I ran into a friend yesterday as I was going back from a walk along a very cold beachfront. She said she found this blog by chance and she liked it. This is the first time I get independent feedback on my writing in this corner, and I am really pleased. She wondered -among other things- what happened after the cream cupcakes and why I have been away from this blog for so long.
The short answer is that I have been overwhelmed with so many things. I figured out this month that while I juggle so many committements and responsibilities it is impossible not to drop one ball or the other at any given time. It is challenging enough when things are running their normal course, but when things start to go wrong it is plain awful.
It all started in the middle of last month when I was called at work to get my son from school because he had pink eye. I haven’t blogged about it at the time, but this turned out to be the first of a chain of ailments. He later had diarrhea which lasted almost a week. The week after that he developed a cough, which turned out to be a pneumonia, we spent two days in the hospital for that.. soon after that he had another ailment a combination of stomach bug and sore throat with temperature.
Between the middle of May and today I visited the GP at least five times for Robert and once for myself, it has been rough. In the middle of all that I had two demanding freelance projects to work on and on some days I had to go to my day job… It was just too much.
At times like these, and I am merely human, things start to drop or come close to unraveling. I needed leave from my daytime job to attend to my son in hospital, and I had to extend both my translation and proofreading assignments. The level of care I took at the household level went to near zero. The chores that did not relate directly or indirectly to the well-being of my son were postponed indefinitely. My clothes lay in a pile, I wore the same thing two days in a row, and I ate whatever was left on Robert’s plate. I know it sounds desperate but sometimes you do what you have to do. The worst though was the lack of sleep. I survived on four to five hours of sleep a day and worked every free minute that I had..
Even within my own set of priorities things started to suffer. My son had to put up with a preoccupied mother, I arrived frequently late at my day job, I had to phone sick once, and had to leave early at least twice because of my son falling ill at school. It is small wonder under the circumstances, that I neglected this blog.
During this difficult time I also came to realize that the way I am doing things is not working. Sooner or later something is going to give, and I do not want to breakdown or loose my health. I need to be here for Robert. Some of my responsibilities and commitments need to be rethought, delegated or let go off completely. Maybe then I will have more time to devote to things that give me pleasure like blogging, knitting and reading. Amen.
The Loskop Diaries 