Sunrise

There’s something steadying about waking at the crack of dawn. Before the noise starts.

Before the demands.

Just sitting outside with a coffee, listening to the birds, watching the sky slowly shift from dark to light. It’s a quiet kind of reset, one of the few moments in the day that feels completely untouched.

Wednesday. Midweek already.

I spoke to Mum last night, which was nice.

Simple, familiar, grounding.

The kids are doing okay, and that matters more than anything else. That alone is enough to hold onto.

The hospital is still the hospital. Waiting.

Still no movement on the new medication.

Another follow-up, another push, another bit of energy spent trying to get a response.

I put in feedback to mental health services as well, nothing back.

Not surprising, but still frustrating. It shouldn’t be this hard to be heard.

Outside, the little dog wanders. Round and round and round.

Not searching, just moving.

The dementia has taken that sense of direction, that awareness of where she is or what’s in front of her. She keeps going in circles, pauses for a moment, then starts again. There’s no decision in it, no intent. Just the condition, quietly playing out.

This morning I gave her a syringe of water. The bowl was right there, but she didn’t register it.

At least this way I know she’s had something.

Something small, but something certain. Enough to get her through until I’m back this afternoon.

It’s a strange kind of care. quiet, repetitive, mostly unseen.

Doing what you can with what’s in front of you, even when it feels like it shouldn’t be this hard.

But there’s only so much you can keep pushing in one moment.

So the approach today is simple: get on with it.

Not in a dismissive way, not in a defeated way, just in a practical one.

Focus on what’s in front of me. Keep things moving where I can. Let the rest sit where it has to for now.

The morning helped.

That quiet start, the birds, the light coming in, it doesn’t fix everything, but it puts things in place.

A small pocket of calm before stepping into the rest of it.

And sometimes, that’s enough to carry you through the day.