I Have Just Enough*

This has been a long winter.  As I was looking through the pictures of our Salt Lake City adventure, I realized the first photo of heavy snow was taken on November 22nd. Today is the last day of February and it still looks as if winter will never end.  Add isolation and anxiety to being housebound in the winter and you’ve got a good recipe for depression. 

The last of our winter supply of optimism seems to have been spent as we wait for the results of Roger’s 100-day tests.  When I look to the future and realize the enormity of the challenge still ahead of us, I doubt that I can do it.  I’ll never have enough time and energy to work full-time and take care of Roger and solve all the problems that we will surely face.  

As honest as that is, that kind of thinking is not helpful to me or to anyone else.  It is more pragmatic and constructive to keep the future in its proper place and deal with the here and now.  I know I have just enough optimism – just enough of everything I need – to get through today.  Tomorrow I’ll have just enough for one more day, and the next day, one more.  It's too overwhelming to try and tackle the rest of our lives in one bite, but I think I can handle it one day at a time by acknowledging that I do have just enough.

--Candi

*credit for the concept of “just enough” goes to Kathryn Cramer,  from How To Stay On Top When Your World Turns Upside Down.  I read the book in 1990, during another of life’s crises that I thought I might not survive.