Change

Life times 

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I had every intention of writing yesterday, but things don’t always go as planned. After today, I am done with my spring cleaning. Now we are just waiting for spring. Usually in the middle of April, spring turns on like a light switch. I plan ahead to have my spring cleaning over and done with before it is nice out. 

It has been cold this past week with more days of snow than without. Some patchy snow remains on the ground with another inch of snow and sleet expected this afternoon. Friday afternoon thick snow flakes fell to the ground. Please don’t tell anyone else in WI that I am saying this, but it was very beautiful. Saturday morning the sun glistened making the snow sparkle like diamonds. But now it is bleak and cloudy. All of the babies cried in church. They seemed to take all of our repressed feelings towards winter and let them spring forth like the wailing of the wind that cries out to us today.

Yesterday, I went to the bowels of Hades into our little crawl space to peer into all of the bins and boxes. I was hoping to find the letters my mom wrote to me the summer that she spent out of state in the hospital with Matt. I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. I’m afraid that I may have accidently thrown them out with all of the high school notes that I found. My old school texting! LOL. You know, the notes that I didn’t want my parents to find and now I wouldn’t want my kids to find. LOL. It makes me sad, but maybe they will turn up somewhere yet.  

Also, I was looking for pictures to display for my daughter’s high school graduation next month. Since more than half of my childrens childhood was before the digital camera era, I have 4 big bins and multiple boxes of unorganized pictures and memorabilia. I started to feel stressed that my display of her life would suck. I hate to be unorganized with this since organization is a strength of mine. So I decided to make a display of pictures from all of the shows my daughter performed in along with a couple baby pictures. Then next winter, instead of working puzzles, I am planning on going through all of the pictures. I am going to work with my mom to take all of the old family pictures and back them up online. After my kids are settled as adults, I am going to gift them with a bin of their most precious childhood moments. 

Yesterday we had my parents and Matt over for supper last minute. We spent several hours watching the old family videos that we had uploaded to a hard drive. It was so strange seeing my brothers, cousins, and myself as young children. Then we watched my kids as young children. It was so strange seeing the progression of time all in one day. Time sure flies. Enjoy every moment while you can.

Handing over the Christmas baton

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After decades of Christmas perfection, little tremors needled away at our  family tree structure creating (gulp) change. The Thanksgiving after Paul and I got married, Uncle Harold passed away. A few years after that my grandpa passed away. My brothers grew up and moved away, with the exception of my autistic brother Matt. I started to have children of my own. Grandma struggled more and more as she aged with doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and decorating involved in having a family Christmas party. We tried to help her as much as we could. Then one year it all ended. My grandma had open heart surgery the summer that I had my third child. It was at this time that my grandma handed the Thanksgiving and Christmas baton to me.

At the time, we were having my in-laws over every Christmas Eve. Year after year it was pretty much the same. My in-laws would show up 2 to 3 hours late. The table would be set. The food would be cold. The kids would eat supper at bedtime. The kids were tired and hungry which made them very crabby. They would cry and have meltdowns. This upset my mother-in-law which resulted in an argument between her and my husband over her being late. At this point, Paul’s stepdad and I would look at each other across the table with a knowing look that said “here we go again”. One of two things either happened. Paul’s mother would disown him and take off for awhile. Or Paul’s mom would scream at my husband and he would kick her out of the house. Eventually she would come back in both scenarios, the gifts were opened, and the kids would go to bed.

After receiving the Christmas baton, Paul and I did what most reasonable people do. We combined our families to make one big happy family Christmas. Insert thoughts of the National Lampoon’s Christmas here. It did go pretty good for quite awhile. Whoever showed up, showed up. We ate at 1:00 PM. If you were late, there were leftovers. Things went pretty well, although after awhile it seemed that my mom and mother-in-law started an unspoken “best grandma” competition. My mom won that one hands down because she could afford nicer gifts and spent more time with the kids. Then my in-laws started to find excuses not to come for Christmas. Either someone was sick, or my personal favorite was that Paul’s stepdad scheduled a colonoscopy the day after Christmas. Priceless.

Oh family, you bring laughter and tears but we love you anyway.

Then a couple of years ago, Luke and his family bought a house that was bigger than mine. I handed him the Christmas baton. All problems solved.

Demons past, present, and future

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Every couple of months my mom and I take the day off of work to spend the day together. This usually involves going out to eat for lunch and getting a massage. Last week we had our mother-daughter day. This time it included a back burner task. I decided that we needed to take in all of our old family videos to be saved onto a hard drive. Silly me, I thought that we could drop off the old VHS tapes and be out of there in a half an hour. We ended up being in the store over an hour talking about not only converting our old family videos but also eventually taking the old family photos in to preserve them.  I know that I have at least 3 large bins full of pictures to scan. This is going to be a big project.

It was at that point when it really hit me that my parents are getting old. It seems like yesterday that I was going through all of the old pictures with my grandma and great aunt Grace trying to put names to faces. All of my grandparents are gone now. I have only one great aunt left. My mom is the oldest living sibling. My parents are close to 70. Now is the time to work on this huge project with my mom.

It is also the reason that I don’t want my mom reading my blog. She is getting old. I don’t want this to be a reminder of the most difficult times in her life. She finally has a sense of freedom that she never had before. She doesn’t need to be reminded of the hard times. I don’t need to remind her of the day that she was trying to stop Matt from hurting himself during a meltdown. That was the day that she ended up with a black eye and bloody lip. It would be very painful for her to have to remember those days. It is very painful for me. Her life has been very difficult, I want her last years to be happy.

Matt also went to my daughter’s choir concert this past weekend. At one point he became separated from our mother. He became very anxious and agitated pushing through the crowd to find her. I calmly reassured him that he was alright, that mom was close by. But what happens when she is no longer with us? How will I not only get myself through it but help my brother through when he cannot process change? Every time I spend time with my mom I reassure her that I will help take care of Matt when she is gone. It will be alright, I can do this.

I decided that I will write a book about the journey of life with an autistic sibling. It will be hard. It will be painful. Next year I will dig out the old box of journals written during the darkest years. I will share it with you. I will start the process. Maybe I will even find out why I can’t relax. Why I always have to stay busy. Relaxing makes me nervous. Why does my skin crawl listening to relaxing piano music? Why does quiet meditation fill my soul with terror? Time to face my demons. I can do this.

Why do I torment myself with this? Do you know how easy it would be to delete this blog and walk away like none of this ever happened? But I can’t seem to let it go.

Bean runs

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I have another confession to make. I am totally addicted to Jelly Belly jelly beans. I recently became a hummus addict too, but that is an altogether different bean. Last night we were invited to a bonfire. They had an excess of Almond Joy candy bars that my husband gladly disposed of. However, being good hosts, they noticed I was empty handed and wanted to know my poison. They gladly gave me 2 packs of Jelly Belly jelly beans. I devoured the first pack immediately. However, the second pack said energy sports beans. Oohh aahhh, that was interesting.  I decided to save those for my run today, then promptly forgot them there. 

Last year I decided to give something up for lent for the first time. Ash Wednesday fell on the anniversary of Aunt Grace’s birth and death. Yes, she passed away on her birthday! So I felt that it was a proper time. I decided to give up all snacking after supper and all desserts. I gave up cheesecake, tortes, cake, pie, pudding, ice cream, and all candy. Well, except for Jelly Belly jelly beans. But I could only eat a few at work in the morning. God knows I get paid beans!! You do know I run marathons for fun. If I start whipping myself or decide to give up beer and cheese for lent, please talk me out of it!

So if it was just a regular old candy bar, I would have said forget it after it was forgotten. But these were Jelly Belly sports beans. I NEEDED to try them. Our friends live 3 miles away. Since I was planning on running 6 miles I thought it would be perfect to run there, get the jelly beans, and run back home. But this involved change. Gulp! I run around a 6 mile block sometimes once, twice, three or more times on one run. I have been doing the same exact route for over a year without deviation. I run the same route, at the same time, on the same exact days. A couple months back a friend said that I needed to change my route to make sure that I am not favoring one leg over the other. So sometimes I run my route backwards. Lol. Change is hard. 

I know my route. I know when the train comes. I know what time the cops sit at the intersection. People know me. My haters would have to find someone else to force off the road into the ditch. My stalkers would need to find someone else to honk and wave at. People talk about me. They stop me on the road. They ask me what I am doing, when I am running my next race. They smile and wave. I recognize the bikers. I even get taunted. An older guy from church told me that he saw me walking (what!?!) and said that so-and-so who is older runs faster than me. She is better, you SUCK! I had ungodly thoughts like tripping her on the way up to communion. Terrible, I know.  Then I stalked her to find out she is a walker. Lies! Oh, the grief I get. 

So I decided to change my route just for one day and hesitantly embrace the unknown to get the jelly beans. Once I got them, I devoured half the bag on the way back. Then I thought, oh crap. What if the serving size is 2 jelly beans? I  worried that having a half a bag would cause explosive diarrhea. About scared the crap out of me. I don’t like those kind of runs. Check the label. Check the label!! Serving size, one bag. Good, good. It’s a miracle, I survived change. Now I can say I am spontaneous and open to change in arguments! Yes, but don’t expect me to change my routine again anytime soon. Unless you have jelly beans, that is.