Puttin' on my big girl panties

My Mom has always told me, since I was a little girl, that there come times in your life when you have to put on the girl panties and deal with things. Well, I have had a week from hell and there is only what thing for me to do. My Mom doesn't even need to tell me what to do -- I already know.

About a year ago, my Mom suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). She is still alive and recovery is a long, slow road for her and our family. It is exhausting, frustrating and such an emotional roller coaster that words can not describe. Other than the physical handicaps of her being unable to walk because her brain does not remember to be safe and her lack of a memory bank, you might think my Mom was fully healthy.

Most days, I think and know that my Mom has come such a long way from where she started. Such a distance from the five sleepless weeks we spent in the ICU of a brain injury floor of a hospital immediately following the TBI. Most days. This week has been a week that I realize that my Mom is such a long way from a full recovery. It is a week like this past one, when a girl needs to talk to her mother to determine what she is supposed to do with her live and what difference she is supposed to make.

This week was a week so terrible that only a manicure and pedicure, with my Mom could solve. Maybe even a to the grocery store to get the ingredients to make one big, yummy cake that we would have with a glass of sweet tea. Those are the things my Mom and I would do together to help me solve the world's problem. Only now, I find myself having to do them alone-- without Mom and more importantly, without my Mom's advice and guidance.

As I sit here and reflect on how my life has changed over the past year since my Mom's injury, I find myself jealous and bitter to those whose parents are fully healthy. I wonder 'why me' and 'why my mom' everyday. I still don't understand God's plan for my Mom and our family. And it frustrates me.

On days like today, I have to take a good friends advice and realize that I am only one person and I can only do so much. I need to start taking one day at a time and stop worrying about all of the what-ifs and life and take it one day at a time.

I have to put my big girl panties on and deal with it.