sugarcoating

 

As advised by someone I spoke with earlier today, I treated myself to a cup of specialty coffee (a drink called Cafe Nordique, which I posted before) and a ginger cookie. My screenshot shows the piece of candied ginger as ornamentation on the sugarcoated, molasses-y cookie. It’s festive and comforting. What’s the occasion? Self-care and vacation time. 

I know that we can feel inflation all around, yet I am also aware that we only live once. Once in a while, I think it's okay to splurge. It’s a recurring theme that I write about—that we all deserve our little invaluable joys. 

What a challenging time to be alive, eh? I formally admit that I’ve sought help over a year ago and am going through the process of processing things. It's not news that I tend to close myself off on occasion. I also know that this tendency can be misconstrued by others. At this point in my life, I've become certain about whose opinions matter to me. Again, what other people think of us is none of our business (someone popular once said that). 

I don't find isolation fearsome, to be honest. That doesn't mean that I don't talk to my husband nor my children. Every night before we all go to bed, we say our night prayer together after which we take turns saying what we are grateful for about the day. You can imagine that there are many nights when we recite what we are grateful for by rote. I think that's okay. That's likely the reason why I mentioned that I don't find isolation fearsome. I suppose I'm referring to physical isolation. The fact is that knowing that I'm part of my nuclear family or a part of something...and that this belongingness gives me purpose--it is enough. At least that's my most authentic feeling right now.

On the topic of sugarcoating...why did I use that title? In the literal sense, it matches my blogpost image (lol). In the non-literal sense, it's useful to sugarcoat things especially when there is no benefit to brutal honesty. And no, there's nothing particular in mind that I'm thinking about that is around brutal honesty. I suppose a concrete example is the use of "therapeutic lying" to avoid escalation of challenging behaviours manifested by persons with dementia. I know "lying" is a pejorative term...let's use sugarcoating. For instance, when a person living with dementia whose partner has passed away a long time ago starts behaving agitated because he/she is getting impatient waiting for his/her partner to visit---one would try to use diversion or similar strategies to calm down the person. Maybe even say, "Oh, I heard that there is a traffic jam on highway 401 so your partner may just be delayed." This is because telling the person, "No, you're partner is dead and has been dead for over a decade" is probably the least helpful thing to say to that person at that particular moment especially when the person is agitated and you know that their memory is already impaired. I'm not an expert in dementia care so I won't even attempt to go into hypotheticals like I know what I'm talking about. 

So before the year ends, I wanted to say happy holidays. And that sugar is okay (unless you have a condition that prohibits it). Not too much. Just the right amount. A spoonful helps the medicine go down, as Mary Poppins once exhorted.