RouletteWeekend

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
-Reinhold Niebuhr

I’ve always fucking sucked at knowing the difference. I mowed the grass yesterday. One long line at a time. A half moon turn and back again. No circles. No squares. Just lines. A thing I can control in my life. Or at least that’s how it feels these days.

Some days are better than others. Yesterday, was not that great. I remember when I first learned to accept the things I couldn’t control. My now grown kids were tiny toddlers then and I couldn’t afford to pay my electric bill. My normal go-to when things got desperate back in the day was to lose my ever loving shit and have a complete and utter meltdown. I think I was 25 with a brand new baby heating water up on the gas stove for bath time because the electric was off when it dawned on me that my reaction to my situation would not change my situation. I think that was when my hustle kicked in. I think that was when I got perspective. I think that was when I got resourceful. Twenty years later and it seems maybe I have forgotten that girl and all those lessons.

Yesterday, I wanted to sit down in the middle of the floor and cry….for a reason that I absolutely cannot control.

Since we moved back to Knoxville on January 21st, it has become more and more evident as the days go by that Will’s mom is, in fact, suffering from some form of dementia/memory loss-related illness. I don’t know why it’s taking such a toll on me when she’s the one waking up every day, not knowing what day it is or if her cat has run away again. I wake up and write the date on a dry-erase board and assure her that I’ve seen the cat and the cat is not starving (mostly because she has fed it 5 cans of food, which I typically leave out of the conversation; I just keep buying more food). Accept the things I can’t change.

Is it selfish of me to be resentful that I thought my caregiving days were over and here I am? Doing that thing I swore I wouldn’t do again? Don’t get me wrong, Will’s mom is a lovely woman. She tells great stories about her past and she’s kind, but she seems to be in the dark about what is happening in her brain. Maybe they all are. I don’t know because our appointment with the Pat Summit Research Clinic isn’t until May 19.

Yesterday, we had a caregiver come. We were approved for a service to come once a week to help clean her bedroom and bathroom and just be a companion. It’s only 3 hours and the first woman who came was amazing. We had her for 5 or 6 weeks. Because she was amazing, she got a promotion to an office position and for the last 3 weeks, we’ve had someone new come. The new person was no Jasmine, so Martha pretends to be nice from 10-1 and when the caregiver leaves she get’s super hyperfocused on how lazy or not communicative the new caregiver was (there’s been 2) and then it turns into an all out tirade by 5 pm when she just doesn’t know why she even needs a caregiver or companion because she is find and “what’s the point?”

I don’t know enough about whatever diagnosis she hasn’t been given yet to know if I need to just be brutally honest with her, which is my preferred method of communication, and just say, “Martha, I think you may not realize it yet, but you don’t remember shit and may be getting dementia and the caregiver is not here for you, per se, she is here for me so I don’t lose my ever-loving shit walking around this house opening the dog door that you keep closing for no reason and cleaning up dog piss because you keep closing the doors, oh, and the fucking cat is not running away, you’re locking her out. I just need 3 hours! FUUUUUCK.” But I don’t say any of that. I just say, I’m sorry you didn’t like this one either, maybe we will just tell them not to come next week.” Control the things I can (my words).

It seems we are in a holding pattern, where Will is trying his best to work and bring in money. I am trying my best to take care of this house without resentment to both of them. And Martha is trying her best to just get through the day. We are all just doing the best we can, and yet, I still feel like we should be doing more even though I don’t know what that “more” is. Wisdom to know the difference (which I never do).

And so every day starts to feel like the same day. I make breakfast. If I’m not in the kitchen waiting to feed it to her as soon as she walks in, I miss my opportunity for her to eat something besides a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Then I do it again for lunch and dinner. Most days, I’m not quick enough, and at least one of those opportunities is lost to the sandwich. Or she eats both because her brain never tells her she is full. She is like the runt of the litter who never got enough food and has become obsessed. Kind of like her yappy beagle, who never shuts up if someone is in the kitchen. And then I feel like I’ve failed even though my logical brain says, “who cares, peanut butter and bananas aren’t terrible,” and my resentful brain says, “what’s the fucking point of trying to create some semblance of schedule if she doesn’t remember that you are cooking when she walks past you standing at the stove.”

The brain is a crazy thing. I hope I just fall asleep one day and never wake up before my brain decides that this life is not all it’s cracked up to be so let’s create an alternate universe.