Entropy

Written 24 June 2012


Slouching in bed. Sunday morning. Decided to be indulgent and just stay under the covers for a few hours. Why the hell not? Every day I buzz around like a maniac, trying to live 5 lives in one, and wearing myself out in the process. Why? If I stay in bed till midday today, then get up and work till my children return this evening, I’ll still finish all the important things and I’ll have had some relaxing Me Time. So, yup – that’s the plan. This is one of the nice parts of being single. :-)

Back in bed, a few minutes later, this time with a cup of coffee and two slices of toast. My best friend gave me two avos, bordering on over-ripeness, perfect for toast. Some salt, black pepper, a few drops of fresh lemon and, Voila! .... a veritable feast! Mmmm….

I’ve set my alarm for midday; I’m enjoying myself so much, I could easily stay here and write/snooze/read all day. In fact, I look forward to doing exactly that, one day. Soon.

I write signs with the day and date for my mom, every day. She’s experiencing memory loss, and it includes disorientation regarding time (day, date and clock time). If I only get up at midday, she’ll be confused till I put the signs up. Actually, I’m sure she could figure out from yesterday’s signs what today is. She’s probably sleeping till noon, anyway.

Brrrr, it’s COLD!!!!! Winter’s here, Cape Town!!!

My mom moves to my sister’s house, in a week’s time. For at least 15 years, my mom has lived independently. In fact, it’s been much longer than 15: she owned her own home in Bloemfontein, for about 3 years, in the late 1980’s. I don’t know why, but I never visited her in Bloem. She had a whole life there: a job with the Performing Arts Council (singing opera), a community of colleagues and friends, and her own home. If I’m not mistaken, that was the only time she’d ever lived in her own home. My niece, Kim, went up by plane (unaccompanied, at about age 6), and spent some time with her during one school holiday.

So, in 6 days’ time, life changes for us all. My mom’s been living here for 5 years, and it’s been a time of my life unlike any other. Living in close proximity to one’s parent, in one’s adult life, requires diplomacy and, most importantly, love. Of course, the personalities of the people involved play a big role. The main things are respect and honest (but tactful) communication. My tact tends to fly out by the window when I feel disrespected, but even that can be tempered with mentally counting to ten, or – as my late father used to do – making the sign of the cross! :-)

I woke up this morning with my usual thoughts – remembering my dreams, then focusing on the day and its demands. With my mom’s memory loss as a daily reality, I’ve been contemplating the role of memory in our everyday lives, and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for her, not being able to rely on her memory to recall what she did the previous day, what she’s eaten and – giving rise to all kinds of potential problems – whether she’s eaten/showered, etc. At this stage of her life, she needs to be in close proximity to caring people who will make sure she lives as stable a life as possible, with regular, healthy meals and everything else she needs. Most of my mom’s friends live in the broader area she’s moving back to, so they’re all excited. Also, she’ll be going back to the church she belonged to.

The challenge for me will be to make sure my kids and I see her regularly and that she’s still very involved in our lives. My dad spent his last years in an old aged home, and I know how easy it is to let too much time elapse between visits. Anyway, there’s no comparing my relationship with my mom with the one I had with my dad; she’s been there for me every step of the way, and he was an absent father, whom I never saw for up to a year at a time. You can NEVER make up for that. Be a parent when your children need you, and you establish that beautiful relationship for life. Be absent when they need you, and you establish resentment and issues of abandonment that extend into their adult lives.

Knowing a bit about my parents’ story, though, I honestly don’t think he was entirely to blame, and I’m sure he loved and missed us. Too many women, when they divorce, allow their own issues with their husbands to dictate the kind of access they have to the children, when, in fact, they’re two completely separate matters. There’s also a historical context, as divorce regulations have changed a lot over the years. Children have a right to learn to know and love their father, no matter what transpired between the parents. They have a right to a father in their lives and a right to love him because he’s a good father and fundamentally a good person. His failed relationship with their mother is just that. (Obviously in cases of abuse, this doesn’t apply – you wouldn’t place your children in the hands of a known abuser.)

But the other thought I had, on waking this morning, was what I actually wanted to write about. As my thoughts drifted from one thing to the next, I gained an awareness that was most liberating, and here it is: I have been experiencing profound feelings of failure in two areas of my life, namely, relationships and employment, not without reason – or so I kept telling myself. This morning, it occurred to me just how ridiculous it was to feel that way. It also occurred to me that the only reason I felt that way was that I’d been comparing myself to others. If that’s the grid according to which I rate myself, then I should, by implication, be feeling like a failure in SOOOOO many other parts of my life – my fitness, my figure, my hair, my personality, my clothes, my car (!), my rented-and-not-owned house…… etc. etc. etc. But I don’t. So why on earth do I allow certain forces in my life to make me feel like a failure in these two specific areas? I could dedicate a whole blog post – if not a whole blog - to this topic, but I’ll just write the thoughts as they come, because they’re brewing right now.

I think it’s got to do with two main things: definition and social acceptance. People define themselves largely by these two categories: relationship status and job. Along with the personal definition goes the social acceptance, or lack thereof. If, as in my case, these categories have undergone numerous changes over the years, it means that the way in which we (and everyone else) define ourselves has to have undergone numerous changes, too. And maybe it’s in the act of shifting the definition of who we are that we experience discomfort and distress, and that’s when the feelings of failure arise. But I have to keep bringing it back to the fact that it’s only because we evaluate ourselves comparatively that we define ourselves as failures. It’s like the concept of less and more – they exist only in relation to other entities. So, Person A is accepted socially as more successful than Person B because…….and here’s the crux……he/she’s had ONE relationship and ONE job for his/her entire adult life. Huh?!!!! And that’s why people like me feel like failures?! Hahahahahahaha!!!! It’s hilarious! Now – isn’t THAT a liberating perspective?!

On some level, I’ve known this for a long time, but TODAY I finally get it – I really and truly get it! And, from this moment on (a la Cole Porter), I’m going to live my life with more freedom than ever before, accepting my story as uniquely mine. If you define yourself as “ fine”, and you accept yourself as “ok” - with all the other amazing adjectives possible – then everyone around you will value you in the same way. If you’re apologizing your way through life, on the basis of your having had numerous relationships and jobs, then you’ve seriously missed the point, and the only failure in your life is your failure to value your life story for the richness it contains.


Back in bed with my next cup of winter warmth, this time green tea. Why not coffee again? Because I like experiencing different things – I get bored with repetition just for the sake of repetition. That’s who I am. And that’s fine. That’s ok. Other people’s life stories have evolved differently, and that’s also fine, also ok. It’s as simple as that. And the point I’m trying to make is not related to the idea that having one partner or job doesn’t necessarily make you a happier person – it’s not that at all. I’m happy for those people whose lives have taken a different route to mine, with more stability and material security. This is the point – accept YOUR life story, embrace it, own it, it’s yours, it’s you, it’s colourful, wacky, inconsistent….. it’s called living.

NEVER AGAIN will I compare myself negatively to those whose cables have never tangled; the principle of entropy states that everything in nature has a tendency towards disorder, chaos. I’m living my natural life - no apologies, no comparisons, just wonderful, absolute ownership of my story and full acceptance of myself, just as I am.

Watch me leap from these starting blocks!