What is “normal” anyway? My normal and yours is going to be completely different. Is it normal to lose your mother to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s) and then within a month lose your baby sister to incurable cancer? I don’t think many people can say that is their normal. Now, I have to figure out what my new normal is after the loss of my loved ones.
While watching my mother slowly die, I experienced what they call anticipatory grief. As her caregiver, with the assistance of my sister, it was a trying time for all of us. The last week of my baby’s sister’s life I spent a few days with her and seeing her suffer was so difficult. Life is not fair! It took both of them too soon. My sister was a positive force in this world of so much negativity. She was loved by so many people. My mom had just finished a school degree and was bettering her life. Both very cruel and fatal diseases.
I continue to tell myself positive affirmations. I make sure if a negative thought comes into my head to fight it off. I will get through this and find my new normal, I know. Right now I cannot focus. I get my best thoughts while taking a shower and it’s like the water washes them away, because after that I am lost again. However, as long as I am given a task, I will get it done.
My current focus and tasks include my fitness and health. Just in time a new 80 day program was released with a timed nutrition aspect to it. It’s a task… I’ve assigned it to myself, but it’s a task I am determined to complete, if not 100% to the best of my ability.
My day job is a litigation paralegal. I struggle here the most. I have asked the attorneys I work with to be sure and assign me tasks so I can be sure to work. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of work, it’s just I don’t have the initiative to look for what needs to be done. That’s not like me at all. I am slowly getting that initiative back. My employer has been extremely understanding of what I am going through and that is a blessing.
My second job as a lifestyle, health and fitness coach, can be difficult to focus as well. Right now I have tasks. The thing is I am my own boss… so, I make my tasks. But I am part of a training that is giving me tasks as well and is helping me stay focused, even when I would rather sleep.
I know I am grieving. I know that is a process. I know I will find my new normal.
Thank you for reading.
