My daughter was admitted to hospital this week for depression and being suicidal. She's been discharged and is home, but we're looking at a long road back to health.
Hard as this all is, it would be even harder if I hadn't been working towards living more simply for years now:
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We are debt-free with a healthy savings account so I'm not worried about medical bills or panicking whether the medical professionals who help her are in-network.
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I work from home so I'm not stressed about how I'll be able to be here with her while she needs monitoring or how I'll get her to and from appointments.
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We have an intentionally low-commitment life so I'm not scrambling to get substitutes or cancel plans.
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We've invested heavily in a few relationships (vs merely scratching the surface with lots of people) so we have tremendous support.
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I've had the time to focus on my emotional and mental health over the past months so I've got the strength reserves I need to be there for her (plus I've got a self-care rhythm already in place so I can keep that strength up).
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Our house is mostly decluttered so keeping it clean and a soothing environment for her (and us) is easy.
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I've been cooking easy, healthy meals for years, so while we did takeout during the initial crisis, we can now return to our routine of comforting, nourishing food.
This situation sucks, but because we've worked so hard to create space in our lives, we can focus on our daughter. I'm so thankful I worked to get to this place before we needed it, and thought this might be encouraging to the rest of the simple living crew as a reminder that sometimes we do this not only for the immediate benefits but as preparation for the stuff we don't know is coming.
Submitted January 21, 2018 at 01:53PM by PeitriciaMae http://ift.tt/2DWKSNF
