When You Can’t Do Things the Way You Used To

“What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~Marcus Aurelius

I’ve had two strokes, and after each, there were things I had to relearn. Walking wasn’t what it used to be. My balance became a problem. There are days when my head is foggy, and I have trouble concentrating. My body doesn’t always cooperate with what my mind wants to do.

And over the years, I’ve had plenty of other health problems thrown into the mix. But I’m not telling you that because I want anybody feeling sorry for me. That’s really not my thing.

If anything, the health problems have taught me to appreciate the things I can still do. I just have to do them differently now. Before all of this, if I wanted to work on something, I’d work until it was done.

Now I might work for a while and realize I need to sit down. Sometimes I’ll have a project in my head and know exactly what I want to do, but my body has other plans. That’s frustrating. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t.

There have been plenty of times I’ve looked at something that needs to be done and thought, “I should be able to do this.” Then I have to remind myself that maybe I can’t do it the way I used to. It just means I might have to take longer.

I’m used to getting things done. Learning that sometimes it’s enough to get one thing done has been one of the harder things for me to accept.

Fixing up my house has been a lot like that. When we got it, there was so much that needed attention that it could have been overwhelming. But I didn’t look at everything at once. I just started somewhere.

One thing led to another. The kitchen got worked on. The floors. The bathroom. The walls. The wiring. The porch. The windows. There always seems to be something else.

Honestly, I’m not sure this house will ever be completely finished. And that’s okay. Maybe a home isn’t really supposed to be finished.

You live in it. You change things. You fix things. You make mistakes. You change your mind. Kids grow up. People come and go. Things break. Life happens.

That’s what makes it a home. It’s not supposed to look like nobody lives there. It’s supposed to look like people do.

There are things about this house that probably wouldn’t impress anybody else. But they mean something to me. I know what was there before. I remember what it looked like. I remember the things that seemed impossible when we first started.

So when I look at something we’ve changed, I don’t just see paint or a new floor. I see the work that went into it. I see the days I felt good enough to work and the days I didn’t.

I see the times I got frustrated and the times I figured something out. And I see the people who helped along the way.

That’s what makes a home different from a house. A house is the building. A home is everything that happened there.

It isn’t about having the nicest house. I don’t have the nicest house.

(The views are personal.)

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