A blanket of snow muffles the sounds of the outdoors. The landscape looks peaceful. No snow plow or salt has disturbed the surface and the world is perfect, no sign of man out the back window.

Inside my head the sound is constant. The high hum of anxiety simmers in my chest, restricts my breath unless I make conscious effort to breathe deeply.   The sound of my mother's giddy laughter as she hung up on me still echoes in my mind.  As when I was younger, we are once more in a period of time with her where reality is blurred and distorted just enough to make me unsure.  What is the truth and where is the delusion? And just as I did when I was a child, I allow her to shape too much of my reality and I lose my center, my gravity and I feel drifty and vulnerable.

Once more she is involved with a man. He is real, flesh and blood. Whether or not he feels the way she imagines he does leaves my sister and I perplexed. Mother thinks he is going to ask her to marry him.  She wants to know where she stands with him before she goes into the nursing home my sister and I have found for her.  Mother was the one who said she wanted to go to a nursing home. For years she has told us that when the time comes, she would live in a nursing home so as not to be a burden.  She is inept at caring for herself.  She cannot leave the house much.  My sister does her grocery shopping, laundry and takes her to appointments. I gave her her first shower in eleven months when I was home in November. She is unable to cleanse herself well of stool.  She denies to my sister that she thinks this man is going to take care of her for the rest of her life, then in the next breath she is sure that confronting him about their relationship will result in a proposal of marriage.  She has spoken of them trying to have sex and her not being able to go through with it..  When my sister cried tears of frustration and anger when talking on the phone with Mother, Mother laughed. When I called Mother to confront her and chastise her for upsetting my sister so, she laughed some more.  The woman is not right in the head, but just right enough to make us wonder if this man is interested in her for what ever reasons he might have. 

There is property and money that he could be after.   The bulk of my mother's assets are in an irrevocable trust.  He probably can't get to them, from what I understand of how the trust works.  My sister has to co-sign with my mother on any major transactions.  A month ago my mother admitted to all the aspects of her life to which she could not pay appropriate attention.  She wanted to go into a nursing home.  She was evaluated and deemed appropriate for placement.  The first opportunity for placement fell through.  The second opportunity is here and now she is doing this insane behavior which probably has a little basis in reality, and the remainder somewhere in her head.

I allow her to anger me, I allow her to infiltrate my boundaries and affect the carefully crafted balance I have built in the years that I have lived in Vermont.  Over the last year, she had been more kindly, more accessible and I allowed myself to enjoy this more often than not pleasant version of the woman who bore me.  Now we are back with the mother of my childhood, the woman who's word is the law and who will broach no opinion from anyone else.  The mother who laughs when she makes her children cry. The woman who forgets her behavior within minutes to hours of having wounded us. 

I feel sad.  I wish I knew what to do or say to bring her back to a place where she is predictable and nice.  I feel hate towards her, hate her behavior, hate her hurting ways.  I love her, too, remembering the times when she has been loving and responsive.   Granted, those times are less and less, but they were present.  Mostly, I wish this crazy behavior would stop.  I wish she would find peace. 

Sometimes I feel fear.  Fear that in my older age I will become like her: manipulative, spiteful, vindictive, oblivious to the pain I inflict. I fear my children not wanting to be around me as much as I dread being around her when she is in this state.   All of this, I have no control of.  Those are the things which worry me most.

Blessings abound

The Fire Station is big and drafty as I browse sites and wonder what to type today, if anything at all. The day is gray and misty.  I am totally sapped of joyful energy after doing thirteen hours at work yesterday.  I traded working a long shift when we were short staffed for the day off today when there was extra people to go around. I'm paying for the time spent bombing around the halls, getting people into rooms and one very difficult incidence of getting a urine sample from an older gentleman who turned out to be covered in stool.  I cleaned him up as best I could in the confines of the little bathroom we have for patients.  I let his caregiver know he was still streaked with stool in areas I could not clean for lack of a proper washcloth and hot, soapy water. I do not think the individual really paid attention to my report. I brought it to the doctor's attention and let it be from there.  Luckily, he did not seem embarassed by the cleaning.  It was one of those moments in nursing where one can make a situation better with a simple kind of attention.  I was glad I  could help.

Christmas is coming and we are doing the best we can to make a good holiday with a minimal amount of expense. I'm doing some knitting.  Later in the week I will pot some plants and do some baking. Definitely not much of a store bought Christmas at all. We will feast with the neighbor's on Christmas Day.  Boy Wonder will be spending Christmas Day with us and I am excited for that.

The smell of firetrucks is making me think it is time to go home. Blessings abound

A day at home and the world looks a little brighter. The tree is decorated and bearing up under the weight of lights, garland and sparkly spheres and orbs. The prayer plant has been repotted and rescued from the brink of death. The Christmas cards are started, envelopes addressed and letters have been written, in some cases. Tea has been drunk, coffee, too. The lost box of Christmas ornaments has been rescued. There seems to have been three casualties in the decor department: two glass balls crashed to the floor between last night and this afternoon. And the snow globe I love has sepia toned water within the glass enclosure instead of the clear liquid it once contained. As if this wasn't entertaining enough, some dried iguana skin came flaking out of one of the boxes, ghost of Christmas lizards passed.

We have eight inches of snow under a couple of inches of ice, a crust that would accomodate sliding down the hill very well. It's not the same to contemplate sledding without any kids around. I suppose I could import the neighbor's children, but I already used them last night to help decorate the tree. Gwynneth was the one who volunteered that she enjoyed trimming the tree and we started with the only string of lights we seem to own. Every year I see a roll of three light strands and every year, I can't find it again until after holidays are over. Fortunately, our trees are from the front yard where we've several growing. We take one a year to gradually thin them out. The trees are a bit on the frail side, but so fragrant once they've warmed inside the house.

Blessings abound

I am a Perfectionist with a capital P. I've been trying to overcome this affliction.  I've recently encountered an area where I have a new opportunity to work at letting it go: My recent evaluation, including a peer evaluation.

Never mind that I am peerless. Never mind that out of one hundred fifty possible points I scored one hundred forty seven. I am hung up on the fact that my peers think I should leave my job to help them more in times of "high volume." Never mind that I regularly offer to help people when my work is complete. Never mind that I don't ask my peers for help with my work when I'm swamped. I'm supposed to anticipate and prioritize high volume times so I can help others do their work.

This has pissed me off. It's made me struggle inside with the fact that I can't do it all, can't make it all right. I want to shout," I'm doing the best I can!"  but I don't.  I know it is arrogant of me to feel that I am peerless, arrogance that makes me think I am better than they are. I'm trying not to let this bother me, try to redirect my energy. But then I'm faced with the prospect of what do we do with my mother. And her Friend.

My sister and I are not sure if the relationship Mom talks about is all in her head or if there is some truth in the fantastic things she tells us about her relationship with her male, thirty seven year old Friend. He's definitely real, someone she thought of recently as,"the son I never had." It's escalated to her having romantic feelings for him. And then talking about how they've tried to have sex but she couldn't go through with it. Oh, Ick!

We've come up against problems with getting her situated in a nursing home. The insurance finally approved her, but the place we were looking at rented the apartment to someone else. My sister was not aware that we needed a one thousand dollar deposit to hold the space. So that went away. There's another place in town that we're trying to get mom into. Sandy (my sister) should know something soon. Meanwhile, my mother is involved in a relationship that could potentially be detrimental to her. If it's real in the way she speaks of it.

Pray for us. Blessings abound

I'm amazed at how much clutter and cobwebs accumulate when one hasn't been paying attention. Now that I'm not devoting my energy to pain anymore, I notice the dirt, cobwebs and clutter that I'd been too hurting or too tired to see and do anything about. Last night I scrubbed down the kitchen stove and countertops. The wood work needs a good scrub and the interior of the home could use a paint job. Spouse takes care of the outside of the home when it comes to painting. I'm responsible for the inside. It's probably been twelve to fourteen years since I last took a brush to the walls. It's definitely overdue.

I've been enjoying the ride home from work a little bit more lately. Though my eyes have trouble adjusting to night vision sometimes (is that set of headlights really headed towards me?) they are capable of seeing the lovely Christmas lights with which people are adorning their homes. The colors make my heart happy. There aren't big clusters of them along the rural roads I drive, so I'm able to slow down a little and enjoy the colors and the arrangements. Something so simple as a string of lights, colored or clear strikes a chord of hope in my heart. The lights are never so plentiful  as to be gaudy or overwhelming. Just there, the colors evoking calmness, joy and hope.

Erik turned 63 yesterday. Wow. It doesn't seem possible he's made that milestone. He is as  energetic and loving as he was when we first met. The rule around here is that no Christmas decorations go up until after we celebrate his December birthday, but this year he let me move the ceramic Christmas trees from the back bedroom to a more prominent display on the side board near the dining room table. The trees are special to me for a few reasons.  First and foremost, they celebrate the spiritual sustenance the pines and firs, birch and maple provide me with through out the year. When I really need to stoke that empty place deep within me, I turn to trees. Trees and light. Light and trees feed my soul. The trees are also special to me because one was made by my Nana forty eight years ago. The other was made by my sister. Bringing these trees into the room brings my family into my home even though we are separated by distances geographical and of time. It reminds me that I am not apart from the women of my family. It reminds me that I am strong, beautiful and a spirit of worth and integrity.

Today I am liking this quiet time before I leave for work. Soon enough I'll be sitting at a computer for totally utilitarian purposes, but for now I am able to write for my pleasure and I feel calm and peace. What a great gift with which to start the day.

Blessings abound

I've had some time today to roam around and read a few sites. Sitting here is also constructive, in that it reminds me that I have so much more to be thankful for than I have given credit these last few somewhat hectic weeks. For example, my mother, though losing her mind, is in familiar surroundings and can at least "fake it " enough alone to be able to live in the house in which she was born. My sister calls her twice a day, does her laundry, does her grocery shopping and listens to the inevitable rants that have always been part of my mom. I check in with mom a few times a week, give her a chance to rant at me, and take the time to reorient her to time and place.  It's getting harder to reorient her on the phone.  Yesterday when we spoke, she was upset that they buried her sister to the right of my father rather than to the left of him.  My mother has very specific ideas of who shall be buried where in the family plot. She doesn't seem to get that the man who used to run the cemetary is no longer the same one who sold the plot to great great grandfather. And then there are the arrangements that had to be made with the vaults in mind. The good news is that she'll still be buried next to my father. She'll be on his left- nearer to his heart as one friend put it- and that poor man will be relegated to keeping the peace between the two of them in what ever kind of after life touches the dead.

Something significant is happening January 10.  The date came to me in a dream that was a bit of a mish mosh of living in a flooded area in Hawaii as dead and dying whales washed up and around me. At first I saw the whales from a distance, then was closer to them in the boat I was moored in. Then finally, we were off the boat and waves were sweeping up and over and into the huts where we had taken shelter. The whales were pilots, sperm and blues and there were many of them.

I'm grateful for the fact that even though finances are tight, we still have our home and the cars we use to get to work. The job Erik currently has ends next week.  There'll be unemployment to work with. I can't quite bring myself to apply to the hospital in Burlington, but that would be a more profitable place to work. Still, once one pays for the drive back and forth an hour each way, would it still be worth it?

My friend, Marci, is coming for a visit next weekend. She's going to stay with a couple of different friends. I'll get to have her the first night. I think we'll decorate the Christmas tree.  I wasn't able to participate so much last year, so this year will be more fun as I can stand for the periods of time necessary to string lights and carefully hang the bright and shinies.

My friend, Marci, let me sleep at her home on my way back from Maine. I spent most of  that Saturday sleeping at her home as I had a bit of bronchitis. I'm wicked grateful to be over the bronchitis.

Mason made it home for Thanksgiving. His friends with whom he lives loaned him their car and he was able to come to Pauline's with us for feasting and frivolity. I actually won a few hands of Texas Hold Em, though ultimately, Pauline won, I think.

Austin made it home from Iraq. He surprised his parents with a trip home for the holiday. And while he is not my child, I am still thankful for his presence and the fact that he is back alive and kicking.

That's all I've got for now. Blessings abound

I haven't been in much of a writing mood of late. The travel to Maine, my mother's deteriorating mind and health, the ongoing stresses of work and finances are taking their toll on me. There have been times when I've had fun, don't get me wrong. It just seems that when I'm not engaged in work, or in a large group of people with whom I have fun, I'm flat and less than enthusiastic about my life. It's been more difficult to be grateful for the blessings that I have in my life, even more difficult for me to be grateful for the current challenges that currently work to form who I am and who I will be.

A brief synopsis in which our heroine recaps the previous ten days' activities:

The tire place forgot to tighten the lug nuts on my driver's side tire. The wheel fell off within a few feet. They gave me a rental to take to Maine. They paid for my new fender.

Mother is not in the nursing home. Her insurance is balking at paying for assisted living. They may pay to help with some housekeeping in the home. Meanwhile, more of mother's memory slips away. I gave her her first shower in eleven months. It was about time for it.

My mother's sister, Rebecca, died the day after I arrived in Maine. I stayed for the funeral and mother's evaluation by the insurance company RN.

I contracted bronchitis while in Maine. I slept Saturday at a friend's home in South Portland. I feel yickkety, but am slowly improving.

It's colder than a witches tit in a brass brassiere here in Vermont.
Blessings abound

Mom's out of the hospital. We're looking at assisted living, which means a drive to Maine for me this weekend. It also means possibly moving her this weekend- she's been talking with the local provider for such living. It will cost somewhere between two and four thousand dollars a month.  Surprisingly, she has an insurance policy that may take care of the bulk of the costs. I am sad and tired and not looking forward to the drive. I'm leaving Saturday morning after the snow tires are put on the Snaab.
Back to work,
Blessings abound

My mother is back in the hospital.
sigh
Blessings abound