How much wood..

Something happened to me last week.
I spent the week in Arkansas taking care of my mom, helping her transition to being home from the hospital after major abdominal surgery, cooking, cleaning, etc. My mom is a why-put-off-til-tomorrow-what-you-can-do-right-now kind of person.

An example? She has never, in all her 79 years, owned a laundry basket. Even when she was a working mother of 4 children, the laundry was always washed, dried, folded and put away all in one episode. I can honestly say that my mom has never had to rewash a load of laundry because it sat in the machine so long it smells musty.

I, on the other hand, am a procrastinator extraordinaire.

But I came home from my mom's energized. I mean, all week I've been getting up, drinking my coffee, and actually getting things done. Bathroom cleaning. Vacuuming. Packing away Halloween decorations. Washing dishes. Actually washing, drying and folding laundry all in the same day.

Now, I've obviously spent time with my mom before as an adult, but never when I had to do for her. This time she needed me and I actually was able to adequately care for her, though there were a couple of nights when I thought I would simply collapse into bed never to rise again.

I've lived so carefully in recent years, monitoring my activities, measuring my energy level, prioritizing based on my physical limitations, that I forgot what's it's like to truly be active. Yes, I've been walking the dog two miles a day for about 6 months, cooking and canning. But I'm still living as if I had to be exceedingly careful of my energy levels in order to function the next day. Being at my mom's last week forced me out of a pattern of behavior I'd fallen into over the past 4 or 5 years as my then-undiagnosed hypothyroidism worsened.

Last year at this time, I could barely make it through the day. I would wake up exhausted, feeling as if I needed to go back to bed after only being up for a couple of hours. If I forced a spate of activity on myself, I could hardly function the next day. There were even a few days when I couldn't - literally was unable - to go get my daughter from school midday and I had to call my husband to pick her up. Times when I was so exhausted on my way home from an errand or activity that I was worried about my driving. Times when I couldn't stop to pick up a loaf of bread or gallon of milk because I didn't have enough energy to get out of the van.

This past week with my mom showed me that I can venture back into the realm of the truly active. After all, I'm only 45, but at times I have felt much, much older.

So today, in honor of my newfound zest, I stacked an entire pickup truck load of wood. There were times when I certainly wanted to stop, especially when I had a minor avalanche, but I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. That, and I wanted to do it as a gift for my husband, who has had to pick up the slack all these years and has done so willingly, lovingly and most of all, patiently.

So Michael, this wood pile may not be pretty, but it's for you.

Now, can someone pass me the aleve and a heating pad?