Month: July 2015

Operation Life Reconstruction, Take 2

A week and a half ago my sister and I moved my mom who has Alzheimer’s into an memory care center. We thought this would be the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. That was not to be. After four miserable days (heartbreaking sobs from a woman who is not a cryer) begging us to get her out of there because “it’s not a happy place and no one smiles,” a few altercations between my mom & the nursing staff (and a few pieces of furniture), and my sister and I being unable to get past the feeling that this was just not a good fit, we decided to pull her out of one assisted living center and move her into a new one. When I asked for prayer last week as her transition was not going smoothly, one of the things I prayed for was a friend for my mom by Friday. As it turns out, she did have a new friend by Friday … just in a totally different facility. God is funny. We were able to move her out of one place & into another within a 24 hour window. She is much happier in the new “hotel” and has already made friends to sit with at meals. Clearly that feeling of walking into a lunch room not knowing anyone and wondering who will be nice enough to ask you to sit with them never goes away.

So I would ask you this, in honor of my mom: when you meet someone who might need a welcome or a hug or an invitation to sit with them … be bold and invite them to sit down with you. You might make someone’s day. You might give that person a reason to come out of her room the next day and struggle past her own insecurities and fears and loneliness.  You might get a hilariously wacky story that involves wading through words that often don’t naturally string together, but come out “pleasantly confused.” Or you might get a real friend.

I am still trying to figure out how to live my “normal” life where I’m only responsible for my dog and I only live in one house instead of a few. I went to the grocery store a few days ago since I haven’t had real groceries in my refrigerator in months. (Real groceries are the ones that you remember you have in your refrigerator and they haven’t spoiled or gone rotten or have funky fur growing on them.) I walked up and down the aisles of HEB trying to figure out what I needed to buy when one eats real food instead of takeout or prepared meals from the deli. I ended leaving with spinach dip and pita chips.  Clearly, reconstructing my life is going to take some baby steps.

Reconstructing my life also means I’m about to wage an all-out homicidal no-holds-barred war against the fruit flies that have become drain squatters in my absence from my home. It shall be a blitzkrieg which has not been witnessed since Hitler rolled across Europe and took a vacation photo in front of the Eiffel Tower. Because even Hitler takes a vacation photo in front of the Eiffel Tower when he goes to Paris.

If you are of the “fruit flies have rights too”mentality, your opinions are dead to me.  I shall soon be whistling happy tunes as I flush out all the dead fruit flies, and clean my home with the joy of Mary Poppins. I have a dark side.

In the meantime, my mom is happier, and I’m praying that her friend circle grows and grows until she doesn’t want to live anywhere else. I’m also praying that I move beyond spinach dip and pita chips into actual healthy meals; that I go to a movie, maybe eat lunch or dinner out, and that at some point this summer, I just float in a pool or down a river like the normal people do.

Thanks for the prayers, y’all.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

This has been the hardest six months of my life. The. Hardest. I’ve been through some dark periods before (like when I asked my doctor for a hysterectomy because I couldn’t stop crying and I figured that would take care of it. He very gently suggested that perhaps I could try a low-dose of antidepressants as a first step instead of going for all-out removal of body parts).  But this last six months has body-slammed me MMA-style to the mat.
My dad died of cancer in January and my sister and I immediately became full-time caretakers to our mom who has Alzheimers. Today – after 6 months of round the clock care with one of us spending every day and night at her house – we moved her into a Senior Living Center. I can’t think about what that really means in the whole big picture because I’ll fall apart. Again. It feels like that gut punch when I walked into my parents’ house and found my dad on the kitchen floor. It means she won’t be coming home again. Ever.
People have been asking me to write a blog for years – mostly because I seem to have hilarious life adventures that don’t seem like they could happen in real life. But the idea of putting myself SO out there in a blog has always scared me. I mean, the best stories – in my opinion, the most hilarious stories – are the ones of me getting rejected by one man or another. I have handled Life’s disappointments mostly through humor (yes, the Powerpoint of Rejection was a real thing that I made, yes it had a soundtrack, and no, you can’t see it because it’s been deleted), a lot of tears and some antidepressants. Still, it feels too vulnerable and honestly, too humiliating, to just go all emotionally out there like that. I mean, one guy seriously used the “It’s not you, it’s me” line. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME WE’RE ADULTS. You can’t even come up with something better than “It’s Not You, It’s Me?” Ouch.
But then my dad died on January 5. All of a sudden my biggest champion in the world who made me a better person and taught me how to live life well was gone. I moved into the Full-Time-Caretaker-With-My-Sister role for my mom who is no longer the mom I grew up with. And I realized that Life just sucks some times. It sucks worse than being told “It’s not you, it’s me,” or losing a friend because I sent an Ambien text that I don’t remember, or having a coworker rip me apart. It’s just hard. Like curl up in fetal position and eat your feelings through a box of ice cream Drumsticks kind of hard. And it’s ok to accept the suckiness. If I can share that suckiness, and more importantly, know that I can get to the other side of the suckiness, and putting that out there helps someone else get through their own suckiness? Well, then maybe it’s worth the potential humiliation.
What I have learned in the last six months is that God has never been more real to me & my faith has never been more real to me. By the grace of God & my sister, the unwavering love and support of a few friends and a great dog, step by step & one day at a time, Life gets less sucky. I will move out of this period into the next one, and the next time Life kicks me metaphorically in the groin, I’ll know I can come out the other side.
So all of this is to say, I feel like I need to apologize to anyone who’s come through my circle in the last 6 months; like I need to apologize for not really being a functioning member of society or a good friend. Part of me thinks “screw it” – I don’t have any emotional energy left to deal with hurt feelings when I’ve felt like I’m cracking apart inside. But that’s not right either … to be intentionally callous and insensitive toward others. So to anyone who I unintentionally hurt, I am sorry. To those of you who invited me to something and I didn’t go, I am sorry if it seemed like I was rejecting you. I wasn’t. I was trying to get through a day without falling apart. There will be days when I will continue to struggle to get through a day without falling apart. It’s not you, it’s me. (Oh, wait …)
Those of you who haven’t freaked out when I started crying awkwardly in front of you, or said something inappropriate to get past a painful moment, thank you for putting up with me and loving me despite myself. And to everyone else … life is never a cake walk and it’s never easy and it never goes exactly the way you planned it. But it’s pretty cool to look back and see how God works it all out. He is for me.
And really … let’s all do better than “it’s not you, it’s me.”