Sunday and SAD

 Last night, I asked my Dad if he wanted to go to the Unitarian Universalist Church for their 9 a.m. service. He said yes, so I made sure I had enough alarms set on my phone to wake up in time to take him. We got there, and unfortunately, snow covered some parking, and I couldn't find an overflow parking area. We decided to see if there were any Methodist churches around and found one with the same problem. So much for meeting new people for him today. 


Instead, I drove the long way home and did some sightseeing. Tomorrow, we will tour Wesley Methodist Seminary in D.C. Then, on Tuesday and Wednesday, I plan to make all the calls and work on the things I need to prepare for when we go to Florida in February. We will try our luck with the Unitarian Universalist Church social meeting on Thursday. I hope this will be successful and my Dad will make new friends. 


I struggle to get anything done when we are home during the week. Some mornings, I start typing away, figuring out emails, and looking through my chart for my Dad to get his doctors in order here in MD. However, he will start asking me the same questions, but if he wanders over and sees me typing, he will say - Oh, you're working. I also can't start anything until after the younger two leave around 9 a.m. By then, I am mentally tired, and I'd only been up since 6 or 7 a.m. Why is that?! I plan to work out virtually with my amazing friend Becky every other day. I need the support to start, and then by the time I showered and dressed, it was about 10 a.m. I dunno. I'm hoping it's just the Winter SAD, and if I keep using my light, I'll eventually get over it. The sun is supposed to set closer to 7 p.m. soon. I hope so, at least.


It's wild because, by 2 p.m., my Dad is done for the day. He's napping when reading or watching TV. I'm feeling exhausted, too. Then it's dark at 5 p.m., and I'm struggling to stay up until 7 p.m. before going to bed. We laugh about how early it is every night when we feel like going to bed. If the weather is nice, we will go for a walk to shake off the sleepy feeling, but when we go out in the mornings after the kids are at school, we have lunch, and then it's game over. I think the consistent questions and his need to plan out the next few months are a bit draining, so when we get back, it's hard to feel the energy to start again on the projects I need to complete. Especially the phone calls. Why does making a call feel much more challenging these days? I have never had a problem speaking on the phone before - ask my husband how we would chat for hours when we were getting to know eachother. 


As I'm typing, we are watching Picard, and it's not even 11 a.m. He's napping. I feel like taking one, too, lol. I struggle with ADHD, so internal motivation is hard for me. I try to think about how much better things would be and how much less will be on my plate to entertain his questions of "Where do you want to go? Anything you'd like to do?" without my answer being "Getting your stuff in order" which I don't say out loud. I usually say, "Once I can get things settled for you, I'll be better able to think about those things." Some days, I entertain the idea of having answers, but I feel defeated. 


Today, Dad asked me if I knew what the cause of my sister Meredith's death was. I told him what I was told, but I was unsure. He said that my answer seemed correct to him. More days than not, he says his memory is just not the same. I'm hoping our trip to FL helps, but it will be hard keeping him on task. I'm going to reach out to his friends and plan things for him to do with him so I can go through more things a bit quicker. I'm hoping our outing tomorrow will be good for him, and he will feel like he's accomplished something since he has been asking to go since he got here. The next obsession will be "going to the Eastern Shore". I have never been, so I want to plan it better than just going and not knowing where to set the GPS. 


Anyway, I'm feeling down but hopeful. I'm down because getting Dad introduced to people today didn't pan out, but I'm hopeful that tomorrow will go well. I hope to get out of this funk and accomplish everything I have set out to so that we can relax and enjoy each other's company more. If you have any advice, I'm open to hearing it. In the meantime, enjoy the time you have with your parents. It goes by way too quickly. 


Here is a photo of us on his birthday last year:



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