Let me preface with two things:
- I always assume that my blogging is for helping me to clarify my own thoughts, specifically by spelling them out in a way where they make sense to someone else.
- If something turns out to be helpful for you anyway, that's great.
That being said, the way the point of my recent thoughts has been evading me feels a little ironic.
I have written recently about the things you have to do:
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-things-you-have-to-do.html
I have also written about counting the cost beforehand:
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/12/counting-cost-part-2.html
I had grasped that if you know that you don't have the resources to do something, you probably shouldn't do it.
I had grasped that there are things that you need to do even knowing that they are going to be hard.
I had missed knowing you have to do something that is hard and trying to plan ahead for that.
That particular oversight makes sense for me.
In the past, my tendency has been to try and keep my head down and push through when things are hard. I had realized that wasn't always the right strategy recently (though I believe that was during a journal session), but hadn't really had a chance to put doing things differently into practice.
I have thought that sometimes it is better not to think about it too much.
I thought that about being my mother's full-time caregiver. I knew it was the right thing to do, so I was going to do it. At the time, I had no idea that would last four years and that it would change with her going into memory care rather than with her death.
I have also thought that it was better not knowing. If I could have foreseen how depleted it would leave me -- financially, yes, but not only financially -- I believe I would still have done it because I knew it was right, but there would have been a lot more fear and worry at the beginning.
However, what if I had been able to think about it, realize that money and respite would be issues, and had conversations about them early on?
Those discussions happened later, as big angry fights that were ultimately productive but not fun.
It would have been hard no matter what (I think there still would have been some anger and fighting), but maybe some of it could have been alleviated by thinking it through beforehand.
I still wouldn't have known how long it would take, but maybe some resources could have been accessed sooner.
Asking for help does end up being in there, but it is more than that.
If I can reference one more post, since the election I have felt pulled in different directions and having a hard time deciding where to focus:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/11/art-therapy.html
That has been largely due to uncertainty about how certain things will unfold and what resources I will have.
Putting this together might be what allows me to move forward.
