Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now

It's days like today that get to me. I have nothing on my agenda until my daughter Kate gets here with her two youngest boys. They are coming for dinner. I suggested I make pork chops but Kate insists on getting Chinese take-out. Yet here I am, wondering about what I will do for the next five hours, wondering about other days where I sit, doing nothing for long periods of time. The combination of boredom with a real sense of valuelessness in my life leads to dangerous thinking.

I do wonder why I continue to exist, why I fight to stay alive. It's not really much of a life. I am unable to do much, and even if I could I have no budget for it. If I was well, I would be working. That would take care of so much in my life. My work gave me purpose, and paid for all of my adventures. These days I need help paying for groceries.

I know I should be grateful for what I have. I am. There is not a moment when I am not reminded of how kind and helpful those around me are to me. I merely have to ask and there is someone to take me shopping, take me out for a drive, take me to the movies. Many times I don't even have to ask; it just happens, as if my magic.

Yet here I am, wondering if I should bother to keep going, wondering if perhaps I might have pushed this whole thing a bit to far. I can no longer open a door. I can no longer pull up, then put on, my seatbelt on my wheelchair. I can still cook a bit, but not much, not a great many things. My diet is becoming limited by my abilities. I want to make a Greek Salad, something I really like, something I make, or used to make, a lot of. Yet the mere thought of the exertion is too much for me. I close my eyes to rest even when I think about it.

Road trips are a distraction. Travel is a distraction. Shopping is a distraction. The problem is that when I have no distractions, when I am alone with nothing to do, I start to go dark, wondering if I really have any good reason for being here. So far it's a toss up; there might be reasons to stay, but there are lots of reasons to leave.