One Minute Writer - Adjusting

Today's topic from One Minute Writer: 

"What's the biggest adjustment you've ever had to make in your life?"

This took me a while to think about.  This past year has been the biggest adjustment I have ever had to make bar none!

Most people will say having a baby is a big adjustment but I can't say that.  Evan slipped into my life so easily it was like he was always there.  The joy he brought me, and continues to bring me, far overshadows any kind of adjustment I ever had to make.  The point is, I can't even remember making any adjustments for him.

Even moving to Israel wasn't as big of an adjustment as this past year.  Yes, it was challenging but within a year I felt like it was my forever home.  I didn't speak Hebrew well but I could ride a bus and take Evan to Masada and the Dead Sea. I could grocery shop and get my hair cut.  I could sit in the park and enjoy where I was.  Despite the challenges of not speaking the language, losing my job and the severe financial challenges we faced, the reason we left wasn't because we couldn't adjust.  Leaving definitely tore a hole in both Evan's and my heart.

No, without a doubt, this past year was the hardest adjustment of my life.  The defeat of coming back from Aliyah, being severely ostracized by family and friends, having my child taken from me, and finally, to my relief, finalizing my divorce.  My drivers license was taken from me and my friends stopped calling and texting.  I grew afraid of people, of groups, of leaving the house.

There were good adjustments too.  A new and wonderful relationship, a beautiful new home, a new life, new friends and family. I got my son back.

I went from a country I love more than anyplace to a cold, unheated home with no toilet or water.  My child was taken from me and I was told no one wanted me and that I was an unfit mother.

I wanted and made plans to die.  I had no reservations.

And from there...I am here.  And I am still adjusting to a normal, loving relationship. I am still working on going out of the house and to synagogue.  I haven't made it yet but every week I try. 

I am accepting that I have epilepsy and can't drive and may never drive again.

At one point I said I was becoming.  Back then I thought I was.  It was all blue skies.

Now I am adjusting and trying to accept where I am.  I am trying to adjust and accept who I am.  I am trying to start over and adjust to the wasteland I feel my life has become.

Fortunately I AM loved and that gives me hope that eventually I can become again.  Maybe not.  I really just don't know.

Time Flies

I can't believe it's been almost 20 days since I last blogged.  Time flies I guess.  In this time I have discovered:

I rather like Downton Abbey, which I knew, but since I was rationing episodes to savor the deliciousness of each....I finally watched all of seaso 3 and I am quite besotted!

I made Scott love Doc Martin!!!!!

I also made him love Project Runway even though he'd never admit it but he's kind of dragging his heels on the new Tim Gunn show.

I have a seizure disorder.  Nothing new huh?  Now it has a name though.  Simple partial seizures with secondary generalization.  That means I have baby seizures before I have the BIG one.  Or auras.  Whatever you call them they basically can be anything and for me, they often seem like am out-of-the-blue panic attack.  Which, I guess, is how the neurologist identified them as seizures.  My nurse practitioner asked yesterday how I keep them from becoming the BIG one.  I don't have any idea because unlike a panic attack I can't identify a trigger.  I think I should have said prayer helps keep the BIG ones at bay but sometimes even that doesn't reach G-d in time.

I love my kid more than anything in the world and my guilt over things I feel I am responsible for happening to him will never ever go away.  That guilt combines with grief and devastates me daily.  My nurse practitioner said I "seem" better.  I tried to explain how I feel and how day to day it can be so different.  Hour to hour.  Minute to minute.  Second to second.  She didn't understand.

Most people don't "get" epilepsy of depression.  They don't understand how it feels to be unable to drive, to determine ones adult life and comings and goings.  I am so grateful to have Scott who so lovingly cares for us.  I still can't help but miss an independent life.

I miss my Jewish practice.  It's been so unbelievably hard to face people, the world, everything.  I freak when I have to encounter something old, something new, something familiar or unfamiliar.  I fear people I know the most.  I like slithering through life knowing no one, being a nothing, being invisible.  Some people don't like that but I find comfort in it.  Still I miss my Jewish practice so this Friday I am trying to attend synagogue.  I have a choice between a synagogue I have never been to and one I used to be on the board of.  It's hard.

It's snowing and I hope we get a half foot.  I'd love to take Evan sledding but for now I have to settle for a daily walk in the neighborhood, Wii games and watching "Say Yes To The Dress", which he insists he doesn't like but which he sits and watches with me.

So...that is what I have discovered.  Not much I suppose in the grand scheme of things but it seems a whole lifetime almost for me.  And I try hard to keep climbing the ladder even though there are days I slip a few or many rungs...the point is I keep focused on the goal.