It’s a hard thing to find, balance. I spend far too much time sitting on my butt, writing, editing, and canoodling on social media. Even the balance between time spent writing and promoting is a difficult one. But what I need more than anything is exercise.

So it’s nice when there are natural consequences that lead me to doing what I should be doing. Like today, for instance, I walked to the hospital to visit my mother. (I was able to go because Alex finally went to school! Yay!) It was a choice between a fifteen minute walk and fifteen minutes of shoveling my car out of the driveway. Yeah, the shoveling might have been better exercise, but I still had to walk fifteen minutes to get home as well. AND I saved $4.50 for parking.

My mother is doing a bit better, by the way. She looked better, though her breathing is still laboured. The doctor asked me if she’d ever been diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), to which I replied no. But it’s not at all far-fetched that she has it, since she’s been smoking since she was 14 years old. Her 89th birthday is in three weeks. So once I get her home, it’s going to be a matter of explaining to her that if she doesn’t quit, she’s going to die. She won’t understand, and if she does understand, she won’t remember the conversation 45 seconds after we have it.

With dementia, it seems, there is no balance.

On a personal level, I put a lot of faith in balance. I’m a Taoist at heart. The yin yang symbol is all about balance. An equal amount of black and white/feminine and masculine.

Each is contained within the other.

I miss Tai Chi. Which is something that would help my mother. If I had time to get her out of the retirement home.

Most of my lack-of-balance issues come from being the one responsible for everyone else. Being a single mother and an only child in the sandwich generation ain’t easy.

Then there’s the balance between sobriety and drunkenness.

I think I need more wine tonight.

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“Balance” is the prompt word for today, brought to us by JP. Thanks, JP! Click here to find her JusJoJan post for today. And say hi while you’re there!

 

It’s never too late to participate in Just Jot it January! Click the following link to find out how, and see all the other participants’ links in the comment section. It’s fun! https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/25/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-25th/