When You Need To Change Your Focus

Today was one of those kind of days. I had taken next Friday off as a personal day to get ready for Uncle Christmas about a month ago. Then my Grampa got sick and we moved the date to this weekend so that he could join us, and then we moved the location to my brother's house so that it wouldn't be such a far drive for him. I decided that I'd switch my personal day to today and use it to get ready for my niece's visit tomorrow and Uncle Christmas on Sunday. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Today was one of those days that doesn't work out like it was planned to. One of those days where everything goes wrong and your frustration level builds all day and you realize after a while that your hormones are also working against you and you just want to stand in a corner like a 2 year old and scream at the top of your lungs and wish it to all go away. One of those days. Seriously, I would've been better off at school.

Tonight, after my brain( which we'll all remember is being afflicted by some nasty migraine medication) yet again refused to remember that 1/4 cup of butter is half a stick and not a whole stick, and I screwed up the same fudge that I've made a dozen times over and then some, I came into my dark office and sat in the chair and looked out across the room at the Christmas lights on the common. I had a long quiet cry for  myself while dinner cooked and thought about how out of sorts the holidays seem this year. Then I stopped to consider that maybe I'm putting too much focus on the events, and the loss, and not enough focus on the reason and the purpose. We went out to eat at the table, and while we were sitting there, my son lit the candles of our advent calendar.

Our advent calendar is new this year, and it usually gets cleared off the table for dinner. However, tonight we were having pizza, which stays out in the kitchen, so that the regular pizza can be on the stove, and the gluten free pizza can be on the counter. Each person brings their own plate to the table, which leaves the middle of the table free and empty. Or, as the case might be right now, allows our advent calendar to stay. As I sat, and ate my pizza, and reflected on the awful day I had, and how nothing seems to be going right as of late, and how I feel like such a failure so often because my cognitive function is being affected by this medication and I wonder if not having constant headaches is worth it, I thought about something my daughter had said earlier. She commented that I could be having worse side effects, or be suffering from some far more serious illness, or be dying, and that I should be grateful that in the grand scheme of life that it's really not that bad. Really, she's right. Today I have a case of the  "poor me's". So my brain is stupid, and the holiday's aren't working out as normal and I've had to give up gluten and re-figure out celebrating as I know it. So what? After dinner, we came together and did our daily advent reflection and reading. Then The Boy informed me that he was going out to the market. I had already been to the market today, so I was a little confused. He informed me that he forgot to tell me about some things he needed, such as beer and munchies, and that he was going to pick up new ingredients for fudge so that I could make it again. He's a wonderful guy and I wouldn't trade him for the world(most of the time). I think it's time to change my focus.