perspective

[Kay/NC]

I am glad you are having a good adjustment to the situation with your co-worker's passing.  .I know it really troubled you, and you didn't deserve that. 

If Mike makes his way through all 400-plus acres of trees, we have bigger problems than I thought.  I sat and had a very serious talk with him last night.  I am really being taken for granted by him and pretty much everyone around here, except Winn.  That has to change. 

He agreed with what I pointed out, and is trying hard today to make peace with me.  He sees where I am having a really difficult time lately.  Again, he's in as much pain as I am. 

Last week, he started hammering me about "doing something with your land", meaning my homeplace and the smaller farm I own adjoining it.  It has generated more money than his home farm ever has, probably ever will, unless we strike gold there;but, because the last lease I had on it is expiring next month, he started yammering on about how it will be costing us money instead of making money now.   

Somehow, he expects me to figure out a way to earn without spending any money.  Any suggestions, short of opening a house of ill repute there?  I told him to back up his truck, and give me time to put together the pieces,  since it is an intractable puzzle and problem. 

He finally admitted that I need time to deal with it, and no one gives me time to even eat a meal in peace around here anymore.  I have made it clear that either I get a break to work out a set period of time every day, or I quit, and they can figure out how to replace me here. 

I am sitting here now, just winding up an hour-long phone call with the IRS, having been given an absolute wrong answer by the first agent, whose call thankfully dropped in the middle of it.  Final answer:We should have never sent you that nptice, you don't have to file semi-weekly, forget that you ever talked to him, this was our mistake and our fault, please accept our apology. 

I have been down the rabbit hole, and the pills that Mother gives you don't do anything at all....

Thanks for the sweet and sincere wishes that I find peace.  I doubt it will ever be on this side. 

[lawinkle]

Like any other profession, counselors are both good and bad. Like any other human, they have their own personal issues. Like any other treatment, it has success and failures. But there are very good counselors who can be helpful in dealing with feelings.

Y you have been confronted with the worst possible situation a mother could find herself in. Who among us would not be devastated over something that impacted our child and over which we had no control? We can't feel your pain because we haven't walked in your shoes but it is very obvious you are struggling and we care deeply.

Please consider researching a good grief counselor or a parent's support group. Two of my son in laws lost siblings in auto accidents. Their parents will never be the same. But both tell me that, as they progressed through the stages of grief, they were greatly helped by counseling.

I will continue to pray for healing and peace for you and Mike. Don't ever stop venting on here. I think I speak for all of us when I say we have broad shoulders.

[Kay/NC]

The guys pulled that sluggish pump and replaced it with the spare I keep on hand yesterday morning. The electrician promises to come as soon as all the parts arrive, and restore the automatic transfer to the generator. The lagoon levels that had been approaching the start pump mark are being lowered several inches daily, so that pressure is starting to abate a bit.

I think one other thing that has really been bringing me down this week is the end of the research lease on my home farm, which piles on pressure to get busy restoring it to some useful purpose. This brings back all the angst over that property, my father's rejection of me involved with it, and that was supposed to be Jenna's land...so, a lot going on emotionally there.

I took Winn's naptime yesterday, to start a string of telephone contacts, in pursuit of a decent final use of that 120- ish acres. Just had one of them return the message I left her. A young and very enthusiastic wildlife biologist...my kind of girl! As I get my mind onto this restoration project, I can start to feel my spirits lifting a bit.

Maybe all of you can understand the conjunction of all these feelings: my child has passed, my father passed a few months later, and this farm that was a link to all three of us is ruined, and needs to be fixed. Mike made the huge mistake of putting pressure on me last week, to jump to a plan that makes it pay. It would be sort of like asking a facial burn victim to win Miss America.

This place presents so many challenges...no topsoil, terribly acidic subsoil that dissolves tree roots, hydrology destroyed. All I can hear is an echo of my father's voice on the telephone from the summer of 2002:You've got to fix your land, because they're not going to....

Jenna had scouted the adjoining acreage for a homesite, within weeks before her passing. I feel some sort of desire or obligation to make the place a fitting memorial to her. I am thus dealing with all of that, on top of the pressures of this place. Add in a fresh cold, which is making me feel like a walking sack of phlegm., and snow/ ice again today, which thwarts my gardening outlet.

The restoration project will be the best therapy for me. The notes and list of telephone numbers I started yesterday will be the start of a file of ideas and information, that will give me a roadmap for a new purpose to serve. Mike has always said that my strong suit is taking something that seems like nothing, and finding value and good use for it.

Linda, I didn't take your post as directed at me, but I did feel that there was some thought that my post about aging was vain. Maybe it is silly to be hit with the realization that people perceive me as " old" now. I shared it semi-humorously, I thought.

I will give you a different perspective on your mom and her issues. He sounds like a classic OCD to me, so the item ( crockpot) left sitting out would drive her nutty. If you can try to avoid leaving her brain triggers to get set off on, it might help.

As for her shopping obsession, it is so clear to me, as a basically lonely person, that she is very isolated, except when she is in stores. It has been a very easy default substitute for real socialization, to go shopping. Whole marketing strategies have been set up around that psychology.i

CBS Sunday Morning did a piece this weekend on the demise of the American mall. No new ones have gone up in nearly a decade, and many are being demolished. Our local one is a ghosttown.

Part of that is due to online shopping, part to the economic downturn, and I think part of it is the reaction to over-consuming, seeing hoarding as a bigger problem...not just certain mentally ill persons, but the culture is cluttered in general.

If she has developed a sense of herself thst is defined by being able to buy what she wants when she wants it, thst is going to be hard to un-do, especially at her advanced age. If her main chance to be out and interact with others is in stores, maybe taking that away or dialing it way back will depress her more than it's worth.

If she is returning a lot, and using the need to do so as a rationale for extra trips, then maybe the best you can do is set the schedule, so she isn't making you dtive in circles. Give her set times to choose from, or a half-day once a week, when you are able to take her to town, and keep those keys out of her reach.

Start looking for a senior group to involve her in, where she can start forming a " playgroup", if you get my meaning. I am still figuring out ways to get Winn out and about with other children. The kids are starting to plan outings around his social needs now. It might just be having a salad at Chik-fil-a, which has a wonderful indoor playground for them in his case.

You might get some direction from your county's agency on aging, for starters. If there is an assisted living where you think she might eventually go, call them and ask about having her come over for social events, to visit residents, etc. call churches to see if they have senior morning gatherings. Even programs like the Silver Sneakers at my gym might be available there, too.

She just evidently has defined herself as a shopper. I can see how that happens, and how hard it is to change your stripes after a lifetime of habit.

[turkey feather]

Very good ideas Kay.  A new project for you sounds like a good start for the spring and summer. I do sense that as one of your strong points. I have you on my prayer list.

I was asked to be on a committee at church in the beginning of 2013 and then no one would be the chairperson and I finally agreed. It has been a real learning experience. It has taken so much of my time and now I think I should resign. The committee voted to replace the pastor this year. I have put a lot into this project gathering information etc. I won't go into the details but it seems that there are too many who want to control this. I have  been under cut, lied to and accused of being too involved and taking it too personal. The church is in trouble financially and I wanted to keep it open and stop the drain of money. Another committee chairman stepped in and made contacts and canceled my planned meeting and came up with another plan. The people above our church keep giving out conflicting information too.

How will I be perceived if I resign in the middle of all this?  I have plenty of stress without this committee. I am trying to think it through  calmly before resigning.

[dairy mom]

Kay I feel for you.  Having been through the loss of a child.  Perhaps this restoration of your old home place is the perfect panacea for you.  I know with absolutely certainty that the birth of my daughter 11 months after the death of her older sister was the only thing that kept me sane and got me through that first year.  Platitudes do absolutely no good,  you need something to occupy all the energy and feelings a horrible loss throws at you.  For me it was that "unplanned" pregnacy.  Life simply had to go on.  I couldn't stop and give in to anything negative I was feeling.  I think I would have been a completely different person if that had not happened.  But some times I think maybe I am just shallow and that is how I survived Beth's horrible accidental death.  I know I didn't handle the next big loss in my life as well.  My parents died within 15 months of each other and that coincideded with our oldest son leaving for college.  My husband's "non plan" of me simply stepping in with all our son used to do on the farm and me suppose to be happy with the running of my household being handed to a 14 yr old and a 12 year old put me pretty much out of mental commission for a couple of years.  Something I can never make up for to the younger kids.  It distorted my relationship with them forever.

My husband like yours turned to the physical.  Less than a month after the funeral he began a major addition to our house that we had never discussed in any way.  He simply one day started busting cement and told me this is what I am doing to the house.  He wouldn't do anything like that now though.  Today he would decide what he wants and then tell me to "make it happen".  That has been his MO since we bought the farm.

[Kay/NC]

You are totally correct about having to have something concrete to hang onto. In the immediate wake of Jenna's passing, I threw myself into finishing the things on her house that she had begun, plus making the yard into more of a landscaped garden...not her thing, but mine.

That accompanied repairing two of the other three homes on that farm. By our first sad Thanksgiving, I screwed up my nerve to step into the fourth house on that farm, which was our first house and our children's first home. That fix- up dragged on until last June. We finally got settled - in tenants in the last one in September.

I have felt a bit at loose ends since, in many respects. The guys have gotten part of some planned farm building repairs underway, but they only have but so much spare time to get them done, and the weather has been simply terrible for getting any outdoor projects done.

The pressure to get my farm restored and back into a useful condition will be very challenging. I am happiest in life in general when I am being challenged to learn something new. Meeting mew people who are passionate about their professions is also most stimulating to me.

I had one phone conversation this morning, with the wildlife biologist that I think will be helping me develop a stewardship plan for my place. She sounds so enthusiastic that it was infectious. This is what i feel I need right now.

On a different front, Winn has gotten pretty much past his bad sitter experience that had us so worried a few weeks ago. I have found a preschool program for him as a " two" for the fall. The kids are completing his application form tonight, and we' ll get it mailed off tomorrow.

With twenty spots for the two separate mornings they have this age group, ten each day, they had only three slots left when I reached the teacher today. That was in the class they added on Mondays, which is a perfect match for the family schedule here.

They are pretty excited about him getting to be with a consistent peer group...while Labor Day seems a long ways off, it will be here before we know it. I feel good that I was able to fulfill the promise I made, to help them find some organized activities for him.

I happened to find out about this church preschool while watching him play in the Chik-fil-A indoor playground the other day, from another grandmother. That is one place we can have chance encounters with other, mostly preschool kids during school hours, during the week. The bird park is another good spot, now that the weather is starting to perk up every few days.

I figured out that I was getting sick, with my first cold in recent memory, and that makes me feel down, too. I am really cutting down on eating, and pushing up my exercise. The farm fiascos have made me have to run by Jenna's house alone for a couple of weeks, and the weather stinks yet again. Lots of changes, except no really nice days to garden....understandably depressing, I think.

Thanks for your very empathetic reply. We were forced to join a club no one ever wants to be a part of in life. It is up to us to do our best to make the most of it that we can, right?

[linda/IL]

Guess we all have our issues, some more serious than others.  My dad used to call my mom's shopping fetish as  "retail therapy".  Always been a shopper & clothes horse.  Looks like she stepped out of a bandbox by some standards.  I have told her Thurs. will be HER day with me although hair + shopping doesn't leave quite enough time. 

Got her car back today.  Had a serious talk aboutthe driving last night.  Then this morning I took part of it back   Too sick to always be there for her.  I don't know what's ahead of me but it's gone  on too long.  I was good yesterday but last night & today a  miserable mess..

Going to trust her to driving in our little town for now.  I know the issues but I don't think she's worse than the other 30 percent of the elderly driving  here.  I'm going to try & track down someone to fill in for me on out of town trips. There are really very little for older folks here.  Only thing at all is 15 m.  Another trip to manage. Thanks for the tips.

[Kay/NC]

Thank you for your kind thoughts. I am already feeling better, by getting started on the " fix the farm" project.

As for your committee involvement, there are many ways to separate from such a situation. I think going out on a positive note is always best...burning bridges is rarely a good practice.

I think it is perfectly legitimate to write a short letter to the effect of " my changed circumstances require me to cut back on obligations outside my home." Don't offer any further explanation, no elaborations or excuses. Just lay that burden down and walk away. That lets the control freaks have it their way...no more subterfuge for you to suffer.

You have had enough health challenges to wear anyone out. You don't need the burden of a bunch of immature people, who place their personal need to be in charge above the welfare of the entire church. If their plans work out, then it will be fine. if not, the running aground won't be on your watch.

[wt510151]

I am sorry if my comment was taken wrongly by you. Just going through a very gut-wrenching decision process where there is really no "right" answer. Not enough time to defer either so it just churns. This is all on top of being told those 3 words no one wants to hear. The whole ordeal is very consuming.

[Kay/NC]

No offense taken...I admit to being touchy on this subject. It is one of those " you cannot grasp it if you haven't lived it" things. Life is full if them...?

I am sorty you are being challenged by something difficult right now. I hope things work out for you. You are in my thoughts, hoping for a positive outcome.