Reasons for Feeling Proud

 In a week when my progress on my WIP has amounted to a total of two sentences, it is astonishing to think that I actually feel proud of this accomplishment. Yes, I am proud to have written two sentences. I am proud that I haven't given up in the face of daunting circumstances. 

I thought that I would have lots of time to write when I retired from my day job in April of 2020.  Ah, 2020, that magical year of plague, an overwhelmed health care system, and a major disruption of life as we knew it. The challenges of 2020 were large and frightening. COVID-19 was a rampaging beast that the United States downplayed and downright ignored. Americans were more worried about the toilet paper shortage than they were about their dying neighbors. 

In our household, there were no children to be homeschooled, but my desktop computer was the only one in the house that could serve my wife's needs as she began to work from home. This was my personal sacrifice to the pandemic. Writing on a laptop may not be a big sacrifice, but it is so much easier for me to type on a full-sized keyboard.  I ended up attaching a keyboard to a laptop on a makeshift desk. 

I was just getting into the swing of working from my makeshift desk when my wife's mother took a turn for the worse. At the time I didn't realize how much of my time would be taken up by caretaking responsibilities. She continues to decline. Six months ago she moved to a memory care facility. Anyone who has been through taking care of a family member with dementia knows that being in care doesn't stop the need for family caretaking. I spend three to five hours a day helping her. That is the equivalent of a full-time job. Instead of giving me more time to write, retirement has allowed me to be there for her when she needs me.

The need is exhausting. We go step by step through how to stand up, get in the car, use a fork, wash her hands...all those little, everyday tasks, we take for granted. I hunt the hearing aids that she put away in the toe of a sock, place the phone back on the base to charge because it has been in her walker or under the bed all day, find the door key that is "put away" in the bottom of the laundry hamper, and try as hard as I can to help her laugh at these things instead of feeling foolish.

I wrote two sentences in my book today. I am really proud of that.