7-31-13 RMB Progress

7-31-13 RMB Progress

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

It is all far from over. This is a transition period at work and one for me in my own life and in my own home as well, as I wait for the sister to come home from the hospital, hoping she will be strong enough to take care of herself, healthy enough to get stronger than she was before she became ill...on many levels.

The night I took her to the ER I had to help her dress. That scared me a bit. I did not sign on to be caretaker. I offered her a place to live, because that is what I had to give. I offered a spare room. I soon discovered she expected more, companionship.

Might seem like that would automatically accompany roommate status, but not with me. I was not looking for a roommate. There is a reason I’ve lived alone for a decade and a half. I crave solitude. When she complains to our “adult” sister, the one that helped raise me, she hears, “She’s the same way when she’s here at our house. She goes out on the front steps and reads or take walks or we find her sitting by herself in another room with a book.”

She convinces my roommate sister that it’s not her, it’s me. But there is still a certain level of socialization and caretaking expected of me. I comply, understanding that life sometimes places us where we need to be in order to grow.

At work, I train new employees and my work piles up. Stretch, grow, adapt, ugh!

As I walk around the parking structure at lunch, I read Wish You Were Here. I meet Mrs. Murphy the cat, Tucker the dog and Harry the postmistress. I find Rita Mae Brown’s signature humor and commentary on life, on people, our abilities and our shortfalls.

You expect a lot of your characters. You challenge them, as life challenges us. I like reading about how they make progress in their own worlds…and it helps me in some inexplicable way make progress in mine.

Onward and upward,

Loraine