RouletteWeekend

I blinked and two months have passed since I’ve even looked at my laptop let alone sat down to write. The days that have passed since moving back to Knoxville in January have been some of the hardest, lowest, and most challenging days of recent memory.

I’m still waiting for the “rewarding” part of care-giving that all the flowery articles talk about, but according to someone who has been a caregiver and retained her honest disposition, it doesn’t come until the person you are caring for dies.

Harsh? Maybe. True? I definitely think so.

We got an official Alzheimer’s diagnosis. I may have already written about it, I don’t remember and I don’t make a habit of going back and reading the things I’ve written because I know when I write, I’m in a moment of time that has been known in the past to be very “cringe” as the kids would say, so I have a tendency to put all my words in a basket and let them float down the river without thinking much about them.

So, if I didn’t tell you already, now you know. My mother in law has Alzheimer’s. We’ve been battling with trying to downsize her house which she desperately does not want to do and I can understand that, but the financial, emotional, and time burden that it has put on Will and I is too much to continue to bear at the expense of her satisfaction.

Note that I did not say happiness. The woman does not know happiness as far as I can tell and as far as I can tell she doesn’t want anyone around her to know it either and THAT has been the hardest part of all of this.

I have always been a glass half full kind of person. I have always been a “it will work out the way it’s supposed to” kind of person. I would like to say that I still am, but since the first day I logged into this blog, I have been telling you the brutal truth so I will not start lying to you now just to save face.

This season of my life has been a real struggle. I have never been one to do something for the “thanks” of it, but caregiving is not only the most thankless job, it’s hard and it’s like living with a narcissistic abusive partner who tells you that you are the reason they are miserable and they hate you and the next minute they bring you flowers. That is what the last 8 months have been like living in Will’s moms house and trying to help get things back on track after her other son stole all her money and then overdosed after her house was in foreclosure on Christmas Eve, nonetheless.

I know, I know. I sound a little bitter. And you are correct. I am a little bitter. We’ve had some very long and very tense days as of late. The house has officially sold and we have two weeks before we are moving into a new place. A clean slate. A healthy environment that works for us, for her, for the animals, for the budget, but every day we are the bad guys.

Today she told me that I was no better than the help and I was not even family so why should I get to make any decisions about her future when I won’t even get a job.

I’m pretty sure I said it before, but if you don’t go back and re-read my stuff either, I’ll just say it again.

I’m not sure if the Alzheimer’s is just selfish or if my future mother-in-law has always been kind of a bitch. And unfortunately, I do not think I will ever know.

I also do not think when all is said and done that I will have felt like any of this was rewarding. I hope Will gets some sort of closure in the end knowing that he did everything he could to make her life full, and safe, and loving even if she does not have the capacity to feel joy or happiness. I hope he gets to feel that sense of reward when she’s gone.

Don’t worry. She’s not sick or anything aside from the Alzheimer’s. She will probably live forever. I feel like the evil ones always do.

I almost feel bad for calling her evil, but I don’t think that pretending everything is all fun and roses is going to do anyone else any good.

I think most of my problem is that she’s not my mother and we didn’t have a relationship prior to moving here. I’m sure that’s part of her problem too when she can remember. We are just two strangers who moved in and are now telling her what to do. I can see how that would be frustrating and anger inducing, and she does not have the brain capacity to see that we spent our whole savings getting her house out of foreclosure and making it livable again after she lived with a drug addict for years.

Last month was the month I had planned to walk the Camino de Santiago. We started planning it last year. September was the month. We were going to finish it on my birthday. My birthday that passed last week in Knoxville, not Spain. And I feel selfish for being angry that our camino money was spent on a woman who is so fucking hateful to us every single day, but she’s also Will’s mom and I feel obligated to help him deal with this whole impossible situation.

ugh. I feel like this is just one big complaint. And I guess it is. Who is in charge? How do I get out of this contract. Why is Alzheimer’s so emotionally abusive?