Change in plans?

https://www.madison.k12.wi.us/calendars

ARRGGHHH! just ARRGGHHH!

I sprained my ankle several months ago. Not exactly how I counted on spending my Easter weekend. I was so frustrated! It meant I was a lot slower. I couldn’t walk my dog, I had signed up to greet at church on Sunday...maybe I could sit and do this?.... not to mention it put a real thorn in my side at work. Why in the world did it have to happen?

This was frustrating, I’ll admit. Though much different in scope, it was not unlike the feelings of helplessness I had a few weeks ago when my mother had an unexpected stroke. It certainly intruded on her plans.

My dad took the time to go through her calendar for the week, cancelling appointments, piano lessons, meetings; because nowhere on her schedule had the stroke been penciled in.

Once we got over the initial fear that goes along with a stroke; will she be ok? We got to work on rehab. I hesitate to use the word “we;” I am only there a couple of hours a day and I help out when I’m not working, but my dad really doing all of the caretaking.

It is definitely paying off! My mom is progressing beyond everyone’s expectations. She really is doing fantastic! But it’s slow moving. Not really though.... She couldn’t speak two weeks ago.... It just seems that way, I guess. More so for her.

She was a Toastmaster and a singer and a teacher, so the slower speech issues are cramping her style, for sure. Talk about a change of plans....

Things happen, for sure. We are a lot less in control than we like to think. So how do we not allow these things to derail us?

We could and lots of people do. But more often than not, people realize a strength that they didn’t know they had. They adjust to a new normal. When I was in a car accident a while back, my mother really identified with a poem called, Welcome to Holland. Though the circumstances were different, the idea is still the same.

You are in a place you didn’t plan to be, certainly don’t want to be. Everything is different than what you are used to. You can choose to sullenly fight the new schedules, new environments, new people you hadn’t counted on meeting, new services you hadn’t counted on needing, new limitations; or be open to new possibilities.

It’s not as cut and dry as this. I don’t mean to make it sound simple or easy, because it’s not. It is a daily, hourly process of accepting.

We are in Holland....quite unexpectedly. But you know, some days even Holland has some nice weather and scenery. We’ll come back very soon with our postcards and souvenirs and say “remember when...”

c.2014