Choices

When I was on my way to California from Oregon, I felt really settled in the decision about bringing my dad back to live with us. My husband and I spent hours talking about it and looking at every option we could think of from multiple points of view.  Now that I am here, I am questioning everything again.  I keep thinking of little details that will complicate things and worrying about how difficult it will be.   And on top of all that, my dad’s health is in much worse shape than I realized, so I am questioning putting him through a long move.
For years, he has been telling everybody there is nothing wrong with him.  I knew he was on meds for high blood pressure and high cholesterol but figured those were common issues and well controlled.  His favorite story about his doctor (again, from years ago) has to do with him saying, “Weeeeell, there ain’t a damn thing wrong with you,” and that is the story he has continued to tell.  I am not sure if it started out with him not wanting to worry anybody, but at this point, he seems to really believe it.  Nobody has been going into office visits with him, and he apparently is not cognitively processing what they are telling him.  I knew he had been seeing a kidney specialist, so I asked his primary doctor about that and was completely in shock over the answer I got (see below).  His doctor is not one to volunteer information, however, so it wasn’t until I went to the nurse’s station, while she was making an MRI appointment for him, that I saw his online chart, with a header of his main issues, and was reshocked. Is that a word?  So here is a list of what my dad has going on:

~ Dementia – the only thing I actually knew about.  Turns out he has been on “memory pills”, as he calls them, for several years, so at least it must not be a rapidly progressing type.

~ Renal Disease – turns out his kidneys are only functioning around 20%!  His doctor was very unhelpful at explaining what this means or how this figure is arrived it, so I guess I will be doing some research.

~ COPD -  No idea about the stage.  Not surprising considering his many years of smoking, but now I am worried about taking him to a colder climate…

So you can see where all my confusion is coming from.  The first order of business is going to be having some testing done to get some detailed information regarding these various issues.  In the meantime, I have been talking to several health professionals and people who have been through similar situations, and most of them agree that being with family trumps any other situation we might find for my dad.  And they all agree on one other thing as well: don’t give him a choice in the matter.

The topic of choice is what I actually sat down to write about.  The advice I have gotten goes against everything I believe in when it comes to parenting and unschooling.  My goal is to give my kids autonomy over their minds and bodies in every way that is safely possible.  So why does it have to be so different with somebody who  has dementia.  I guess if you really examine the sentence I wrote, the key words are “safely possible”, which becomes more and more narrow as dementia progresses, but for now, I would like to at least try to find ways to put free choice into action with my dad.  I may think this is incredibly naïve of me down the road, but that is where I am right now.

I do believe people think it is kinder NOT to offer my dad options because he is actually incapable of making a decision regarding things that are complex.  Choices cause him stress and anxiety.  That did seem to be true the one time I brought up his future, during a visit about a year ago.  I asked him what he wanted to do when the time came he needed extra help.  I knew the time was coming soon, but he was in denial.  I gave him some options, like going into assisted living, hiring somebody to come to the house part time or moving in with my family.  The only option he wanted was to stay in his house, but not with a stranger coming in.  I tried to explain that there was nobody available to live with him, but he flat out refused to make a second choice.

Thinking about it more, my dad is not really in the habit of making many decisions.  He has ONE type of pants he likes, down to the color even, ONE type of shirt, eats the same sandwich every day for lunch and the same couple things for breakfast.  In the store, I will ask about trying out some different things, but he always wants to stick with what he is used to.  If I ask about what he wants to eat for dinner, he never answers and just says, “Whatever you want to make.”  He is very set in his ways, so being presented with a complex issue that involves change is probably extra overwhelming to him.

Not really sure where I am going with this.  It isn’t “coming together” like most of my other posts have.  So I guess I will just wrap it up…  For now, I am going to let my dad think we have moved in long term.  And it probably will be somewhat long term.  Once we have some more answers about his health, we can start considering a plan, and I can start working topics into conversation in small chunks.  In the meantime, I will look for opportunities to offer him small choices.  One day at a time, my new mantra.

Purging

Have had a post percolating around in my brain for the last several days, so I thought I should make space for an update.  Dad seems OK over the phone but is saying he knows he needs somebody with him.  Won't be long before we are there.  Busy times at my current house.  Packing, packing, packing.  And trying to cook ALL THE THINGS in my freezer.  And try to be at peace with the resulting chaos that happens when I am not tidying up everything else (see photo lol). And reducing.  Ah, getting rid of stuff – it is not easy for this Cancer who tends to put emotional attachments on things, and I have never been pushed to purge this deeply before.  In my past moves, I haven’t had to worry about space and just packed until I was done.  Now I am putting most of my life into a 10 x 15 box, so the process has begun of deciding what to let go of.  One of those things is going to be my desk.  I haven’t cleaned it out in quite some time - I tend to just pack up what is in the cubbies and leave the drawers as they are.  Not this time….

I have gone through this stuff at some point in the past and obviously decided to keep what I still have, but this time felt really different.  It isn’t just because I am trying to crunch space.  I was also shocked to find out how much stuff I plain old don’t have emotional attachments to anymore and fascinated by how that lack represented a tangible example of the paradigm shift I have been undergoing ever since discovering Unconditional Parenting and unschooling. So many of my old papers were nothing more than a bunch of academic back patting or evidence of making the popularity cut.  Now that I see so much of what happens in public schools as damaging for children, much of this stuff feels more like an embarrassment than a keepsake.

Some examples:

Program for the Pre-Prom Fashion Show – Really?  So glad I was deemed pretty enough and popular enough to participate. Ugh.

Newspaper clipping naming me as one of the high scorers on the PSAT – Great, I learned how to cram for a test with an exact set of parameters, and more importantly, I was recognized for it and my mom had something to show our extended family.

Program from the Ephebian Ceremony – This one is my favorite because I had to actually apply for it but could have cared less.  It was just supposed to look good on college applications and hey, it gets your picture in the newspaper.  More stuff for my mom to frame.  And it might as well be the teacher version of a popularity contest.

Why am I being so hard on that ex overachiever that was me?  I do have empathy for the old me.  She was just doing what she was raised to do in our society that seems hell bent on raising Praise Junkies.  I am just glad I am not that person anymore.  Most people go through their lives never thinking much about how manipulative common parenting practices and most schools are, but savvy businesses have been realizing for some time how problematic this type of mindset is.  In my life, I am thankful for the many parenting educators, bloggers and authors of books who have opened my mind to seeing things a different way.

But shouldn’t I cherish these things as part of my memories and be proud of my achievements?  Many things in my life have been forgotten while those memories are still there, so I don’t think they are in much danger, and if they have to leave at some point (like what I am watching happen to my father) to make way for keeping other things, I would rather remember how it felt to run barefoot through the forest in Yosemite and be tumbled in the Carpinteria waves while bodysurfing, or the first steps of my children and the first hug with my husband.  And as far as “achievements” go, I am reminded of something Krishnamurti said:

In this example, I see school as the sick society, so my “good grades” feel pretty meaningless to me at this point.  I was very good at figuring out how teachers test, what they were looking for and how to memorize lots of material over short times.  I rarely had any true interest in the subjects or remembered much afterwards.  There were exceptions for me, mainly in literature and science, but for the most part, I became a master crammer.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not down on education, and I think there are great teachers out there who really care about their students as well as some innovative schools trying out new things, but for the most part, I feel the public school system, at least in the US, has inherent flaws.  Grading systems, mandatory testing, reward programs, poor student to teacher ratios and dividing children into same age classrooms only scratch the surface of some of the issues I see as problematic. 

But this isn’t an essay about what I think is wrong with schools.  I am writing this post to process how much I have changed, how much I have let go of the expectation to be measured, the drive to do well on some standardized scale and the desire to be recognized for it.  I am sure there is plenty of that stuff still internalized in me.  My ego is alive and well lol, but these days I am trying to keep my focus on doing things I truly enjoy and following my interests where they will lead.  I certainly don’t want to be measured for it or be compared to how well somebody else is doing the same things.  And if somebody happens to notice something I do and appreciate it, that’s awesome, but I don’t want that to be the reason I make choices in my life. 

I love the ideas of thinking about what brings you joy and what supports your higher self when going through clutter.   I thought this quotation captured a good part of the process:

I would rephrase this saying with “hands and head”.  Might not flow as well, but both are true.  Clutter can be mental as well as physical.  I hope to be always changing and looking for ways to walk more in alignment with my higher self, learning from the past and reaching for the future.  So, to rephrase my vision with positive language instead of “don’t”s…

I want to do what brings me joy for no other reason.

I want to follow my joy without caring if I am doing it “right” or even “well” by somebody else’s standards.

I want to follow my joy without caring if I am doing it better than anybody else.

I want to follow my joy not caring if anybody notices.

I was actually thinking about these things not long ago as I took my first art lesson, wondering if I would ever share my art with the world, wondering if I would care if it got criticized, wondering if I would hope it spoke to people.  I think I would be happy to know people related to it, but at the same time, I don’t want to *try* to be relatable.  I think the moment one steps away from any of the above “wants” is the moment one begins to deviate from authentic artistic expression.  And I think this can be applied to just about anything.

Life is art.  I want to create mine as authentically as possible.  This is what getting rid of clutter has taught me today. 

What's In a Name?

I am entering a new phase in my life, often called the sandwich generation.  For anybody who has not heard the term, it refers to people who are caring for both children and elders, and the resulting sense of squishitude that goes along with that life choice.  I have also recently found a passion for writing, which happened as a result of a gratitude practice I undertook in November.  I never really “got” journaling in the past.  I have always been a “verbal processor” and tend to figure things out as I am talking to somebody, but it wasn’t until recently I had that same experience with writing.    So now, as I face what will most likely be the most stressful time in my life to date, I am being drawn to process it with the written word.

Blog names are important to me, and this one took a lot of thinking.  Enough that I decided it deserved its own post!  I wanted something that related to sandwiches but could still work when I am past this place in my life.  It was a bit of a challenge since I am an avid follower of the paleo diet and don’t even eat sandwiches lol.  (Yes, there are paleo breads you can make, but I am a bit “why bother” about them when there are so many other good things to eat!)  I considered going with a play on wraps instead but realized that would be esoteric at best, so I kept plugging away in my brain until I hit on something I am sortof obsessed with right now… mayo!

Mayo is sortof a staple for me.  From chicken salad to deviled eggs to chipotle dip, there is a good chance I am going to use mayo at least once a day.  I am completely in love with Trader Joe’s mayo, but I am also trying to get canola oil out of my diet, which leads to a whole nother aspect of the obsession:  working on the perfect homemade recipe.  But that is another post for another time. 

Just loving mayo is not the whole meaning of the name for me however. There is the sandwich connection of course, but what this name also conveys for me is a sense of abundance, which is how I strive to see the world.  We are also an unschooling family. (If you are interested, you can read about it here: http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/pam_sorooshian.html) Unschooling can look very different for different families, but the concept of living in abundance versus fear and scarcity is a popular one among unschoolers.  So when I picture myself being sandwiched, the idea of asking for MORE is really powerful.  Give me more in my life, give me more of something I love.  When there is a problem, how can it be solved by adding something instead of taking something away?  Usually that means adding love.  That is pretty much my life philosophy in a nutshell.  Or should that be in a jar?  J

Maybe I could have called my blog Pass the Love…  Hmm, I really like that too!  But I decided to stick with Pass the Mayo because I am pretty much a food and nutrition geek as well.  My daughter has all sorts of food allergies and chronic gut issues we haven’t figured out, so researching and making special foods, and using food as medicine, is a big part of my life.

So to wrap it up (haha, I got my wrap in there after all!)  The things I will write about most frequently will be dealing with becoming a caregiver for my dad, gratitude, unschooling and food.  There you have it!  I’m gonna have my sandwich and eat it too!