety is high and I want everyone around me to just go away and let me crawl into a little ball.  Recently, I discovered that if I feel that way, the best cure is for me to escape to my office.  I love going to my office.  It's a nice escape and I occasionally, it helps fill up my social cup which has been woefully low lately.   Everyone in the house gets a break from me too, because I am not subtle when I'm not happy.  Between the scowl on my face to the occasional stomping around in the same way I have done since I was a toddler to the bad off key singing of "I don't wanna do the work today."  I can be a drama queen of epic proportions.  And if I have to take an adderall because something absolutely requires my focus (which, we haven't been taking on a regular basis simply due to the fact that it makes my blood pressure go high, which leads to headaches, which leads to me being more irritated, which leads to more outbursts - something I absolutely hate) and I get interrupted or thrown off whatever task I may be laser focused on at the moment?  Yeah, I hate to admit it, but a nice Jess that does not make.  

Today,  I am trying very hard not to be irritated.  I am trying to practice understanding.  I am trying to humor my Dad and be helpful rather than be irritated that I'm not doing what my brain wants me to be doing.  And, if I am being completely honest, I really don't like interfacing with my Dad on days like this.  Days like today remind me of what's coming and what I don't want to face - a world without my Dad in it.  

I look at my Dad on days like today and I feel a combination of incredibly sad and incredibly angry.  While I know that he has been going downhill for a while and I've made mention of him going down hill for years now, I have not interfaced with it on a daily basis as I have since mid-August.  I have always thought my Dad was this amazing person - incredibly smart, knowledgeable about so many things.  I remember him calling me with a loud engine sputtering in the background - he had just unseized a tractor motor on a Farmall Tractor he had been in the process of restoring.  He had done this by sheer, brute force!  He had taken a sledge hammer and hammered on the damn thing until it started turning.  I remembered being incredibly impressed and to this day Kacy and I still tell that story fondly (we probably always will).   Looking back, he probably did this about 15 years ago.  Hell, just back in June he drove from Kentucky to Florida by himself.  This isn't something he could do now, nor would I feel comfortable letting him drive to the diner that he loves so much and that's less than 10 miles away.  

It makes me sad and angry.  Sad because I know he wants to do these things.  Sad because I have to tell him no.  Sad because I have to reign in the boyish mischief that he still very much has.  Sad because he can't do a lot of the stuff that I know he wants to do.  At the same time I'm angry that he can't do the stuff he used to do.  I'm angry that he can't remember to take his own medications and I have to make sure he does.  Angry because someone always has to be close by in case he falls again and this time it's worse than the last.  At this point things are always getting worse.   

One day we are celebrating the fact that he can eat a hamburger from a fast food place after a month of being on anti-nausea meds and the next I'm hovering again - worried because he's back on the oxygen at night, stumbling over his own feet, locking himself out of his computer countless times... 

I am angry at myself because I want this to be over and done with.  I want my life to go back to "normal." I am tired of fighting him and explaining to him and reexplaining to him that he can't do things that he used to.  He's angry at me because I have to explain things over and over.  He's angry that he can't do what he wants to do and he knows he's getting worse.  We have a few days, maybe a week where things are good, and then there is the downward slide that invariably leads me to want to hide in my room, under the covers.  

When I was a kid, I would be made to feel bad or teased for having tantrums.  My dad would call it my "grumpy" time.  He asked Kacy the other day if I still have hissy fits.  I answered "Yes, Dad, I still have hissy fits and I'm also a control freak."  I went right back to doing what I was doing, scowling at him, while throwing cutlery into the sink to be washed later.  Kacy came up and hugged me.  I'm letting her do that more.  I'm letting her calm me down more.  She is so much better at the caring thing than I am.  I don't want to interface with it because I don't want to admit what's coming.  I'm angry that my Dad isn't immortal.  I'm angry that I'm interfacing with yet another parents coming demise.  I'm also scared because I know one morning I'm going to wake up and he's going to be gone.  

I hate where my mind currently is and there's nothing I can really do about it.  I have become resigned to the fact that this is the new normal.  I don't like it, I don't easily accept it.  It just is and I hate it.  I know it's temporary though.  I don't like what is coming next, but I know that is why I have a routine.  The trick will be to balance grief and all the other hard feelings that come along the way with the routine and pushing forward.  Will there be days when I'm completely down? Yes.  I will take those days and I will hide away.  I will trust my body to do what it needs to in order to keep me moving forward.  I will embrace the sadness, anger, hatred, the feeling of missing my Dad and I will take a day, a week, or even a month if I need to.  

I know that I'll bounce back eventually.  I will keep moving forward and growing. That's all I can do.  I trust my tribe to help me and I'm not afraid to ask for help anymore either.