this long, long night

I forgot my 6th blogaversary, which was just about a month ago. Tonight is the longest night of the year. Like the world around me and like my country, my life is going through a major transition, and I need to take along pause at this point and readjust, get unstuck, ride the lessening night into a new and brighter era.
And so I’m going to take a break from blogging, I need to come back refreshed and renewed and ready to post about more than just my current long personal and troublesome journey. I need to get back to reading other blogs, other thinkers. I need to remember how to think, again. I need to remember how I have always cared about so much more than this box in which I found myself as a caregiver. I need to learn to live with the guilt of abandoning my very old mother to my brother’s care.
I need to remake my bed.
So much has slipped away as I move through my own personal winter solstice.
I hope that, with the New Year for this planet, the new leadership for this country, and a new base for my home and heart, I will be feel a new energy and a new purpose.
There has to be a dance in the old dame yet.
Meanwhile, I wish everyone a very Happy Holiday. I hope that you’ll check back here in a month or so.

sleeping in the bed you made

“Jak sie lozko poscieli, tak na nim wyspacz,” was what the old women in my family said when we youngsters complained. “The way you make your bed, that’s how you have to sleep in it.”
I was thinking of this phrase as I drove from Massachusetts, via Albany, to my mother’s/brother’s. I was in Albany for an overnight so that I could get together with my long-time women friends for our annual holiday dinner.
When I got online today and read Ronni Bennett’s two most recent posts (Are You Satisfied With Your Life and The Real Economic Story), the admonitions of my female elders came to mind again. (Ronni always seems to be two steps ahead of me.)
While in Albany, I stayed with one of my friends whose home looks like the pages of a decorating magazine. I stayed in a guestroom bed, which was, well, lets just say, well made. It was a pleasure to lie on it and to wake up in it.

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This friend, now retired, is not wealthy, but she is certainly is better off than I. She can afford a twice a month cleaning lady and someone to take care of her lawn and shrubs in the summer. If her driveway needs paving, she pays to have it done. She spends time where it’s warm when it’s cold here in the Northeast, and she pays an enormous amount for long-term care insurance. I think she diversified where she put her capital enough so that she wasn’t terribly affected by the Wall Street fiasco. She’s a few years younger than I, more than a few pounds lighter, and she’s always been more attractive. While there are times that I envy her lifestyle, ultimately and finally, I have to sleep in the bed that I made.
Am I satisfied with my life, as Ronni asks? I made my choices and took my chances, and things could be a lot worse. My only DISsatisfaction is that I’m not totally moved yet. Will I be satisfied then? I don’t know, but the last three years living in my brother’s house while I take care of my mother have been pretty miserable. So I guess it’s all relative.
Reading the Huffington Post links that Ronnie provided (here, here, and here) certainly makes me grateful for what I do have.
My bed might not be of designer quality, but at least I have one.

she’s caterwauling

No, not my mom. My cat.
She hisses and swipes at everyone but me. My grandson keeps trying to be nice to her, but she will have none of it.
We have had to put up an opaque barrier in the doorway to my rooms so that she doesn’t see the other two cats in the house — who, at first, yowled at her but now come up and sit on the other side of the gate, waiting and willing to be friends.
When she notices them there, she starts caterwauling and spitting. If I pick her up, she keeps making this strange crying sound with her mouth closed.
Calli is about 12 years old and has never seen another cat. I’m not sure that she knows she’s a cat. As far as she’s concerned, I’m her mother.
I was hoping that my daughter’s two neutered male cats and Calli would eventually, at least, live peacefully side by side. I’m beginning to lose hope for that to every happen.
Right now, I’ll settle just for her caterwauling to stop.

deadly beauty

The ice storm hit us Thursday night, knocking out electrical power for a while. I didn’t realize how bad the storm had been further north until I set out for Massachusetts this morning with the car radio reporting on the tens of thousands of New Yorkers still without power.
I drove across the swaths that the ice storms devastated, paralyzing the trees along the way with thick crystalline bonds. I wished that I hadn’t packed my camera (somewhere in the back of my car that was loaded to the roof with boxes and bags of my life’s accumulations, including my desktop, printer, and monitor and more cables than I could possibly have use for).
The landscapes I passed looked like stage sets for the Snow Queen or a scene from some alien planet. When I finally stopped at a rest stop, it was closed (no power). The other rest-stoppers were as unwilling as I to use the outdoor port-a-potties in the 15 degree weather. But many of them went back to their cars for their cameras to capture the bushes outside McDonald’s, their thickly iced branches arched over like so many alien tentacles. The sun was out and the ice looked lit from within. I had no idea under which layer my camera was buried, so I passed up the chance for some amazing photos.
The news on the radio reported that some people will be without power until Monday. Several towns had curfews to keep people from driving over icy roads at night
It’s a little chilly here at my daughter’s, even though the heat is on. We have to figure out how to get more heat into my part of the house. I love it cold when I’m sleeping, but at the moment, I’ve got cold feet blogging.
I am worried about my (92 year old) mom — not because of the cold (and my brother has a generator in case of power failure). I’m worried because the dementia is getting a lot worse, and she cries and wails almost all of the time. My brother doesn’t want to sedate her, which seems to be the only thing to do at this point, as far as I and the doctor are concerned. I can’t tell how much pain she’s in, but when she moans, “oh..oh…oh….oh..” and seems to be in great distress, I can’t help wanting to give her something more than Tylenol to relieve whatever it is, to ease her brain as well as her body.
But my brother won’t let me, believing that there is no drug that will make her feel better but not knock her out. There might well not be. But I’d rather knock her out, take the pain and anxiety and fear from her face, give her some peaceful sleep, a respite from the demons of decay.
I can’t stand to have to stand by and watch her suffer. And that’s one of the reasons that I’m here and not there.
Our doctor ordered a nurse to come in once a week and see how’s she’s doing. My brother is objecting, for reasons that are only relevant to him and his demons.
Well, it ain’t over til it’s over, and I might have to get her out of there. But if I do, I will have to put her in a nursing home, and I don’t think that she would survive very long there.
A former colleague — one known for his series of extra-marital affairs — once told me that he could live with guilt.
I don’t live with guilt that easily.

cold comfort

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It’s the first snowfall here in Massachusetts. If I were at the address that I am leaving, I never would have gotten out to enjoy the day. My daughter’s nuclear family went outside to play in the snow (and clear off my car). I just hung out, took some photos, and generally was delighted to be, finally, in the midst of laughter and play.
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I will be driving back to my mom’s/brother’s tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a nicer day — for a drive, that is.
At least I didn’t fall down and break my hip, like fellow elderblogger Darlene of Darlene’s Hodgepodge. It might be cold here, but at least I’m comfortable, unlike Darlene who lives in warmer Arizona but is still in rehab. Mend soon, Darlene.
I feel as though I’m on vacation in my new space. I’m not totally moved in yet, and there will be a lot of organizing once I get everything here. But, for now, it’s slow, relaxed days and evenings — which is good in some ways and not so good in others.
It leaves me time to think. About my life and what kind of person I’ve been.
The truth is, in the past, I was neither a good daughter nor a caring sister. I was not a particularly good spouse or mother, either. I had my own ambitions and my own dreams, and I always managed to fit them in, even at the expense of others. I guess that watching my daughter with my grandson reminds me of all the things I never did for my kids as they were growing up.
Maybe these feelings are prompted, now, by my guilt over leaving my mother in my brother’s care, of forcing my brother into the position of having to figure out how to give/get her the care she needs or face legal consequences. If assume her guardianship, I will have to put her in a nursing home, and that will break all of our hearts.
Cold comfort.
Until I hear my grandson giggle or wake up from a restful night’s sleep. I can live with the cold.

elder television

Last night, Boston Legal hit one out of the ballpark for all of us elders who are tired of television programming aimed at every generation but ours. If you missed this episode, where the firm takes on the television industry for discriminating against the oldest generation, you can watch it when it shows up here. Unfortunately, this creatively funny, poignant, and topical series ends next week, and it is going out with a bang that I wish had been postponed. Like, forever.
In the argument to the court that law partner Carl Sack (Emmy Award winner John Larroquette) makes, he asserts that, on the average, people over 55 watch about 6 hours of television a day, compared to the 3 hours watched by young people, who are usually online or texting at the same time. The case is brought to the court by Catherine Piper (Betty White), who is bored, can’t get hired for a job because of her age, can’t bike or climb mountains etc. because of effects of aging, and so she watches television. Except there’s almost no programming aimed at entertaining people of her age.
It’s impossible to capture here in words the impact of the show’s acting and messages. You have to watch it and commiserate.
And there’s no way to capture the poignancy of Denny Crane (William Shatner) as he fights for the life he loves against the tyranny of Alzheimer’s.
The characters of Boston Legal are wackily intelligent, and most of them are over 60 years old. I’m going to miss them; I never missed a show. Hopefully, they will be running online for a long time to com.
From here:

For once, though, a widely admired TV drama’s dismissal has nothing to do with ratings. Boston Legal’s imminent retirement is of its own choosing. This time, creator David E. Kelley has decided to quit while ahead. Boston Legal may not go down as the greatest courtroom drama in TV history, but when the jury’s finally in, the verdict is likely to be more favourable than most.

The only show left that I never miss these days is Brothers and Sisters. But it’s no Boston Legal.
As I surfed around, looking to see if I could find any studies on elders and television, I stumbled upon a reference to this book (preview pages here). Published a decade ago, the book includes observations that are still valid.
It’s time for some new research on television watching by those of us over 60. It still seems pretty much a wasteland for people like us.

I’ve given out, given up, given in

In a way, it’s a relief. I don’t have to go through all the complex strategizing to get him to compromise — only, each time, to come up against a stone wall. Actually, it’s more like being dumped into a vat full of jello. Either way, I get nowhere.
I’m out of energy and stamina. I give up. He can take care of our mother any way he wants.
He has arranged with a female musician friend of his to come and stay with our mother. Every once in a while. No set schedule. I’ve met her. She’s nice enough, and, as far as I can tell, my mother likes her.
I wanted him to hire someone from an agency who is trained to deal with dementia patients. That is, who knows what kind of patience is necessary to deal with someone who pretty much lives in her own personal reality, which sometimes overlaps with a more objective reality — but even then, with her own emotional twist. But he wouldn’t agree to that.
So, I give up, and I’m intellectually and emotionally distancing myself from the situation. I will come in once a month to visit my mom. I hope that we both can take the emotional stress. It’s almost better if she completely forgets who I am.
I’m hoping to be completely out of here and out of primary caregiving by the end of the year. It seems like forever.