A CRAZY, WONDERFUL WEEK!

~ Posted 14 January 2017 ~
 
This has been one crazy week... just got off of the self-editing work on my book on Tuesday with completing and including the Table of Contents… and then my grandchildren went back to school this week on Wednesday.  With my daughter in law away, I have been helping out by collecting the children each day and keeping them in the afternoons, feeding, doing homework, etc. until their daddy, my 2nd son, could fetch them in the evenings to take them home.
 
It’s been wonderful, but at the same time, I have still not succeeded in catching up on my backlog of office work, and I have to say that I am very exhausted with just the change of pace and change of routine this week and struggling to cope with so much going on... I am seriously lacking in “me time”.
 
Just over 6 hours sleep the night before last and only 5 last night… so I'm very tired already and it’s just after 8am right now… I’m going to have to try to have an early nap today.
 
The week has been a blur… I don’t remember much about it other than rush-rush-rush and too much anxiety to be able to think straight when I needed to!  My daughter visited the one day with enough roast chicken and veg for three meals for us and a bowl of fresh fruit salad for the children and my youngest son who stays with me… so that was such a blessing that arrived unexpectedly and helped me considerably to get through this week.  I am so grateful to her for her genuine loving care.
 
I also got to be on the “first day back to school” with three of my grandchildren and their daddy.  The youngest of the three went to grade 1 (her first day of “big school”) and I felt very privileged to be there… fought off the tears as she confidently sat at her new desk chatting excitedly with her daddy and her mom who called just in time with a video link, all the way from her business trip in the USA.
 
Not only did I have the incredible privilege of sharing that lovely morning with three of my grandchildren, but I also received a message from my Logotherapy supervisor, Teria, with regards to my book that she has taken over for her editing on it… she wrote:
 
“Wow, I am up to page 20 and riveted! I do not want a thing changed!  I am so deeply moved, all that you write about is so real, so heartbreaking, so impressive to the reader!  If it continues along the same lines, you have a book of huge import.  Forgive me that I cannot devote all my time to reading it all at once.  I will have to read it in stages.”

Is that not the best news ever!  I know there’s still a lot of book for her to read and she’s bound to want me to delete, change, edit, or something, maybe quite a bit still, but for now, I am so excited and grateful for her sacrificing of her own precious time in working on my book, while she has her own to finish, and also for her uplifting letter.

Then the very next day, I receive an incredibly beautiful letter of gratitude from my latest client, thanking me for the difference that our work together has made in his life… and this, while I was still wondering if I was doing a ok with him… My lack of confidence in my own abilities, still telling me that I am “my mother’s (and other abusers) useless idiot… I’ll never amount to anything, etc.”… So, I have to say, his letter has touched and uplifted me deeply and shown me yet again, that I am a somebody and I can make a difference in other people’s lives… A wonderful reminder to me! 

And then, the very next day, I received news of a possible salary increase of R500… so, after a few months in a row of genuine struggle now due to high and mostly unexpected bills, this salary increase would be such a blessing to us (my youngest son and I) and it would make a huge difference.  My son lost his disability (Asperger Syndrome) grant a while back, and for it to be reinstated, he’d have to have certain state doctor tests done, which for me would be insulting to him!  I hate visiting such places as it is, because I am expected to discuss my son’s “weaknesses” in front of him for the doctor there to decide if he is still eligible for the grant. I feel the whole system is dehumanizing to the person needing the grant and can see clearly at this time, that the grant department are making it very difficult for these people to be on their grants and even doing their best to get them off! 

Even though we need that extra income so that we can live a little more comfortably, I struggle with the idea of repeating the insulting interview with the state doctors over and over… constantly telling my son in the process that there is something wrong with him… I just don’t want to do it anymore… so we are down R1300 +/- since he lost his grant and have really been feeling the pinch!

All in all, it’s been an exhausting, crazy, WONDERFUL week, and I am still so grateful to be alive today… still “climbing UP” on my own incredible mountain to healing.

Last night we went to my dear old daddy’s 86th birthday party… another joyful time with family and close friends, but I only went to sleep around 23h30 as a result!  Something I should NEVER do!  Woke at 04h30… so the rest of this day is history if I don’t get to nap early.

I have to catch up on my office work this weekend also… I HAVE TO! 

Thank you for reading and sharing with me

~ Pana