IF YOU’RE HAPPY/SAD/WHATEVER, WRITE A POST

When you have things to do, maybe chores, or you are faced with a bunch of choices at once, which things do you do first? Do you choose to get the stuff you DON’T like doing out of the way first? Or do you do the things you LIKE doing before tackling the rest? And why? I tend to get the stuff I don’t like out of the way and leave the stuff I DO like for last, like a treat, almost. If I take my medicine, I get something sweet as a reward, as it were. I’ve noticed that I do it with chores (except for the things that SHOULD be done in a certain order, like dusting first, THEN vacuuming, THEN mopping). I do it with a game app on my iPad that has a dozen daily word-related quick games. I play the ones I like the least first, most often, so I can enjoy the ones I like and take more time with them. I’ve even noticed that I tend to do it with food. If I’m eating a meal that contains items I don’t particularly like, I*ll get the ickier stuff out of the way, so that when I’m done, the last thing I ate, that lingers, is the thing I like the most.

Is this weird or just me? (which, I’m aware, can also mean I am weird. I’m okay with weird.)

Maybe it’s a reflex to keep the best for last, or always have something to look forward to once you get the necessary, or the painful, or the bad, out of the way. Curious if others do this, too, or if most people automatically gravitate to the best thing, the easiest thing, the most rewarding thing, first.

—

My mom’s mental faculties have declined rather drastically and quite quickly, according to her neurologist. She and my sister were at an appointment this past week to check on things and her condition has been demoted from mild to moderate cognitive decline. They’ve now been told, however, that the possibility for infusion therapies will be covered by her insurance, which is good because it’s crazy expensive, and that there is now a facility IN Charlotte, so they are going to get that process started as soon as possible. She has to have a PET scan first, which will apparently tell them if she is eligible for the treatment or not. Infusion therapy doesn’t reverse the degeneration, but it does usually stop it where it is, and I’ve read that sometimes there is some improvement. I really wish we could have gotten this started sooner, but better late than never. I’m still planning to go for my annual trip in the spring, in addition to our family visit at Christmas. It’s really hard to be so far away, for so many reasons.

Speaking of the difficulty with distance, earlier this week, my friend got the news that her mom had passed away, in Canada. She is booking flights and trying to deal with things over the phone, and even though she has two sisters there, it’s a lot that has to be handled. Her mom was not in great health, and was older than my mom, but it was still a bit unexpected, even though she’d been in the hospital recently. Are you ever ready for that news? Like me, her father died years ago. And with my dad, his death was not at all a surprise, considering his health issues, even though it was sudden. I really wish there were easy answers about how to close the physical distance in a way that wasn’t so expensive or complicated. Not just for emergencies like this, but for every day life. I miss my family so much sometimes that it’s a physical pain. Seeing them once or twice a year is simply not enough. It never was, really, but life was so busy, I didn’t think about it as much. And I wasn’t as old myself. Ugh.

—

Today is a day off, one of my fall Fridays, and I had a decent night’s sleep for once, falling back asleep after each of the times I had to get up to visit the bathroom, and then sleeping until 8 am with no alarm. It was a sunny morning but it’s clouding over now. Despite being a slug until around 10, I’ve showered, dressed, eaten lunch, emptied the garbage cans, taken out the recycleables, and started the dishwasher. Anders will be home at some point today or this evening; he’s been in Tingsryd all week for the second week in a row. We have no plans for this weekend, and I am inbetween projects. I had to almost physically restrain myself from getting my work laptop out and working a bit, because work is insane right now, and super stressful with all the urgent requests that have been coming in, and the fact that we are already understaffed, not even counting my Fridays off. I might still succumb.

Because we have no plans, I hope to spend the weekend just trying to keep my mental state level. I burst into tears at work yesterday due to a high-stress issue on top of everything else, and feel like I am on the verge of a meltdown pretty much constantly, which is hard to handle, because it’s not at all my usual balance. I miss my hair. I miss my even keel. I miss my mom and dad. I miss my kids (even though I’m going with them to Costco on Tuesday next week, and Karin and Essie are spending the night and then apparently taking us to dinner on Wednesday).

One funny story, since this post descended into gloom and pathos. Yesterday, Karin sent me a reel on Instagram of a young man singing a song he’d written in honor of “National Transfer Money to Your Daughter Day”. I laughed at the post, and wrote back “haha, nice try”. Then I Swished her 1 kronor with the message “Happy National Transfer Money to Your Daughter Day”. I showed both to a couple of my colleagues who laughed their heads off (they all know Karin) and I couldn’t stop giggling for a good 15 minutes (this was pre-bursting into tears later). Karin wrote back after she saw the transfer: “HAHAHAHAHA YOU ARE FUNNY”.

And you know what? I am. I’m funny. I’m strong. I’m able to get through all this. I need to remember that.

Mood: determined
Music: May—Closure