invisible

"I was like sorry dude, sometimes my brain doesn't work and he was like uh huh huh, me too and I said no, I have a head injury. The more I read about dementia and stuff, the more I feel like I have that."

This wasn't a profound story or an intense moment, these are words my husband said as he went to our room to get dressed. This was just a conversation, a story about a new guy in choir and how my husband gave him the wrong instructions. The guy's name is Todd. Maybe. Karl thinks his name is Todd, which he told me last night when we were watching Parenthood and they were making fun of a guy whose name is Timm (with two Ms). I tried to explain to Karl that Todd is almost always spelled with two Ds. When I explain things to Karl, I think of my children, who love to correct each other about things that don't matter... like the normal spelling of Todd. Probably my children listen to me correct Karl every day and they think this is normal.

Maybe I shouldn't be correcting him? Maybe I should let his brain decide that Todd is spelled T-O-D most of the time, because what does that matter in the long run? But what about 93-7= 85? If he repeats that enough, will he be unable to ever remember that 93-7 really equals 86? If something is going to stick, should we take the chance on it being the wrong thing? But is stewarding his knowledge my responsibility?

Honestly, I have no idea. I have no idea what I'm doing any of the time. In the past two weeks, I have done more than my fair share of sitting on the floor crying. I feel like I'm failing on too many fronts and I don't have time to question if the ways I'm failing are the right ways to fail.

I started taking classes at the community college. The kids are both in school and my classes are paid for through some programs for spouses of veterans who are 100% disabled and I wanted to go somewhere everyday where people saw me, not Karl's wife or my kids's mom, but the colorful, loud, irreverent person I am. I want to annoy people and make people laugh and be noticed. I want to exist, which is so hard to feel like you're doing when your life revolves around other people. Because  I want so hard to be seen and because I've always been good at school, I decided to take five classes, instead of the four classes than make one a full-time student.

Right as school started, so did Girl Scout cookie season. My eldest child has sold 500 boxes in the previous two years and has a goal of 650 boxes this year. I'm the troop cookie mom. I feel passionate about this, the largest girl-led business in the world, and it's not hard work, just a lot of organization, really.

At the same time that my classes started and cookie season started, our daughter was evaluated for OT (Occupational Therapy) and PT (Physical Therapy)... and then her teacher suggested she be evaluated for speech therapy as well. Now that she's in all 3 therapies, it's been suggested to me by several people that she might not just have SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) and we are now going down the rabbit-hole of specialists to find a diagnosis for her. And we might go down the rabbit-hole only to end up back where we started, with a diagnosis of SPD and recommendations that she be in OT and PT, but we are going down the rabbit-hole.

In an hour, Karl and I have a home visit for the VA care-giver's program. My house is a mess. I have taken over the formal dining room with school and cookie detritus. I have not done laundry. Karl has and the proof is folded all over our couch and loveseat. Our studio is covered in cardboard scraps and markers. And I am sitting here, not cleaning, not even trying to make my house look reasonable, not showering, not getting dressed, just sitting here, surveying the mess and thinking about how everything right now feels like one.more.thing. One extra thing for which I don't have time.

Last weekend Karl took the kids to see his parents because our school district has a four day weekend at the beginning of February every year. I did homework. I also went to a super bowl party, which was fun, but mostly I did homework.

I asked my math instructor this week if I could get Wednesday's homework when she gives us Monday's homework so that I can do all my homework for the week over the weekend. I have no time to do homework between Monday and Wednesday, because I have 4 other classes before I go back to math and probably a cookie booth and maybe PT and OT and a conversation about dementia and I have to sleep, which is hard because I also desperately need to stay up for an hour after everyone else has gone to bed and spend an hour not doing homework and not being anyone, but just recovering from all the being and doing.

I accidentally skipped a speech assignment that was worth a lot of points and the instructor has said repeatedly that she offers no extensions or make ups. I didn't even ask for an exception, because even though I did all the other assignments I could get my hands on two weeks in advance, I didn't have a good excuse for not doing it. I have a lot going on, but if I can't handle the class, I could drop it. My GPA is probably going to suffer, but as long as I pass, it shouldn't matter.... except it does matter. When I feel like I'm failing at so much, it would be nice to be good at something.

Logically, I know I'm doing the best I can and that's enough. It's plenty. Cookie season will end. We'll get in to see specialists and they'll give us answers or they won't. The semester will end and I'll have passed (or not). In twenty years, probably nothing that has happened today will matter. In a hundred years, it certainly won't. It isn't even the failure that's hard, it's just the sense of not having time. It's the sense of not being able to stop and breathe. It's the sense that I don't have time to write... or read... or watch tv, because I should be doing other things. It's the sense that maybe.... maybe the best I can do does not actually involve being seen.

...because if I give up something to make time for all the other things, I won't be giving up Karl's care or the cookies or the rabbit-hole of diagnostics, I will be giving up the time every week that I am called by my name.