On Juggling

I remember a boss of mine telling me that I had to juggle faster when the list gone longer each week. As a high functioning adult with ADD, I felt I was pretty good at juggling. I could multitask many items in a day and it became quite normal. When you run 24 operations, there is no day that is the same. I was accustomed to a fast pace, and my husband I wove an aggressive hockey schedule into the daily grind each week too. We loved it, and hockey was always a joy at the end of a work day. A fast paced game for a mom who liked action and could triage a work issue from the bench while cheering for the Hermantown Hawks.

Suddenly, I felt like a magician who lost their touch. Now, all the balls, that I so eloquently kept in the air circling with precision were dropping one by one. My world felt like it was falling a part before my eyes. Our youngest son was a senior, and our oldest son was rehabilitating from 2 surgeries after a broken femur playing junior hockey. I was now bedbound and tired. I slept many days and the daily list that was in my head…. and I could not execute any of it anymore. Now, others took the lead as I was not able to juggle anything.

For the first time in my life, I was forced to surrender a schedule that was simply common place to me. Now, I had to rest, and resting was for days on end. This was my new normal, whether I liked it or not. By biggest decision now was whether to get dressed or not. Most days, the decision was my robe. I was too exhausted to even think about getting dressed. I didn’t even care about getting dressed.