Lover and fighter

My social awkwardness may occasionally make it hard to get me talking, but ask the right question and it can be really hard to get me to shut up. Oh, I've been thinking about that! Off I go.

No matter how much what I say will be made up of things I have thought, things that I hadn't realized yet will still come out.

I was talking to my bishop not long ago about the situation with my mother. I talked about previously being more of a fighter, and having to change, because this cannot be fought.

The funny thing is that previously I have tended to say that I am a lover, not a fighter. Yes, that is a thing you say humorously, but it also seemed accurate for me.

(Of course, it is also not that long since I blogged about punching someone, so, you know...)

It seemed odd that I'd called myself a fighter, but I had really meant to fight the dementia. Those books that I read and notes I took were so I could fight it and beat it. She was going to improve.

That didn't work out.

Even back in the summer after her last assessment, I was dissecting the test and thinking that I could work with her on some of the test areas. It wasn't to game the test. There wouldn't really be any point in trying to cheat the test, but I thought maybe if we worked in those areas it would be good exercise for her brain. I thought that could slow down the deterioration.

That didn't work out either.

I suppose you could say my fighting methods were loving, or my motivation was loving. It's not exactly that I am no longer opposed to Alzheimer's disease; I am dealing with it on its terms. Maybe when I was a fighter, my chief weapon was denial.

When you break it all down, my life seems to have become sadly encapsulated by the serenity prayer. Sometimes wisdom is knowing that there's no point in this fight.

Sometimes you can find peace in that.

Sometimes the fight requires kindness rather than punching, or even trying to outwit.

I can accept all of that, and I do. It's not like reading all of the books and trying different things can't be part of the process of accumulating wisdom.

Just for the record, though, there is also some wisdom in knowing that sometimes when the bully is bigger and stronger and in the wrong, there is no shame in going for the balls.

Words to live by.