It's like you are falling down a long dark tunnel. You are desperately trying to grab onto anything you can grip just to steady yourself. Things are moving around you in quick blurs and nothing makes sense anymore. You are tumbling quickly and waiting to hit the bottom, but it doesn't come. You just keep falling. That's what this feels like. In that moment of diagnosis it's like you've been pushed into that winding, spiraling, never ending tunnel.
That doesn't happen to normal people. It's just in the movies or the news...not my life. But here you are falling, like Alice to Wonderland, frantically trying to control something, anything.
If you are anything like me, you thrive on control and planning. You make to do lists and you go forth with great detail. The most difficult part of this journey for you right now may be the loss of control, the wait, the unpredictability. Everyone tells you to take it one step at a time, but that is way harder that it seems. WAY! so you start to focus on the "trivial things"...the things you CAN control.
On the day of big appointments you obsess over what you will wear and how you'll do your hair because you can control that. You endlessly pour yourself into tiny details like facebook pages and writing down questions because those are within your power. You stress over billing and insurance because of the instant gratification of knowing RIGHT NOW.
To people on the outside we may look a little lost. How could we be focused on clothes in a time like this? BUT I see you mama. I see you just trying to pour a little normalcy back in the mix. I see you focusing on what your mind can actually wrap itself around. I see that for just one moment you want to turn off the quickly moving mess of life and PICK A STINKING SHOE! But to the world we say don't be fooled. Those unanswered questions, those moments of chaos, those uncontrollable things they still haunt us.
I get it and it's totally ok! No one is here to tell us how to handle the chaos. We do it the best way we know how (through kicking, screaming, and tantrum throwing. The good old "adult way"😉) But really. We cry, we obsess, we meticulously plan what we can because it feels good to have a little stability.
So go ahead and be the mom who sits on etsy and plans every tiny sock and leg warmer you'll put on his little feet. You're allowed :) Embrace those moments where you find a branch to stop your downward tumble for a little while. We all get it. And in those moments when you begin to fall again, try to enjoy the ride. It's messy and scary, but you'll look back in awe of the strength you carved out in yourself.