♪ What the world needs now...🎶
I woke at 6.55, not 6.15, to the sound of Lauren prepping to leave. My attempt to rely on the HomePod's ascending spa music for waking didn't go as intended and my backup alarm was a fail because I didn't 'save' the changes. A necessity in iOS. Facepalm. I jumped up in order to try and get out the door as originally planned, only in a 5 min window. It brought back a rush of memories of my youth and other times I'd be 'jarred' awake or oversleep and have to scramble in a panic to make it out the door. Churning stomach and all. But I did it, I got up, ready and out and we speed-walked our way down Kirk. We walked so fast that if I tried to drink coffee and keep up I'd end up with a chipped tooth and coffee-covered shirt. She's a fast walker. I returned and listened to Malcolm Gladwell on a podcast talking about "Talking to Strangers". I like the premise of the book but it's not something I want to add to my plate right now so I set it aside to read or listen another time. While walking back I passed Larry and I mentioned how I was walking with Lauren in the mornings, meaning it to represent my effort to follow his lead and stay fit. He replied saying "Good, especially around here". That surprised me. We're not in the 'best part of town but certainly not in what I would consider sketchy or risky. That comment touched on a nerve I've always had about helicopter parenting and the whole "Perception vs Reality" aspect of our safety in our society. Perhaps his response was based on the assumption that i was walking her for safety and he wanted to reinforce or show support? I don't know, it just left me walking away wondering what's so bad about "around here", anyway. I started off the day feeling angry for some reason. Irritable. I keep coming back to that not being how I want to be but it does seem to be a baseline that I can start from under the right conditions. Today it was about my kids having been messed up by the modeling of their mom's piss poor housekeeping approach. Especially when it comes to cramming clothes into dressers that won't close or closets to the point that they won't shut, or, shudder... using a laundry basket as a storage bin. THAT is a HUGE trigger for me and I encountered it this morning when going into one of their rooms. It set me off. I was well engaged in the workday. I took Lauren to see her mom after school and it was really interesting.. We found that she was more responsive than she was prior to the reduction of Morphine. She and I and Lauren had more opportunities for some back-forth interaction. She was not saying more than a couple of words here and there but it's more than she had been. The problem here is her anxiety, which we intended to abate via mediation. She was back to saying "please please please" and "help me". At one point she seemed to almost want to get out of bed (I do not think she has the strength to do so). Kelly visited tonight and reported something similar so I contacted hospice and asked that they coordinate with Dr. Silva on trying to increase anxiety meds while keeping the morphine dialed down. If we can find a balance, it will make her remaining days better for everybody. Jen's had a busy workday and I'm hoping to carve out some time to enjoy the patio and firepit for the evening, before going to get Lauren at 10.30.