Packing is going much slower than I’d like. Sometimes I feel like I’m roaming around the house trying to figure out what will go where. Then I get distracted, switch gears, and forget about what I was doing until I trip over it later.
This is nothing new for me. I felt like Mike flourished in the chaos when I only wanted a peaceful space. I’m not saying I don’t procrastinate. I’m saying he was better at it.
Several years ago, when we were getting ready to go to Washington fishing, he wanted to move his cows onto corn stalks. He spent two or more days right before we left building fence for the move. His arms were so tired and sore that he could hardly move them. I think it took some of the joy out of the salmon fishing experience for him.
Mike, fishing in Washington. He was truly in the moment.
For me, it’s a lot about perfectionism. Right now, I’m working on a caregivers circle once I get moved. I want all the marketing to be perfect. I’d like to be able to set a start date. Alas, I’m still splitting my time between Oakley and Oskaloosa. And once the stuff and horses get moved there is still a lot to do. I will start the circle imperfectly.
Perfectionism also took hold when I was caregiving. I would want everything to be perfect from the way Mike took his medication to how the house was kept. I lost that battle – Mike would have nothing of it. He had a feeding tube because his esophagus was narrowed just above his stomach. His medicine had to be crushed or in liquid form so we could put it into the feeding tube. When I would help him with this it often became stressful because I didn’t do everything the way he did and he didn’t do it the way I thought it should be done. Then there was IV nutrition. It had to be prepared, whoever was doing it needed to have clean hands and gloves, his PIC line needed to be wiped down, it needed to be flushed before starting the TPN, and then he needed to be hooked up to it until it was done. It would drive me crazy when he wouldn’t follow it to a T.
Caregiving for a loved one is hard even if you’re not a recovering perfectionist. You may find your brain scrambled.
Equine Gestalt Group
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Perfect – this is how we become perfectionists.
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Onward!
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