Feeling Like I'm MIA

For the past few days, and the week to come, I've been in and out of the house, trying to take care of one thing or another, one person or another. Last Friday, my grandma went in for heart surgery, while under the anesthesia, she suffered a minor stroke. Luckily, within a few days, she had regained her speech and full use of her right side.

For those of you who remember, my dad went through this same surgery back in November and suffered a heart attack during it. Needless to say, he is still recovering, making her current state even harder for him to deal with. A lot of the responsibility has fallen to my mom, and now, as she goes back to work, it falls to my sister and me.

My grandma came home this past weekend, and is doing considerably well. But, someone has to be with her at all times. So, that is where I've spent my afternoons, and will continue to until she feels well enough to be on her own.

I know it sounds so selfish, but it is hard on me to suddenly be away from home more than 40 hours a week. To miss out on afternoons with my son, to rush home to get dinner ready before I need to get GM ready for bed, to not have the freedom to do what I want or need to in an afternoon. The cleaning is not getting done, the dishes have piled up, and the laundry is fighting it's way out into the hallway.

I have sat at her dining room table, searching my brain to name birds at the feeders outside the window, finished reading the first book I've opened (that doesn't rhyme) in over a year, and sat in silence quieter than anything that ever occurs in our house.

I'm trying my hardest to only see the good in this, and to not worry about what I'm missing at home, what needs to be done. But then I come home and realize how long it will take me to catch up on the housework while a 4-year-old is repeating his recap of the afternoon in my ear over and over, and it's hard to see only the good anymore. This is only day 3, I could be in for a very long week.