Imagine

I am sitting at Kyle’s kitchen table in his home at Luna Azul. He has lived here nearly 16 months. He’s resting so I have time to write.

We began the transition process of his move from our home to his home in 2018. There were many months of waiting, wondering, imagining and planning for a move into his own home in this wonderful community.

Throughout most of 2020 we drove past the lot and through the community to check on progress only to be met with none. We made field trips to the clubhouse and got to know the staff working in the nearly empty community. This was a baby step in a long transition process.

The dream seemed to take forever to come to fruition with endless delays in the pre building and later, the actual construction process.  The day we watched them pour the foundation was a time for celebration. Things moved a little more quickly after that.

The plan is for Kyle to live in this home in this community for the rest of his life. I got to check a box on the never ending “caring for and planning for Kyle’s future” list. This is a big piece of the puzzle within the frame of Kyle’s life. Mine too. Obviously, something can change. But for now, this puzzle piece is firm and is a really good fit.

Kyle’s beautiful home was eventually completed in early 2021. The passage of time in the last 16 months to this very moment feels like a blur.  So many ups and downs, challenges and dilemmas. Puzzle pieces have settled in place only to be followed by more openings in the ever expanding puzzle.

If you build it, will they come? Not so much.  Staff has been gathered very slowly. Who knew we would lose an important staff we already had? Who knew we would be searching for people during a pandemic? Our agency is responsible, yet I am doing a lot of work. As usual. The staffing road is rough and bumpy.

We have some really wonderful staff here at Kyle’s house and at the same time, we are chronically short staffed. I fill in the many gaps, as does my husband.  I’ve had to let a few people go. I’ve had a few difficult conversations.

This is not how I imagined things to play out. I work more and harder than ever. Sometimes my mind tells me life was easier when he lived at home. However, memory (thought) has a way of tricking us into a false perception of past events. No, it has never been easy. Easier? That’s impossible to measure. Sometimes yes, sometimes, no.  It was simply different. I would not go back.

The picture of Kyle in his new home was always fuzzy as hard as I tried to bring it into focus.  I couldn’t imagine the future from the past. What would be surprisingly smooth? Where would the sticky points be?

My future planning imagination did not see a picture of the house management and the staff management. The how to manage things when when you are not there (thank goodness) all the time.

There is a letting go process. Sometimes I’m good at it, other times, not so much. But what does it really mean to be good at letting go? And what does letting go even look like? Lots of questions, no answers.

My head swirls with details and worries a lot. My little mind is busy telling me the same old story titled “It was supposed to be different.”  This mantra, also known as resistance, is a recipe for stress.

Big mind, the source of wisdom, tells me “shh, you are ok anyway. Kyle is ok. Life is ok. Your imaginings are simply dreams. When you wake up, you will  know this puzzle can only be put together one piece at a time.” And the story, at present, is unfinished.

I breathe.

A settling takes place. I relax a little.  Then there is peace. There is calm. There is the moment, this moment, life right now, as messy as it feels at times. I look to Kyle and the moment appears to be his favorite place to hang out. At least that’s how I imagine it to be for him.

He is quite beautifully settled and comfortable in his home. He has a special relationship with each person that comes to be with him. These pieces have been in place for quite awhile.

Does his mind tell him something should be different? Does he imagine or worry about the future? Or does he leave that to me?  Does his mind look for what’s missing as often as my mind does?

Or does he go with the flow more of the time? Looks like he is in the flow right now but I will never know for sure about his imaginings. Perhaps that’s a good thing.