I did some stuff late last week that I am really proud of. I said NO.
I popped into the op shop last week to do a window. However, I also wanted to move some of our ‘not for sale’ stock so as to create a new look. In order to do that I needed to do two windows which I thought I was up for. I wasn’t.
Making a window takes two hours. I have to take everything in the window out and find homes for it all. That sounds like a quick and easy task but it takes about 45 minutes.
You’re also jumping in and out of a hot and cramped window (yes even in the freezing winter we are currently experiencing) so I get quite HOT.
Then I dress the new window and finally I put big price labels onto everything in the window with their size and prices showing clearly. Our shop happens to be next to an ATM and you have no idea how much stock we sell to people who would usually not step inside an op shop but then discover some treasure in the window as they wander by - It’s hilarious!
Anyway, I just didn’t have two windows in me and I realised the only person putting pressure on me to do them is ME. So going forward I will only go to the op shop when I am having a good day.
One of the many symptoms that comes with my alzheimer’s diagnosis is that of mood swings.
This is what Mr Google says about it - We all become sad or moody from time to time. The difference with Alzheimer's is that your loved one can show rapid mood swings from calm to tears to anger, for no apparent reason. As your loved one enters the middle stages of Alzheimer's you may notice more behavioural symptoms.
So for instance I am completely euphoric at the moment (it’s 2am). I could not sleep if my life depended on it. As you know in stark contrast, I was really quite depressed for the two weeks prior. I have zero control and some days it’s all I can do to keep up with myself. Other days the only safe place is the square of my bed. It’s a head scratcher.
I’m going to see if there is another volunteer who would like to do a window per fortnight so as to take the pressure off me. I was doing one per week.
I’m also going to do the tasks I truly love which is mainly making lovely displays of things. I also adore being in the book room. I get to pretend that I am a librarian- that’s what I wanted to be when I was a child, well you know that and a lamp.
The freedom that came with that decision was like WWOOSSHH inside me. It felt so freeing. I felt the same way when I hung up my car keys (except for small trips to the supermarket, op shop and church). I never have to drive that truly horrible hill ever again. Yippppeeeee
With that in mind - I can no longer do two posts per week., it’s just too much. Do you want to know the crazy reason that I post two? It’s because I am so anal that I didn’t like how it looked with only one box sitting there on its own. It was lopsided and it bugged me.
So I’ve decided to add a poem or a song that should be a poem each week instead. I did speech and drama classes with my mum as my teacher. I LOVED these lessons and I was in my mid-twenties when I gained an associate diploma. I think I sat those three or four years after my dyslexia diagnosis and so I practiced EVERYTHING. We love to practice us of the strangely wired brains.
It’s one of my favourite possessions because of what it represents. Pre-22-year-old Rachel didn’t have a hope in hell of getting that diploma but post 22-year-old Rachel did just fine.
The funny thing about this story is that there are two halves - one is a full-on written paper and the other is an oral exam. I gained more than the 70% pass mark required for the written portion but I actually failed the oral!
I didn’t stress to much about the oral exam, I usually passed that without massive amounts of prep. I’d chosen to do part of John Donne’s sermon about ‘no man is an island’. By the way he meant the complete opposite but it’s the line we all remember so he’s stuck with it I’m afraid.
I did it well (even if I do say myself) but I was given an incredibly low score because it wasn’t technically what they asked for. I had strayed outside Trinity College, London’s rule book! Ridiculous right? I resat it the next time I could and passed easily because I did EXACTLY what they told me to do.
Anyway because of all of that I adore poems and songs that are poems with music. I’ll choose my favourites and you can read them or not read them as you see fit.
Have the best possible week you can have and if all that means is you stay alive - then just concentrate on that alone. Hope is on its way, I promise.
This week’s op shop sign reads “you grow through what you go through’