It's Raining in My Heart

I've been walking a fine line lately, the one between sadness and chaos. Alternating between feeling I should post here, but also being so private that I only want to post happy thoughts. Things aren't always happy, and the struggle to maintain wears us down, does it not? Sometimes the struggle for life just doesn't seem fair.

Because of life choices I have made, I have for many years lived far away from family members. I've been removed from their lives and they from mine. I have missed a lot, seeing nieces and nephews, and subsequently their offspring, grow up. I've found as I've gotten older, this matters more to me than it once did. Oh sure we see them several times a year, but the day to day stuff is what I miss. I feel like I am always on the outside, looking in. Hub has the same situation with his family.

I know how fortunate I am, at my age, that my parents are still living. However their quality of life has deteriorated the past few years and the reality of their ages has struck me. My father is 95, but has always had the vitality of someone 30 years younger. He has outlived all his brothers, and most of his friends. In my heart, I thought he would live forever, but in my mind I can see that he is not going to. Due to a fall three weeks ago, he has had a hip replacement, a week in hospital, two weeks in rehab, and now has been moved to an "assisted living" facility. My mother, who is 87, is not physically able to care for him on her own, but feels she can, so she wants him out of there and back at home. He is a fall risk, so this entails having 24/7 home care. There are so many decisions to be made, and my sister has had the burden of handling them because she lives nearby. We talk every day, but I need to get there as soon as I can, to be able to help out.
Since I have a bad shoulder, I cannot lift things, so what can I do in that regard? Just being there should make us both feel better, I hope so. The stress of other things in my life right now has caused my shoulder and back pains to get worse. Yikes.... One thing just leads to another, always. I've done very little artwork of late, and that is another thing that makes me cranky. So I am going to try to find a window of time to do a few artsy things today. My journal pages of late have been pretty dark and NOT artsy!