I Need to “Buck Up”

Definitions for “buck up” include “to strive with determination” and “to summon one's courage or spirits,” and that is what I need to do to start making decisions and accomplishing goals and dreams in my life.

I have so many decisions I need to make right now. How do I insulate my house so that I do not have $600 electric bills this year even though my a/c is set at 90 and I’m sitting here sweating and miserable? Do I get the concrete or the steel piers when repairing my foundation? Do I cut down a tree I love because some engineer said it could cause problems in the future? Do I drive to Denton to drive my oldest to pick out a tux for prom, or make him ride the bus, and then do I drive up there the day of prom to pick up the tux or let him drag it back to campus on the bus, or do I take my youngest hiking? Do I start looking into assisted living for my mother, or just plan on her living here when the time comes? Do I look for a job or hold on to being a stay-at-home mom, like Raymond wanted until the youngest is out of school? If I had a job, how would I take care of my mom?

I have no one to blame but myself for my feelings of despair. I am a control freak, and when I think about how making the wrong decision will affect my life, I often just sit down and don’t make the decision. The doctor keeps offering me pills that won’t let me worry. I tell her I cannot conceive the idea of not worrying. If you don’t worry, how do you get your bills paid on time?

The other part of not making decisions is that if I don’t make a decision then I won’t spend money. If I don’t get my foundation fixed, then that money will stay in the bank account where I can see it when I look at the statements. That is my security. That is what lets me know I can take care of the boys and keep a roof over their heads. It seems as if every big decision I need to make right now has a price tag attached. Decisions with price tags have always been hard for me. It was that way for Raymond too. When we bought our first house we didn’t sleep well for weeks. It wasn’t that we didn’t love the house, it was the fact that we had just made a huge decision that involved years of debt. We both hated debt.

I now fear debt. That is the other problem about making decisions to repair my house. I have the money to make the repairs, but if I do it wrong I’ve wasted the money. If I waste the money, I may need to go into debt for other repairs. Fear of making a wrong decision when money is involved is immobilizing me.

If I make wrong decisions in guiding my boys I could ruin their lives. If I make the wrong decisions about what the doctors want for my mom, then I could ruin what life she has left.

What if I am making the wrong decision about not taking the “no worries” pill? Why can’t wonderful tasting food take away the worries without making the scale go up?

When I read this it sounds ridiculous to me that I cannot make decisions. I, the person who barred Raymond’s hospital door with my body and refused to let anyone in until they promised to not put a feeding tube in him because I knew he just needed a few more days. I had watched him go over a month without eating during one of his treatments, now we were at day 28 and they wanted to put in a feeding tube! I made an X out of my body, barred the door and said that no one would get in until someone with sense came to see us. At one point I can remember Raymond’s OT, and PT being out there staring at me, but backing me up. I remember the nurses asking me to think about what I was doing, and then backing me up after I told them I had. I remember telling them that I was making a decision that I knew my husband would want me to make. I stopped the feeding tube, and two days later Raymond could eat. I gave no thought to my decision to bar the door. It was what needed to happen. The doctor that was used to getting his way decided he didn’t want to work on Raymond’s case anymore, but I didn’t want him either, so I did not fret over losing him with my decision.

All through Raymond’s cancer treatments I made decisions in matters of minutes or hours and did not fret. One time the doctor came to me and asked if they could try a treatment that had only been in written about a month earlier in an overseas medical journal. They said they knew very little about how the treatment would work, but it might help the condition Raymond was in at that time. It was not a new treatment, just a new use for the treatment. (It was not a cancer treatment.) I asked if I could think about it. They gave me two hours. I had never used the internet before we went to Houston. Raymond’s company loaned us a laptop and a friend paid for us to have internet service. I had only learned how to send email, and search for readily available information. How was I going to research this treatment that was in some obscure medical journal somewhere? How would I make this decision? I sprang into action. I emailed everyone I could think of and told them what I needed, when I needed it, and to please help. People started responding immediately. My main concern was side effects from the treatment. When the doctor returned I agreed to the treatment because I had decided that the side effects were worth the risk. The treatment ended up having no effect, it was a wash. But I made the decision.

When Raymond went in to have his fifth surgery in five days, I made the decision to ask the doctor if they could operate by using a local anesthetic as I was worried about him being completely under so many days in a row. They could and they did. He did so much better that day than the days before. The doctor said she had never operated on a patient that was awake before. She didn’t like it, but she said she would remember it for future cases.

I need to find that decisive part of me again. I must still have some of that “whatever” inside me to make decisions. Maybe that part of me that made the decisions before is tired from the years of making stressful decisions and years of interrupted sleep. Maybe I just need to buck up and do what needs to be done.

If I write it here, maybe I will do it. This week I vow to call and make arrangements to fix my foundation. I’ll buck up.