Settling In......

 Babygirl's quarantine finally ended 2 days ago.  She is looking forward to a trip to the Farmer's Market today, even though it is bitterly cold outside! I'm looking forward to moving around a bit outside the house myself.  We haven't seen the inside of anywhere that wasn't a hospital, an office or the dialysis center in nearly a full month.

We never know, until we look back a little, when the watershed days happen.  April 28, 2011: Everything is fine. April 29, 2011? Nothing will ever be the same. December 30, 2021: That viral whatever seems a bit worse. December 31, 2021? She might not make it through the next 2 days.

In both cases, I was oblivious.  The first time, understandably so.  This last time? I should have been on it sooner.  In my defense, she wasn't the only one of my kids who was sick at the time. Curlygirl had gotten Covid the week before, and she was struggling with the illness. Her anxiety, always triggered to the max by any new physical challenge, had turned her into a 24-hour-a-day text factory, and I hadn't had a full nights' sleep in over a week already by the time Babygirl went down. I was working every day, exhausted every evening, and I couldn't see clearly how little Babygirl was doing at home. I didn't think to ASK if she was managing her medications.

I. Missed. It.

Forgiving myself for having human limitations is completely...

I can't find a word for it.  Ridiculous. Impossible. Nauseating. 

Noticing 5 days earlier might have prevented the entire debacle. Noticing ONE day earlier would have given them time to start the process of aggressively fighting the rejection. Of course, that would have left her WIDE OPEN to the Covid infection, so...

CS Lewis, in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, reveals a singular truth. Lucy engages a spell to see what others really think of her (when she is, in fact, supposed to be doing something entirely different). She hears a friend (rather peer-pressured) into saying something unkind about her, and then realizes that she can never UN-hear it. Aslan gently confronts her about it: 

″‘Oh dear,’ said Lucy. ‘Have I spoiled everything? Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn’t been for this – and been really great friends – all our lives perhaps – and now we never shall.’ ‘Child,’ said Aslan, ‘did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?‘”

I guess that is all I have, right now. The 'what-ifs' vs the 'what-is'? I will have to learn to let it go. Accept the unintended consequences and Let. It. Go.

DeeDee

PS Reminder to everybody: I'm healing. I'm fragile. I've been telling people, "If you are nice to me I'll cry, so don't be nice." It's how I roll. LOL