Illusion of time

We don’t think about the end. I mean we don’t think about OUR end. We constantly think about the end for the alcoholic, but we put ourselves into a different category. We live with the illusion of our lives going on infinitely.

Trust me on this. We ALL have an expiration date.

I recently had a surgical experience that did not go as planned. In fact, I didn’t have the surgery because the anesthesia wasn’t administered properly. I could have died. Had my inability to breathe not been noticed, I would not have made it through the surgical procedure and would not be here to write this post today. It was terrifying. I’m left with feelings that vacillate from apathy to anxiousness. But the one lesson learned was that time is fleeting.

I’ve been known to procrastinate. If there is an unpleasant task or conversation that must be had, I will find excuse after excuse to push it aside and do only what I prefer to do. Someone once said to me that the “dread” of doing the task is worse than actually doing what needs to be done. Just do it and get it over with. After that you can do the things you WANT to do.

It’s the same way for things you want to do. We put off taking the vacation or going to the concert. We put it off because we have responsibilities that must be attended to and there is no one to do them for us when there’s an alcoholic in the house. The caregiving an alcoholic, especially at end-stage, is an all-encompassing, unforgiving task with little reward at the end.

I completely understand the necessity of having to baby-sit the alcoholic in order to protect yourself. It’s not just about the alcoholic’s well-being. There’s your home, kids, family, bank account… all things that make your life bearable requires you to put your own life aside and wait. While you are waiting, the days, hours, minutes tick by. Each movement of the clocks hands depletes the amount of time among the living.

I have this thing about ice cream. I don’t want to serve myself a whole bowl, so I simply get a spoonful at a time from the carton. In my irrational brain, I believe I’m making the ice cream last longer and that it isn’t going to my waistline as quickly. So, one spoonful at a time, the ice cream will still get eaten. One day I will go to the freezer to re-load my spoon and when I pull out the ice cream carton, I will see that there is only ONE spoonful left. I’ll be amazed… “Where did that ice cream go? There was sooo much of it!” And then the ice cream is gone.

The only difference between the ice cream and our life clock is that there is no store that can sell us more time on our clock while there are plenty of places to buy more cartons of ice cream. It would be a great business venture if a person could figure out how to give us more time when our supply is running low. I’d invest in that opportunity.

One of the things that steals from our life clock is stress. It’s a single term that means many things. Stress… it’s like a big umbrella over many aspects of our lives that are creating stress. Having an alcoholic in your home or even in your life takes up a lot of room under that umbrella.

What should you do? I wish I had an easy answer for that question. There are things that I discovered during my time with Riley that could make the time easier. But they are individual to the setting I had with him and may not work for everyone. What I have found that might work for many people is to go ahead and plan for that vacation or that night out. Treat the situation as you would for time away from a child. Get a sitter. Prepare for your time away. Make it known that you are going. And most importantly, GO.

My life is more important to me since being faced with my own mortality. I’m not totally clear on what I’m doing, but whatever it is, I will do it with as little procrastination as I can muster.

I offer coaching sessions that can include a discussion of how your time is spent caring for the alcoholic. Together we can come up with a plan for you to get more out of your life. E-mail me (LindasFrontPorch@Outlook.com) and let’s set up a time to chat. Don’t let time pass you by. Live your life now because you have no idea how much of it you have left.