Friday, September 4, 2020

5 Year Journal Day 106

      Today's prompt is "Which celebrity would you want to interview?" Chris Cornell.

     Some call this this witching hour. It is now 2:21 a.m. here. I'm calling it the writing hour. It's when my brain says "Wake up! It's time to write!"

     I do not remember where my time went yesterday. Before I knew it, the day was gone. I remember that I took a shower and put on a "new" dress. It's a dress that still had the tags on it because it hadn't been worn yet. We went to go get our flu shots, but left because the wait was an hour long. Caleb had his occupational therapy appointment today. That was about it. 


Red, white, and blue! America! Land of the Free!



     Caleb and I have been collecting Gatorade Zero bottles for our science experiment. We will be starting the testing phase soon. We are going to build a life raft from repurposed bottles. 

     Caleb and I wanted to watch a movie together. It's something that doesn't happen often anymore because I sleep in my room. I fall asleep during movies. We finished what we needed to do for the day early, and I asked Caleb if he wanted to watch a movie. He was excited, because I never ask. He wanted to go grab some munchies, so we did. We stayed awake long enough to eat the munchies, but not long enough to finish the movie. LOL Both of us went to bed early. 

     Bella is still having a hard time. I am treating her ears with ear miticide and generic neosporin. She is taking benadryl twice a day per the vet's recommendation. Her paws look better but her eye brows are getting worse. I don't want to put neosporin so close to her eyes. She's not the same since she's been dealing with whatever it is that is making her itch. 

     The heat index was supposed to be as high as 113 today, but it didn't seem that hot outside. That's the danger with me going outside. I can't tell that it's 113 heat index and I should be inside. If I didn't get notifications from the Weather Channel app, I would not have known the danger I could be putting myself in. Last year I nearly gave myself a heat stroke working on my gardenias in the heat. My heart raced, I felt sick and dizzy, I wasn't sweating anymore, it was awful. I was the only one who knew I was working outside too. I was working by myself trying to plant my gardenias. I wasn't thinking about heat injuries at the time. I was just thinking about how out of shape I was, and how much I wanted to get my gardenias planted already. 

     I am trying not to use credit this month, but I have less than $100 cash to get us through until I get paid again in a few weeks. We might need to dip into our hurricane stock of canned food. I am planning on going to the food pantry at the scheduled time.

     Caleb is starting Intuniv this week, in addition to his other medications. So far, I have not noticed a difference, but it may take time. 

     I am having trouble reconciling my beliefs of what school looks like to me and what is actually happening at home. I know intellectually that I was not going to be able to sit with Caleb from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for home schooling, but something inside me says that I am wrong for not acting in accordance to that picture in my head. Caleb is an exceptional student, with special needs. He can not and will not sit for long periods of time for school. He didn't do that in the public school setting, why would I expect that at home? 

     I have these expectations of myself that are not realistic. I am not Super Woman. I am a disabled veteran and stay at home single mother. I am doing the best I can every single day. It's hard to convey the difficulties I face on a daily basis to others. I have so much I have to get done when I can do it. It can't wait for later. It is time sensitive. I am not lively and full of energy. I work on an energy deficit. I work on a sleep deprived timeline. I do not sleep well. I counteract my tiredness with caffeine. It only goes so far. I wish I could just plug in and recharge every night like my phone does. I do not have a support system here. I work alone all the time. There is no one who can do my errands for me or help me clean up the house. COVID-19 keeps us from each other even if there were people who could help. 

     It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, I live in a village of one. 

     I try to decrease my stress by sharing my days with Rachel and Aunt Lisa. I use to talk to Nichole all throughout the day. We were free to talk to each other because we are both stay at home moms. I don't want to interrupt Aunt Lisa's work day, and I don't know Rachel's schedule enough to not be a bother. I was trying to make friends in my classes, but I recently had to quit as it was causing me too much stress. I was being pulled from all angles. I could not be in more than one place at a time, and I was trying to be in several places at a time, doing multiple things at the same time. It was hectic and stressful. I try to keep my schedule in order. I thought that if I scheduled these classes on my calendar that I would be able to follow through. Obviously that was not the case. I was tired when classes started from dealing with Caleb and other adulting tasks. 

     I have not developed the stamina and endurance needed to take on so many additional tasks. I barely get done what I feel needs to get done, sometimes. Most of the time I don't get everything done. I live in a chaotic state of constantly trying to catch up.

     Caleb is going to be learning in a different way. He is going to have to learn how to live with me first. We will get to the academic stuff along the way, but I can't continue at this pace for long. I am going to burn out. He is getting older and should shoulder more responsibilities. He does well with hands on learning, so I will teach him stuff as we get stuff done. It will be highly interactive and movement based. He is very active and energetic. 

     I am learning as we go as I have never home schooled my own curriculum before. The one other time we tried homeschooling was through the online public school , K-12. It was a disaster as it was almost fully online and Caleb never wanted to work. We fought almost everyday to get the simplest of tasks done. It wasn't a day before we were behind on his list of tasks to do. I had to withdraw him from that school as it did not take into account his IEP. The schedule was too demanding. I have too many places to be other than home during the day, pre-COVID-19. I had to re-register him in his traditional public school. 

     This year I am doing everything myself. I do not have family near, and I do not have friends who can help. It's during the COVID-19 pandemic and appointments are starting to become in-person more frequently again. Our lifestyle is one where everything has to be reconfigured to fit our collective disabilities. We just do not fit the normal stereotypes for our ages. It's not easy. It's demanding. It takes everything I have to give, plus some. 

     Nichole really let me down as she helped me stay clear in my mental health by being an adult I could talk to whenever I needed, as now she is giving me the silent treatment.


     I could have easily lost my mind, and it wouldn't matter. Thank God for Rachel, Aunt Lisa, and my mom. My mom checks up on us frequently too. Even my Granny and Pepere call to check up on us! I was talking with her throughout the day, every day, for months and months and she just ignores me now. I mean I'm not a healthy individual. I guess she takes no responsibility for what happens in her absence to me or to Caleb. 

     Politics aside, do I not matter? Does Caleb not matter? It's depressing to be treated so badly by someone who was so close. 

     I would say the same for Mathew, but I wasn't talking and texting Mathew everyday. I was talking and texting Nichole!

     We would share our mother stories for the day and support each other through the hardships. We would laugh at stupid jokes that I would make. We would discuss what's for dinner, and what's the plan for the day. The kids would see each other on video chat. We would smoke together, drink our caffeinated drinks together, and miss Mathew together. I felt like I was a part of a family. I felt like I was a sister and an aunt. She took that away from me. 

     It's hard to move on. It's even more difficult with the anniversaries of all my loses around the corner. It's harder because of COVID-19. She was the only adult I would see other than doctors and grocery store clerks. 

     As you can see, I am grieving these new loses. 

     It is now 3:52 a.m. and Bella never got up from bed. Caleb came out of his room for a drink and went back to bed. Sponge Bob is on the living room tv. 

     Today Caleb has to clean up the living room and put it back to the way I had it when I cleaned it. I have to re-start the laundry and clean up the kitchen. I have to put down the pet-friendly insecticide around the house. It smells pretty good. It uses essential oils. I need to clean up the hallway bathroom. I have finally caught up on my financial paperwork for awhile. I tidied up my workspace a bit. I want to start moving stuff out of the china cabinet and into the bookcases. I was using the china cabinet that was inherited from my former-step-great grandmother as a bookcase because I did not have enough bookcases to store all my books. I still haven't moved the bookcases to where they belong. I got really sidetracked with trying to take care of Bella. I spent all day Saturday giving her a spa treatment. I crashed Sunday, and Monday was full of in-person appointments. 

     It's Labor Day weekend this weekend and my goals are to keep Caleb out of trouble and not spend any money. I can't wait to have a day in bed! I am so done with this week. I need a break from all this work. 

     I am feeling the call of the bed now. I am just going to finish my Dew and go. 

      

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