This week at Nancy's Zoo

Happy Friday, everyone. Not a lot of poop in the zoo cages this week but I feel like I just completed two or three weeks in one so I'm a little out of it. I was discharged from the Partial Hospitalization Program on Tuesday so I’ve been on my own ever since. Hasn’t gone the greatest unless you’re counting how much sleep I’ve been catching up on. I saw my new therapist on Wednesday. I met with her once before for an intake and just didn’t remember her. Doesn’t seem promising to me. This week I’ve been dealing with a lot of strong emotions in regard to my former therapist and his walkout. Not sure what to do with them yet so they sit there and stew.

On the plus side, I have gotten started on my Wii fitness plan! Yay! I’ve done it three times already and plan to go again once I’m done with my blog. I’m only doing 15 minutes at a time but I figure it’s best to start slow so I make it a little easier to do. Once I get in a good weekly routine with that, I can increase my time. I also got a ton of paperwork done…which was grueling. I’m trying to apply for some financial assistance with my medical bills and I had to find a bunch of documents and complete forms. Today one of my goals is to deliver it all.

I can hardly believe it, but Tuesday, May 25th, my Craig is going to be 14 years old. I can still remember looking at him and wondering what he would look like when he was two. His birthday parties have run the gamut…from his entire class to just two other boys coming for a sleepover tonight. Two boys is much better than 20+ (especially in our small house). We’ll have pizza, snacks, cake. The boys will watch movies and play the Wii (so I’d better get my Wii time in during the day…I got hooked on tennis last night!).

I have a set of cards called “Angel Cards.” We used to use them regularly in day hospital and I liked them so I bought myself a set. Each card has a different word on it and the object for using them is to talk about whatever is on the card…what it means to you and such. I thought this might be a good thing for an occasional blog entry so I picked a card today. “Adventure.” Of course, you never want to stick with the card you pick but somehow I’ll figure it out!

Adventure. I can look at it two ways: positively and negatively. It’s kind of my nature to lean toward the negative but that defeats the purpose of the cards. As I look at the last few months and then again toward the coming months, I guess you could say it’s an adventure of some sort. What has happened feels very negative, but if I take the word at face value, all the new things happening in my life could be considered an adventure. After spending so many years with the same therapist, I am now forced to walk on my own two feet. I feel lost and angry, just to name a few things, but I have to figure it out for myself. If I try to think positively, which is usually hard for me, I could think of this as an adventure into self-discovery and hopefully on to self-actualization (reaching my potential). That would be ideal but unfortunately, so much of my life has been less than ideal that it seems like a very tall order.

On the other hand, I could use a different definition of “adventure.” The adventure of doing things in life: our camping experiences, for one. Memorial Day weekend, we are going to Upper Red Lake, north of Bemidji, to camp like I did when I was a kid. I want Craig to experience that and I can hardly wait. Not only that, but all of our camping adventures. We try to visit new places every year and experience new things. This is good for Allen and me but it also gives Craig memories he’ll keep with him for a lifetime.

Well, my adventure for the day is my Wii Fit, and then of course I’ll have to bowl or play tennis to cool down a little, then a shower and off on errands: making copies of paperwork and dropping it all off and grocery shopping for Craig’s party tonight. He’s also getting one gift from us tonight so I have to pick that up too. Just normal “mom stuff.” I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Not all the drama of my emotional life. Maybe I can put it on the back burner for today and give myself a break. How does that sound?