Dad sick . . . an allostatic circuit?

• Stress

It has helped me a lot to know about circuits, particularly about how anything new triggers an allostatic circuit. You know the one that makes you do wild and crazy things, shut down and not know why (It's a circuit doesn't always come to mind).

I call my dad, who is dealing with nausea of an awful sort, for years, and between the various pills and a lot of support, still feels sick -- off and on, but recently, often on.

The first few years of that, now that he's alone, my mother having passed away, when I picked up the phone and heard how bad he felt, my body would tingle. I'd feel a little sick inside, the sadness and all.

The brain figures that anything new is a threat. I told my kids when they were growing up that you had to eat a particular food -- lima beans, broccoli, the usual -- 12 times before you got used to it, and really knew whether you liked it or not. After a while, the same situation will cause less stress and even though negative feelings arise, they aren't so strong. They stay in the homeostatic range.

So, now picking up the phone to talk to my dad and he's sick, I go deeper inside, connect with that safe place inside me that still misses my mom, but somehow soothes and comforts me anyway. And it is not quite so hard, and still emotionally vibrant and caring.

Then we have a great evening, like we did a few weeks ago, and we got to go out for dinner with my daughter Haley, and the three of us go to enjoy the summer sun in the late afternoon. Golden moments!

It seems that new things keep happening for the rest of our days, so that we never "grow up" and live the vanilla life of balance. As well, that the bad things seem to bear down on us, make us grittier, a little meaner, but a lot sweeter, too. The good moments seem more intense somehow.

The pleasure of hanging out with my dad, and my daughter who took this photo, was as good as it gets -- and maybe even better than that.