This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, a time when family gather and enjoy each other’s company and the spread of holiday food. For me I was thankful on this day  or being blessed with being quiet and alone. I had an invitation to have dinner at a friend’s home with her family, but I just wanted to be alone. Being a caregiver forces me to find those pockets of time to tune in on the contentment of being in an atmosphere of not being busy doing something, and being still in the solitude of quietness.

That was soon to be invaded by the busyness of life. My cousin wanted to visit, and the time could not have been worse, as I was trying to write a paper for school, and I wanted to continue to enjoy the quietness. But wanting to have her come, I said yes. That meant giving up my room, cooking meals and other things to accommodate a guest. The more the weekend went on, for me the worse it got.  My cousin and I are opposites in that she loves to talk. I am the quiet one. Eventually, the inevitable occurred, her and my mother (two strong-willed women) got into an argument, with my mother calling me being upset about being told what to do. Enter me, the mediator who told my cousin to stay at my place as I tried to calm my mother down. I still had dinner to cook, and I told her I would bring her dinner to her so she could have time to settle down.  I threw something together for dinner, and as it turned out, dinner was a hit, and we all sat at the same table enjoying the food and each other’s company.

Yesterday quiet returned as my cousin left but by that time, I was exhausted. My choir director texted me asking for a ride to church (I had intended not to go to finish my paper that had a submission deadline of midnight that evening). But in all the busyness, I managed to write the majority of the paper (after three rewrites), and there were only 400 of the required 1500 words to finish, so I thought it would good to go after all. Once I  got to church, I was glad I went, but finishing the paper was still in the back of my mind. God blessed me in that I mentally found some peace, like He was blessing me for finding time to spend with Him at His place.

At approximately 8:42pm my paper was submitted. It was my best work for sure, but at least it was done; I just hope my professor will grant me some mercy regarding its content.  Happy to once again be in my bed ( I would have hugged it if I could), I got into bed as Benny my cat joined me, both happy to fall asleep and have the television watch me.

11:30pm: got awakened with a phone call from my mother about something that could have waited until the next day….