lifestyle Archives - Page 20 of 32

The Absence Of Obligation

The music pumped through my earbuds and filled my ears and mind as I crossed the bridge towards University City. A heavy bag of gear laid across my back. With each step, the skates that were tied together and draped around my neck swung left and right across my chest. Two sticks were pressed together in my left hand as my right tugged on the bag strap around my shoulder. The walk took less than fifteen minutes.

The walk took less than fifteen minutes. I descended the stairs and saw my destination. A few more steps and I pushed through the doors and turned the corner to a door with a faded white “4” on it. I rested my sticks against the wall and pushed the door open with my foot and slid into the musty locker room. There were already people, mostly college kids, getting changed. I found an open spot on the bench, dropped my bag to the floor with a thud, sat down, and began the ritual of getting dressed.

Lower body first…jock, knee pads, garter, breezers and socks. Skates are always next, then a big, deep breath to try to shake the butterflies. Upper body…shoulder pads, elbow pads, and jersey. I stuffed my gloves into my helmet, grabbed my water bottle, and walked towards the ice, grabbing my sticks on the way.

At the bench, I finished the routine. Mouth guard in and helmet snapped on. One stick on the bench, the other in my hand as I slid my left leg over the boards and pulled myself up to sit on the edge. A slight shift and I felt my skates make contact with the ice and, without hesitation, I pushed myself forward and picked up a puck with my stick. The butterflies were gone, replaced by excitement and a huge, grateful smile.

In a previous post, I wrote about the importance of taking care of myself so that I can take care of those around me. Playing hockey a few times a month is one of the things that I do for myself. I exercise at least three days a week but, usually, it is with the mindset of keeping myself healthy…a “have to” instead of a “want to”. While I enjoy the benefits and the feeling of a good run after it’s over, exercising is generally a chore instead of something that I honestly look forward to. Hockey, though, goes on the calendar, not on the to-do list, and I count down the days until I play again like it’s Christmas.

It’s hard to make the time to do things for myself. I feel so responsible for my family that I feel like I either need to be spending time with them or doing things for them and there is no room in that mindset for anything else. But I also largely walked around burned out after my son was diagnosed with epilepsy. I was scared, and frustrated, and overwhelmed and those feelings came out when I interacted with my family. I was distant, and irritable, and resentful. I wasn’t able to truly be present and connect with the most important people in my life when it mattered most.

I knew something had to change. I needed to find time to not be surrounded by the enormous responsibility I feel all the time. I needed an outlet to relieve the pressure. On the ice, I am able to focus on my game. I needed to find better coping skills to handle the pressure, so I found someone to talk to that is helping me develop those skills. I write as a way to process my thoughts and most of it is done without the expectation of being published. The absence of an obligation to do these things and to, instead, feel like I am doing them for myself is liberating. These activities help me breathe and to be more present so that when I return to my family, it is hopefully as a better husband and a better father.

If you’re reading this, you can probably relate to the feelings of being overwhelmed, and the feeling that there is no time to do anything for yourself because of the obligations that come with caring for someone that needs more attention and keeping everything afloat. I want you to know that that is not a sustainable situation. You will burn out. You will get resentful. You will find yourself further away from the same people who you are sacrificing for, and you owe it to them and to yourself to find something that you can do for yourself, free of obligation, to refresh, recharge, and to persevere.

What things do you do for yourself that are free from obligation? Share with the community by leaving a comment with an activity that you do for yourself.

Take Care Of Yourself To Take Care Of Others

I’ve racked up a lot of airline miles in my day. I’m such an expert traveler that I can recite the different safety speeches from the different airlines. Sometimes I’ll sit in my seat with my headphones on and think the words to myself as the flight attendants demonstrate the safety features of whatever Boeing or Airbus metal tube we’re about to push into the sky. “In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, yellow oxygen masks will deploy from the ceiling compartment located above you.” The flight attendant will reach across to the middle seat to the left and the right and let their sample mask drop from their hands and suspend from a rubber tube above the captive audience member.

“Reach up and pull a mask towards you. Place it over your nose and mouth, and secure with the elastic band that can be adjusted to ensure a snug fit. The plastic bag will not fully inflate, although oxygen is flowing.” The snap of the rubber band secures the mask to the painted face and perfect hair of the actors in the repetitive play before the big life lesson is revealed.

“Secure your own mask first before helping others.”

Boom. Mic drop. Well, except for the part about where the emergency exits are. And the safety lighting. And the raft. And I’m sure a loose microphone rolling around the plane is a safety hazard. But that statement about securing your own mask before helping others…that’s the one that gets all the press. But why? It goes against everything we’re taught. It’s selfish to think of yourself first. “I need to save my [insert anyone other than myself]!” “There will be time to put my mask on after I save everyone else.” “Think of the children!” Such a contradiction in a statement that is made thousands of times a day around the world in a hundred different languages but also one that is as relevant on the ground as it is at 30,000 feet.

I’m not the first person to write about the importance of taking care of yourself so that you can take care of those around you. I’ve read the articles, too. They sounded great in theory. But in practice, it’s easy to forget to do it or to realize that you’re not doing it. There’s always so much that needs to be done and no one else to do it or no time to do it all. There are jobs and obligations and doctor appointments and seizure days and batches of keto cooking to do. There are the day-to-day operations of keeping a family in the air and safe and together. There are the “have to” with little time for the “want to”.

In an airplane, there are sensors that detect the loss of cabin pressure and trip the release of the oxygen masks from the cabin. That’s a pretty clear sign that something is wrong. In life, there are no sensors. There are no oxygen masks. Most of the time, you don’t know that your cabin pressure has been lost until it’s too late. Instead of passing out from the lack of oxygen and unable to help those around you, you find yourself in a hole, alone, and distant from those that need you the most. In both cases, it is impossible to breathe.

I’m finding myself in that place again. I feel myself pulling away from those around me. My wife is hinting that she’s feeling alone in the quagmire. I’ve dropped the things from my list that are just for me, things that refuel me, and I’m feeling drained. These are my warning lights, telling me that I’m not taking care of myself and that it’s impacting my ability to take care of my family.

It is time for me to find my own mask and to put it on.

Things No Child Should Get Used To

A few weeks ago, we went to the children’s hospital for an appointment. We walked through the large, automatic doors and up to reception where my son said hello to Mary (they’re on a first-name basis), who commented that she liked his red hair. Without needing to ask, she pulled our family up from memory on the computer and printed our visitor badges.

Check-in completed, my son led us up the main staircase to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, he turned left and headed down the long hallway towards neurology. He knows his way around the hospital and which building to go to for neurology, or speech, or another test. As I followed him down the hall, it made me sad to realize how well my son knows his way around that place. A child should know his way around a toy store, not a hospital.

As we turned the corner, we passed phlebotomy. There were nervous parents and children in the waiting room, and seeing them sitting there made me think of the times we were in those chairs. The first few times, we were nervous, too, but after too many visits, we got used to it. Now, my son likes to talk to the phlebotomist as she prepares the needles. He politely says “No, thanks” after she invites him to look away, and he watches as the needle pierces his skin. “I never cry”, he says, which is almost true in the hundreds of times he has been pricked and pierced. “You should come here more often to show our other patients how to do it,” we’ve heard more than once. “Ok, ” my son replied, “I’m really good at it.” As I remembered him saying that, I felt sad. That’s not something a child should be good at.

He knows the routine of the physical exam, not because he has had years of exams under his belt, but because he has had so many in the short time he’s had epilepsy. These doctor visits, the trips to one of his therapists, the emergency room visits, they’re part of his routine, those things he’s done so many times now that he just does them because, well, that’s what he does. All these things are now just part of our lives, are part of his life, like eating, and breathing, and going to the park. He wakes up and takes a handful of pills, and another handful at night, without question, because that is what he has to do. He doesn’t get to eat the food that his friends do, and he can’t just have a snack, it has to be weighed and measured because that’s how it is and he’s used to it. He doesn’t look at a restaurant menu because he knows he can’t order from it, and he’s used to that, too.

He’s getting used to having seizures. He’s crying less after he has one in the middle of the night and more regularly just putting himself back to sleep. If he forgets to put on a pull-up and needs to change, I’ll often catch him on the floor halfway through the process by the time I get to his room. He’s getting more aware of his seizures, too. He had one on the basketball court the other day. When I asked him if he was okay and if he knew what happened, he replied, “I had a seizure, but I’m ok.” It rolled off his tongue so casually it was as if he was describing a shot that he missed or if he had tripped on a rock and fell.

On one hand, I’m grateful that he has accepted these restrictions and these changes in his life so easily. I am not sure that I have the strength to constantly explain to him why he has to do these things when I am still struggling with my own questions. Why is this happening to him? Was it something that came from me? Is this our lives forever?

On the other hand, if I think about the things that he has gotten used to, it breaks my heart. This condition has taken away too many things from the one person who I desperately wanted to open the world for, and I’m having a hard time resolving that discrepancy.

I try to think about the positives in this situation, but most of the time I just see a little boy who has gotten used to too many things that he shouldn’t have had to.