Helping someone to feel useful..

My mother needs to feel useful.. and most of my life i have collaborated in her world without realising it, and now that i am pulling out of this world i am trying to come to terms with the void this leaves.

A small story happened yesterday that illustrates this. I have some apartments which i built, own, and manage. They are next door to my mum (this is another similar story but on a different scale, and the reason why i am now able to notice the small stories as well). I was showing her round one of the apartments as she is interested in interiors, and amongst other things she noticed a couple of dowels (small pieces of wood) slightly protruding from the side of the staircase. She mentioned how she would enjoy to trim off those pieces with her japanese saw (she enjoys carpentry herself), and i commented that at the moment i was not going to spend time on small details. Later she asked again (indirectly) if she could trim them off and it turned out that she wanted to do this to feel useful. I did not allow her to do the job. *

Was it right of me not to allow her? I believe it was. I have no doubts about helping her directly in things that she needs herself, eg to move some firewood, but i believe it is not my role to provide her with employment that makes her feel better.

What do you think?

*PS to absolve any guilt whilst hopefully helping her not to feel rejected by this, i needed to show her some love

When the clouds have gone...

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed here to stay,
Now it seems that they have gone away,
Oh i believe in today.

* * *

This is a personal diary blog about the cloudy times, but written during clearer times.

I get depression, and one of the worst things you can do during a depression is analyse, better just let the clouds pass and do the thinking on a clear day. And anyway i can't write properly when depressed, i would never get a sentence finished always wanting to fix it.