Tag: parents

Endings

My life is a shitshow, so what better time to restart this habit.

My father had a stroke at the beginning of February.  About a month ago he passed away. And because life knows how to pile it on, in that time my relationship of the last almost three years fell apart, so I’m single again.

Backing up, for a second, because this wasn’t supposed to be that year. I just started a new job in January, two weeks before my dad’s stroke.  Two endings and a beginning.

The other day, someone asked me if I’d gone back to work yet. And I was flabbergasted. Whose life did this person think I was living? That is not how it works in my reality. I haven’t taken a single day off since my father passed. In all the time since the stroke, I’ve only taken two days, the week it first happened. It never occurred to me to not go to work. I have to work. Is this a thing that people do? Just stop everything when someone dies? I get the requisite bereavement leave my company offers in this case, five days. I am saving those to help my mom move out of her house later this month, because that’s our reality. While my father was alive, they had a decent income, but they were paycheck-to-paycheck like most of America. They didn’t have any savings. Just steady pension and retirement checks. And the second that he passed, most of the income went with him. My mom is boned, and there isn’t any time for either of us to fall apart.

It sounds luxurious, to be honest. So decadent, to stop working because my father died. To fall apart for even a moment feels like something reserved for the upper-crust of socioeconomic strata. How elegant. Does the fainting couch come standard with that plan? And the on-call doctor with a bottle of valium.

So I power through, like I’ve always done. I go to work. I’ve flown back and forth to my mom’s house every two to three weeks, slowly slipping into debt that hopefully, someday I can get out from under. And if I’m honest, I’ve drunk more than is probably necessary. I haven’t even remotely begun to grieve. First things first, and someone has to keep it together.

I hope I keep writing. I have a lot of material right now, honestly. This I have to say about how hard it is to find out information about services and housing available to an elderly, low-income parent. That there should be a number like 1-800-MYPARENTSAREOLD. There’s all the lessons my parents have taught me of the “what not to do” variety. About the importance of a durable power of attorney, and the fact that you’re never too young to make sure you have one for your parents.  About wills, lawyers, real estate, estate liquidators, medicaid, medicare, hospice, and the VA. Maybe I’ll write about some of that, or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll write about being single again, suddenly, and what it’s like to be a single woman in her 40s in the age of Tinder, or maybe I’ll go nowhere near that crap. Hopefully I’ll find whatever humor there may be in this situation.

I’ve been through so much. I’ll get through this. Want to come along for the ride?

CSGL and the Chamber of Freakishly Weird Dreams

I’ve been at my parents’ house for a week now.   My dad is going to be having his tumor removed on Friday.   Since he’ll be in the hospital for at least a week, and my mom does not drive, I’m here to help out.   My company has graciously allowed me to work remotely while I am staying with my parents, which is very cool.   I’m not burning through PTO while I’m here.

So what am I up to?   Well so far I’ve just been working, driving my folks around, and reading.   Reading the tail end of the Chronicles of Narnia and starting the Harry Potter series.    I’ve also seen more than my fair share of ESPN’s various programs and many episodes of MASH.   What can I say, but it’s what Dad likes.

It’s pretty odd being here, at the folks’ place, as I’ve never lived here.   This is my parents’ retirement home in Washington.  They moved in about three years ago.   I’ve visited quite a few times, but it had been over a year since I had been here last.  So, while it’s my parents’ home, and I’ll always be welcome and free to make myself at home, it’s not my home.   I don’t know where things belong in the house, and I don’t know my way around the neighborhood very well.

So, I don’t know whether it’s the stress of the situation, the strange surroundings, or my reading material of late, but I’ve been having some very strange dreams.    Dreams about just about everything and everyone.   The happy couple redoing their wedding, because they decided they wanted a much more formal affair.   My house being home invaded while only myself and one roommate were home, and the robbery being done by a girl I went to Junior High with.    My teenage self being told by my parents that they were expecting another baby.  A friend’s bed being full of random strangers, one of whom was very angry with me for being better liked than her.   And finally last night, Nova doing everything in his power to try to keep me from going to sleep, even though I was really exhausted.

So, I wonder what I’ll be dreaming tonight.   But before I get to bed, I’ve got to find out what’s going to happen to Harry Potter next.   My guess is that there’s going to be some stressful scenario where he could either die or be expelled from Hogwarts.  I mean, as far as I can tell, that’s the whole plot of the entire series.   Of course, I’m only on the second book.   I’m not too fond of these constant traumas, though.   Why doesn’t that idiot just go tell Dumbledore?  Geesh.

OK, yes, I am a nerd.

Just sayin’.

Thoughts on The A-Word

Last night, I wrote a throw away post on my parents’ anniversary.  I wanted to write something, and I wanted to shout out to them on their special day, but I wasn’t really in the mood to write.    So, here’s what I woulda/coulda/shoulda written last night.  Here are my thoughts on their anniversary, and on anniversaries in general.

  • I sort of forgot that it was their anniversary, until I was on the phone with my mom.   I didn’t feel too bad about it, though, ’cause I think they forgot, too.   My dad got up yesterday to go to work, and he found a note from my mom asking him to pick up milk on the way home.   When he was finishing up his day with some paperwork, he remembered the date.  He said something to one of his co-workers, like, “oh, it’s June 10th.  It’s my wedding anniversary.”  The co-worker asked what he was going to get for my mom, and he told him he was getting her a carton of milk.  My mom gave him a slice of banana bread in return.   I hope to someday be in a relationship long enough that anniversaries are still important, but not anything to break your heart over if it happens to slip my mind.
  • Anniversaries.  The root of the word is ‘annual’.   Meaning yearly.   There’s no such thing as a six month anniversary.  A one month anniversary is also right out.   I think that would be a lunaversary.   And really, it’s just lunacy.   Being able to relate to someone for 30 whole days in a row shouldn’t be that difficult.   Unless you’re me, apparently, but that’s a rant for another time.
  • I don’t do anniversaries.  I was in a long term relationship once.   In two plus years, we could never agree when that anniversary would be, if we were to celebrate one.   When you get married, it’s easy.  It’s the day of the ceremony.   The anniversary of a birth, also very easy to track.    I’ve had anniversaries at jobs, too.  That’s super duper easy.   But when does it start to actually count when you’re dating.   ‘Cause there’s dating, and then there’s dating.    I mean, I could go on a date tonight, and in that sense, I’d be dating someone, but I wouldn’t consider someone my boyfriend on the first date.    So, if I did go on a date (this is a purely hypothetical scenario, by the way), and then down the road, that person did become a significant part of my life and family, when does it count?   What about if you’re with somebody for a really long time before you get married, and the day you consider to be the anniversary is different from your wedding date?   This is why I don’t do it.  It’s too confusing.  As always, though, I reserve the right to change my mind.
  • My parents have been married for 37 years.  They raised two kids.   I use the term loosely, since I don’t feel like too much of a real adult.   They worked.   They moved a few times.   They retired.   Now my dad is working again.    All this stuff has happened for them, to them, and with them.   They couldn’t possibly be the same people they were when they married, at ages 31 and 24.    How the hell did they do that?   I can’t even manage to get anyone to like me for more than 36 hours in a row right now.   I am incapable of being lovable.   And they’ve been in love longer than I’ve been alive.   My mom didn’t even like him when they met!    Seriously!   WTF?    What is wrong with me?
Just sayin’.  

A Mother’s Love/Lessons in Denial.

So, I think I’ve mentioned before that no one should tell my mother that I’ve been riding on the back of Gertrude.   This is a serious request.   You really should not tell her.   She has made herself perfectly clear.   She’s said from day one that I mentioned this J4 character that has no car, and only rides a motorcycle, that I am to stay off of the motorcycle.   I mentioned that I still would like to have a Vespa, and she still seemed to accept that, but for whatever reason, she’s not down with the motorcycle.   Yet, at least three times today, she “reminded me” to stay off of the motorcycle.   I tried to tell her, and she said, “You better not be!”

 But, here’s the thing, she’s got to know.   I mean, how can she really expect me not to?  I mean, it’s San Francisco, a city that was not designed for automobiles.   There are large portions of our fair city that cannot be appreciated in a car.    I don’t really see it as an “alternative transportation” when it really is much more convenient to the life we live here.   We can hop on Gertrude and go to North Beach, China Town, the Haight, or wherever, without thinking twice about where we’ll park her.   There are a lot of motorcycle only parking areas, and even when there’s not, we can slide in between cars or onto the sidewalk. 

That being said, there’s no way that I’ll ever go to the extreme that J4 has, and get rid of Keiko.  I’ve seen that there are advantages to both, the car and the motorcycle.    The other day, while I was on my “lunch” break, I crawled into the back seat with a blanket and knocked out for about half an hour.  I couldn’t do that with a scooter or a motorcycle.   Also, the car has climate control.   We went down to San Jose on Friday night, and I would have been miserable on the back of the bike.   Also, you can’t ride a motorcycle in a skirt.  

So, I maintain that Mommy knows that “The Baby” is slowly turning into a “biker babe” but she won’t hear it from my mouth.    You know what they say, it won’t hurt her.   I would tell her.  I’m not in the habit of lying, and I’m not trying to be rebellious.    It just makes sense.  Plus, it’s kind of fun.  

 

 

Current mood: devious