Day 091 – Happiness & Disappointment

Welcome to Day 91!

The day started as expected, I began pottering and just drifting from one activity to another.  Listening to whatever whim took my fancy.  If I wanted to sit and play an app on the iPad, sit and play I did.   If I wanted to put on the washing machine, that happened too.  That stuff from the cupboard that was now strewn all over the living room in object groupings, ready to be repacked into an orderly system.  There were clothes that needed mending and clothes I’ve outgrown, or they’ve shrunk 🙁.  There were others that were created in a moment’s enthusiasm of “I’ll just make my own”, until it got to a bit where my skill level isn’t up to scratch, and it got dropped.

At about 10:30ish my mother rang and mentioned the lockdown, which looked set to continue over Easter had been lifted.  Hooray!  As you may have read in an earlier post (Day 063), my mother like most of us, suffers “fear of missing out” (FOMO) – only the degree varies.  With the lockdown lifted it meant that my sister’s plans to visit would remain unaffected.  That meant that my mother would be left at home over Easter on her own.  Understandably, mum was not having any of it and she wanted in!

The search for the flight to Brisbane began.  At first, she wanted to fly up then and there or the next flight if at all possible.  The flights and the timing would be too rushed, so we agreed to have her fly up on Good Friday. We were able to find reasonably priced seats at reasonable times.  Mum to get the same length of time, pushed her return flight to a day later too. 

Here’s a lesson in acting contrary to intuition.  The family together were going to go to visit long time family friends over Easter.  Accommodation had been booked and my mother’s 80^th birthday celebrations were going to also happen.  It would be the first time in my mother’s life where it was more than family (family in this case, meant my sister, me and my mother.  In recent years, this included our partners too). 

My mother’s birthday, falling over Easter usually meant Easter attracted attention.  Since she grew up in a “children’s home” getting together for the purpose of celebrating her birthday didn’t really happen.  Having a fuss made about her 80^th was something she was looking forward to particularly with long time friends. Learning this about my mother was an eye-opener and something I’d never really thought about but should have in retrospect.  So, I was going to try and make it happen.

Anyway, right after my mother’s flights were cancelled yesterday, I cancelled the accommodation and rang long-time friends to cancel the restaurant reservation.  We had three rooms booked.  One for my sister’s family, one for my mother and one for my husband and me. After cancelling the first room, my mother’s, I hesitated on cancelling the others in case things did happen to change.  The internal domineering voice of logic cancelled the timid voice of intuition and swift action on the delete key stopped the dithering that logic and control demanded.  Not much for it.  Cancelled it was.

Once my mother got off the phone and the flights had been booked for her to visit.  My energy fell flat.  Why?  This is happy news.  Still flat.  Is that disappointment I’m feeling? Really?  Disappointment? Yep. It’s disappointment.  I suspect the reason for disappointment is the plans that I had in place to cruise for the next couple of days.  That time set aside for “smelling the roses” was now gone.  There were a few moments, but they’ve since winked out.  It means no catching up, no slowing down and as much as I dearly would love to see my family, the plans I had in place were also equally important to me.  Not the plans themselves, it was more the undemanded unconstrained time to which I would have had access was brief. 

Life is all about change and adaptability, the movie Empire of the Sun (1987) directed by Stephen Spielberg is my earliest memory of these concepts coming across in metaphor in the film.  My memory of the movie is a bit fuzzy since it was so long ago, I could be wrong.

Part of me feels a little guilty about being disappointed.  Sort of like, don’t I love my family enough.  Maybe there is something wrong with me.  Again, what would I say to someone coming to me saying this and my response would be:

“It’s okay to be disappointed.  It’s not that you don’t love your family, but it’s a changing world and plans are made, and plans are changed.  You probably weren’t planning on the change happening so quickly. You were kind of pleased that they would see the new bathroom instead of having to using the existing once, which has been irking you for years, yes?”, I’d say.

“Yes”.

“And you wanted to change the bathroom for them, yes?”, I’d continue.

“Yes.” 

“You wanted to fix the bedroom wall so the feng shui in the guest bedroom was better for them, yes?“, asking to clarify their intention.

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry, I think you love them, just fine.  Stop worrying!  Your guests will cope with the bathroom as it is, and they’ll enjoy the new bathroom next time. A mix of disappointment (sadness) and happiness is normal in moments of happiness.” I’d then go on to say. It’s particularly noticeable for family caregivers to those of long-suffering terminal illnesses and the person is sadly lost to the illness.  There’s a mix of relief, sadness and guilt at feeling relief.   This is not in that category.  Emotions are not always clear-cut and pure, as the 2015 Pixar movie Inside Out directed by Peter Docter illustrates so well with its story.

Let’s see what the cards have to say!