RouletteWeekend

It’s been over 3 months since my last post and A LOT has happened since then. So you may want to settle in, this might be lengthy.

When we moved here, Will and I agreed that I would be the “caregiver” and he would work to make the money. I’ve always prided myself on being caring and always admitted that “giving” is actually one of my character flaws. I give too much and give too often, usually leaving myself feeling empty and drained.

I’m not sure why I thought this particular task would be any different. “It’s your mom,” I’m sure I said.

“Of course I want to help her,” probably also escaped my lips.

“How hard could it be?” was probably uttered.

Well, put it on a sub and let me eat my words, because care giving is actually a pretty awful “job.”

Just so you don’t have to go back and read if you’re new here, here’s the TL:DR….

• Will’s brother died after a long battle with addiction and mental health problems on Christmas Eve 2025
• We came back for the funeral and realized his mom could not manage things on her own (house was a wreck, memory was shit, bank was foreclosing, her son had been emotionally abusing her for years and stealing all her money, etc.)
• We swoop in and clean the house (with a 10 ft U Haul truck -yes,really), paid as much of the mortgage as we could to get the house out of foreclosure, replaced the carpet upstairs that looked like a murder scene, painted the upstairs, and moved in to help.
• Took Will’s mom to numerous appointments, started reading books about dementia, tried to figure out what to expect, could not have prepared enough for what this journey looks like

And that pretty much brings us to today. Life has shown us all over and over again that you cannot go back and change anything so you might as well not dwell on what you could’ve, would’ve, should’ve done.

We thought we were doing the right thing by moving back to Tennessee. A place we said we would never come back to. Not because we don’t like it here, we do. We love it actually. Especially Will. He loves Knoxville. He loves the mountains. We didn’t think we would ever come back because there is a whole huge world out there to explore. So when we left Myrtle Beach, we thought that we would maybe go to Seattle or Portland for a couple years. We thought that at 50, we had at least 15 to 20 more moves in us before we were either too old or too dead to move again.

Before we decided to move back here, we offered to bring Will’s mom back to the beach with us. We were living in a single level, 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with a fenced in yard that was less than 7 miles from the beach. We had made friends. We had book clubs to attend and trivia to go to. We had a beach. But, Will’s mom said she didn’t want to leave Knoxville. She wanted to die here. And she probably meant that she wanted to die in this house. This house that she helped design with an architect. This house that was supposed to be the last house she ever lived in. This house that eventually turned into her prison and left her with nothing but bad memories and poor health. And, wanting to do the “right thing,” we agreed that maybe we shouldn’t make her leave her home. So we moved into it with her.

After 7 months, it’s turned out that the house is part of the problem. She associates the living room with every bad thing that’s ever happened to her. Not just in this house, but in her whole life. The negative energy that sits in the middle of the most used space in this house weighs her down so heavily that some days she can’t get out of the house fast enough.

Between the memories and a very intense UTI, we had about two weeks of madness a month or so ago. She tried to hit me (twice), she said terrible things to Will and myself. She would get mad and throw glasses of tea and diet coke at us, breaking glass all over that, of course, she wasn’t going to clean up and then she would take off to the neighborhood gazebo to sit outside in heat wave temperatures.

It’s hard to remove your emotions from the diagnosis. I didn’t really know Will’s mom that well before all of this. We had spent a couple holidays together over the years, but Will and I got together in 2018 and then there was that COVID time where we stayed away from his parents for quite a while because we didn’t want to accidentally kill them, and then we moved in 2022. So when I say we spent a couple holidays, that’s it. A couple. Maybe a few. There was no mother daughter shopping. No deep conversations. No getting to know each other really.

I say all that to say that I’m not sure if Will’s mom has always been spoiled, ungrateful, and entitled or if that is what dementia does. So when we go out of our way to make sure she is eating healthy and is going out to do social things and going to play brain games with other dementia having people and she comes home and sits back in that dark energy living room and says, “All I do is sit here and watch TV, I’m so bored,” or “All those people at that place are low functioning and can’t even have a conversation,” I don’t know if she truly doesn’t remember what we just did or if she’s just a spoiled brat who complains if we don’t do what SHE wants to do.

We bought a zoo pass for all of us to take walks and she says, “Why would anyone want to go to the zoo more than once? If you’ve seen one monkey, you’ve seen them all.”

And after spending seven months getting her to the eye doctor to fix her cataracts, and get her to a brain doctor, and make sure she doesn’t have a UTI, and taking her to said Zoo, and taking her to a “moms” lunch at my sister’s house every Friday, and cleaning the house every single day, and and and… she says to Will a few days ago “why doesn’t Angie work? What does she do all day?”

And as he slowly explained all the above and then some, after each thing, she says, “no, she doesn’t do that, I do that.” “I take my own meds, I clean the house every day.”

To top it all off, I’ve been reading this book called The Alzheimer Solution where they outline all the things that keep the brain healthy and can possibly reverse the symptoms of cognitive decline. So I mention that when we move (I’ll get there), we are going to start eating healthier. No more diet cokes, no more honey buns, no more processed foods. It was a light-hearted conversation that made her very mad. How dare I consider bringing healthy food into this house? She’s been eating that way her whole life, why should she stop now?

And there’s no rational talking to her. There’s no saying, “It’s for all of us. If you could give up those bad things to not be a burden to your kid, would you? Because that’s EXACTLY why I am changing our diet. I don’t want to be a burden on MY kids. Changing bad habits now, equals, quality of life and not losing my mind at the end. And helping you now can give you much better quality of life from now until you die of old age versus dying of starvation because your brain forgot how to chew.” She doesn’t see the logic. She doesn’t see what she is gaining aka a better life, only what she is losing.

And I’m not sure if it’s the dementia or her personality but never in my life have I seen or met a person who is so desperately miserable that they cannot even try to have a good time or a good conversation without bringing it back to all things bad.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect toxic positivity. I don’t, but considering the situation that we walked into on Christmas Eve, what she has now is considerably better. We are not doing drugs in her house, there is not a pile of nitrous oxide cans lining every wall, there is not cigarette holes in the carpet and butts on the floor, there is not dog shit and piss everywhere, the fridge and the floors are not covered with fast food bags, the sink is not hanging loose from the granite, the floors are not sticky, there are not bags of bodily fluids in the pantry and utility closets. The house is clean. The floors are clean. Her dogs are clean, their nails have been clipped and are no longer curling under their paws. The sink is fixed. The fridge has fresh fruit in it. We are kind to her. There is love in the house. And it’s like she doesn’t even acknowledge any of the positive. She just dwells on the negative every single day and that is not a thing I’m used to.

It’s been detrimental to my mental health. This house has been detrimental to my mental health. In one of the last few posts, I mentioned that this is the first time in my adult life that I have lived “with” someone instead of someone living “with” me. I’ve never moved into someone else’s space. Things have always felt like home to me. And now I’m not in a space that feels like that. Everything in this house is a reminder that it’s not mine.

So after 6 months of being here and listening to Will’s mom complain that she hates being in this house, we have put it on the market. Of course everyone has an opinion about how we are handling things… “you can’t sell her house.” “You can do price drops that often, people will think there’s something wrong.” “How awful of you to take her away from her home.” “This is only going to make things worse for her taking her to a new place.”

And you know what? Two things can be true at the same time. Maybe the new place will make things worse for her initially, but it will also be a place where Will and I feel happy. A place that’s better for the dogs and has less stairs. A place where we are close to resources and family and friends. And the people who have the most to say are never the ones reaching out to ask how I’m holding up, or is there anything they can do to help, or offering to come over and give me a break or offering to pay for a few hours at an adult day program. I’ve learned a lot over these last few months about the importance of connection and holding close the ones who are and have always been constants in your life and not taking things personal when everyone has an opinion but never a solution or a kind word.

So I’ve been slowly reaching out and spending time with people who are important to me. People who have always been important to me. And as soon as we get closer to my old neck of the woods, I’m excited to connect with my Knoxville friends that I haven’t had a chance to connect with. I’m excited to bring back the smore’s parties in my back yard. I’m excited to have a housewarming wedding & reception at our new house that we have a contract on if we could just sell this one. I’m excited to cook healthy meals in my new but very vintage kitchen. I’m excited to see the change that I believe will happen in the new house for Will’s mom. If there was ever one quote that I’ve clung to over the years, it’s this one…. “you cannot heal in the same place that made you sick.” I believe that has always been true and I do believe that we can give Will’s mom a good life for whatever she has left. I believe we can help her get past the trauma of the last few years and show her what a normal, loving, home life looks like after living with a drug addict for the last 5 years. And I believe that no matter what other people think, if you are truly doing what you think is best, that is always the right thing. And not just what’s best for everyone else. You have to include yourself in the equation.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you how the house selling is going… HINT: not great.