A New Leaf

5am rang on the alarm clock the morning after Christmas Day, but to Elaine it seemed like only a couple hours asleep.  Still exhausted from the last two days of cooking, cleaning, praying, she listlessly arose to get her busy day started, just like every other day.

Quick breakfast, then go to her daughter’s home to take the grandbabies to day care (usually she took them to school), then work, then pick her grandbabies up and take them to her mother’s house to cook them all dinner, then clean up and home again tired and ready to reset and repeat.

She had fallen into a sandwich role in her sphere which kept her spinning in the same direction.  She was caretaker to her elderly mother, who refused to leave her home, even though her health left her unable to care for herself.  And she helped her daughter with her twin 7 year-old granddaughters.  As a working single parent with a useless ex-husband, she needed a little extra helping hand too.  Elaine was the in between.

New Year’s Eve came ushering the new year as systematically as any other day.  After work, she rang in 2019 at her mother’s house after picking up her grandbabies as her daughter celebrated.  After her mom and the kids were out for the count, Elaine sat alone in the dark with a sip of champagne and counted down the end of an endless 2018 and contemplated the prospect of a new year of the same.

Falling asleep in front of the TV, she awoke abruptly to an early am infomercial hawking the next must-have product to make everyday life easier.  Just as she entered consciousness, the announcer said “This is a lifechanger for all you busy folks that just have too many branches on your tree.”

Wow, she thought, like lightning bolt to the brain it jarred her into reality.  Worker at a dead-end job she hated.  Thankless caregiver to her mother…Convenient helper to her daughter…she just had too many branches on her tree….and the leaves are getting wilted.  She needed to change before the leaves all just fell off, she thought.

Over the next few weeks, she went through the motions of her daily routine, but this time with a new spirit.  The winds of change were blowing in her mind, she just needed to figure out the right move to turn over a new leaf in her life.  A vacation?  Great for a period, she thought, but everything would be the same when she came back.  No, it had to be a life changer.

She finally decided to discuss her feelings with her family.  She sat her mother and daughter down and laid it all out on the table.  She was unhappy and tired.  She felt suffocated and trapped, unable to grow.  To her surprise, her daughter understood and said she could make other arrangements and relieve Elaine of her extra grandparent duties.  And her mother had a suggestion too, she had been thinking about moving to an assisted living community where some of her friends lived.  It had activities and healthcare, so she could live on her own in an apartment, but be with her friends and still have care.

With her familial burdens lifted, Elaine felt renewed and invigorated enough to quit her job and really turn over a new leaf.  A new place…a new job…a new town…a new life.  It was time to pick up her roots and fly.  She didn’t know what happened next but for the first time in a long time, she looked forward to the new day and year ahead.