In My Absence [And In My Present(s)]

It's been about a year-and-a-half since I published anything here.

During that time, I went from footloose and fancy free to caring for my mother while still working full time. It's been a wild ride, and there were times when I felt like the bull was going to throw me and stomp me into the ground.

Yet, here I am, still caring for my mother, but fortunately getting bits of my life back, as she is getting stronger. She will probably always need help, but she needs much less  help today than she did six months ago.

Caregiving can feel like two people living one life, and until you've done it, you're not likely to get what that means. When someone can't meet their needs on their own and require help with everything from getting to the bathroom to getting meals and medications and everything in between, it can be very difficult to meet their needs and still have any time or energy left for your own.

There is something that helped for me, and it's helped me through other difficult situations, as well. It's the simple practice of asking questions.

In Access Consciousness, I learned to ask questions that I think of as prayers. Rather than looking for answers, we allow them.

The main questions I used to shift four very difficult situations for me in 2014, including getting out of debt with my ex, receiving a car when I wasn't in a position to purchase one and finding a place to live that was perfect for me follow:

How does it get any better than this?
What else is possible?
How could this turn out even better than I could imagine or plan?

This year, those questions have opened up my life when it felt like things could not improve, and I felt stuck. I wish I had remembered to ask them before I got to that point. But hey, there's a reason we call it practice.