Grind

Home from vacation six days ago.  As far as cooking a second night; I was going to make crab cakes, after the sliders I thought it best not to do the crab cakes.  It was so hard to manage the stress of cooking for 16.  My family was fine with that – plus, crab is so expensive, I really didn’t want to take a chance. 

Yesterday was exhausting.  It seemed unmanageable.  I had three things going on.  I needed to discuss some paintings with my friend Stan in DC.  My friend Jenn texted her availability to come to Atlanta for a visit.  I had a drum lesson.  Also, I thought I had asked Ashley if she had to go into the office to work and she said no (which means nothing because she doesn’t remember me asking, so I probably didn’t), so when I got home from my walk in the morning she wasn’t here.  I needed her help with the results of my conversation with Stan, which there was no hurry except I was worried I’d forgotten some of the information discussed, even though I wrote most of it down.  I also needed her to discuss Jenn’s visit and get back to Jenn. 

Ashley got home after a long day of clients and dealing with her aging parents, who are lovely but need a good deal of hand-holding, like me.  We talked about her folks, the paintings of Stan (she helped me formulate an inquiry text to Stan), made a call to Jenn and Ashley booked her flight.  We rarely order delivery, so we did.  As the arrival time kept going later and later and the driver was still twenty minutes from the pickup location of our food.  We finally canceled.  So, at 8:00 PM I heated up some soup for dinner.  I was done.

I think about my life pre-stroke.  How did I do all that I’d do?  Drive to work, work as an analyst, go to a meeting, see friends after – maybe grab a bite. 

The most exhausting thing about yesterday was having things in balance.  Unresolved items needing attention.  It wasn’t a lot, but I was holding my breath all day.  I rarely have days like this, my days are usually benign.  Perhaps I should have been writing yesterday while this was happening.  Could I have taken that on?  Maybe I should have constructed an email and sent it to Ashley for the things I needed input on?  Regardless, this is a work in progress, and these types of days are far and few between.  But that doesn’t mean I can disregard the management of such days.  Perseverance.