Adjustments

It's dark. I sit alone in my living room. I am up before the sun. My son too.

Having someone live with me is a mixed blessing. It is certainly less tidy around my house. Clutter seems to multiply factorially and not geometrically. There are different smells and things in places I don't want them. Then again there is someone to help me with the things that are difficult, like getting up to get something having just sat down or getting groceries from the truck to the apartment.

I wanted my son to come and live with me for selfish reasons. I want help. I want him to get to know who I am before I die. It is more difficult with my daughters. Two of them have husbands and children to consider. The other is off at university across the country. I guess my son drew the short straw. He had a low-paying, low-skilled job and no responsibilities beyond himself. So I assumed it would be easy for him to leave.

Then, once he was here, we began to talk about what it took him to leave his home and job, to leave his friends, to leave his Mom and sisters. He had a life too. He had his own home and his own furniture. He had his routine, his fledgling online business, his favourite places to go. He left all of that behind to come and help me.

We are adjusting, he and I. Our lifestyles are different. Our living patterns are different. Our food choices, our music tastes, our get up and go to sleep times. We are different people. I admit I am not an easy person sometimes, especially when it comes to receiving help. Yet I was the one who asked him to come here to help me. He is is father's son, as difficult in his way as I am in mine.

I need a little help now. With time I will need more and more help. He will come to learn and will decide what he can do. When I said to him the other day that I will eventually need help dressing, he said that would be the time to "hire a cute Filipino nurse". He has some boundaries.

This morning I was having trouble getting into the shower. Then I had trouble getting up off my shower chair to adjust the shower head position; eventually I just gave up and made do. I didn't ask for help, I just figured out how to do it better next time with a better plan. I guess I have some boundaries too.

He will need patience. So will I.