Back on the Patio

I’m back on the patio again. It’s hard to believe that the entire fall and winter has gone by and finally I am able to sit here on the back porch enjoying the crisp morning air. It’s going to be hot today, I can feel it, but for now, it’s the perfect spring morning. Birds are chirping, the sounds of the neighborhood fill my ears. I love my yard, my house, but right now at this moment in my life it is all overwhelming. I am feeling better, that is for sure, but there is so much to take care of. I look at the yard and think of all the things that need to be done and I wonder how I’m ever going to do them all. The house, my dream house, needs TCL that I am unable to provide right now. I barely have the energy to work and cook dinner, how will I ever keep up on everything else? I remember when I bought this house and a friend at work said “that’s a lot of house for a single woman.” I thought to myself…no it’s not…I can handle it. And I have for all these years, but my life has changed. I don’t have the stamina I had before. I used to be able to work in the yard from sunrise to sunset, and then go inside and do housework. Now I barely have the energy to weed the flowerbeds. And even if I do find the energy, there is the lymphedema which continues to plague me. Sometimes I want to take a devil may care attitude and just do whatever I want and damn the consequences, but I know that the consequences are severe. If I do too much I will pay the price in pain and swelling. Then there is the cost of the things I want to do, my disability is way behind, I’m not working full time yet, graduation is coming up, the medical bills are mounting, basically, finances stink.

I apologize if I’m being a whiner. There is so much good in my life, so many things to be thankful for, and those are the things that I need to focus on. I look around and the trees are green and bursting with life. My flowers are blooming and what grass the dogs haven’t destroyed is green. Sure, the patio needs to be stripped and restrained, but I can still sit and enjoy being on it. My house needs to be painted, but it is still my dream house. This will have to be a summer of rebuilding my health and the chores will just have to wait. My patio won’t fall apart if the stain doesn’t happen this year, and the neighbors probably wonder when their hillbilly neighbor is going to mow the lawn and paint the house, but for now…I am alive and that needs to be enough. I am able to take the air into my lungs and breathe, I am able to feel the warm sunshine on my face, I am able to enjoy the laughter of my grandson and those things are enough for now. They are enough to sustain me. Everything will just have to wait.