Birthday Anticipation

Today is...

...my last blog at the age of 51. My birthday is tomorrow.

I've been anticipating this birthday much like New Year's, having missed a standard New Year at home this year. (come back for what I intend to be '52 Weeks @ 52') Feeling my whole life was on 'hold' January 1st for an unknown amount of time, I never bothered to hone in on intentions/aspirations, plans, dreams, hopes, etc. Maybe that's actually part of the unappreciated beauty of a Spring birthday too - even IF I had done all of those introspective things - now is a good time (before too much of the year has slipped away) to re-assess and tweak the best of intentions. Normally all of that is way beyond me - believing it all too much of an attempt to control too much. Even when I was quite young I latched onto the lyric by John Lennon where he states 'LIFE is what happens while you're making OTHER plans.' I've lived long enough now to have learned that while it sounded wise and profound when I first stumbled upon it - it's way too often way too true for most of us. I live in constant amazement at folks I know who can plan vacations/events even as much as a month in advance - never mind a year or so.

Having seen so very up close and personal how much of my mother's life she's lost recently it becomes even more essential for me to squeeze the absolute most I can from each and every moment of my own!

Part of what motivates me is in November of 2005 I was told by a harsh and very unkind cardiologist that without a particular kind of pacemaker he wanted to insert the next morning he didn't give me 5 years to survive. IF he was correct, this birthday could very likely be my last. But, then - isn't that potentially true of any of us? We just don't get told so quite so bluntly. I'll admit to a tendency to gloat and say 'toldja so' on occassion - I do soooooooo enjoy being 'right' sometimes. But there's no 'right' mixed up in this. What I want - deeply, earnestly - is for him to just be WRONG! I have a daughter in college expected to graduate NEXT year. By the Sunday following my Saturday ER visit - that doc had mailed me a letter saying that he declined to ever see me again as a patient (due to my declining his recommended treatment? I know they can choose to treat patients inelligible for insurance/aid...). Call me petty...but I really, REALLY just want him to have been WRONG!

On Well Being

OK!
She's back! I may or may not have even been missed the past 2+ months, but I'm back. Back to MY life: to blogging, writing, sewing, creative living, gardening, searching and discovering, learning, stretching and anything else MY life encompasses and produces.

For the past 4 or 5 days I'd been meditating and mulling how and when to 're-emerge' here in Studio Lakeside and hadn't found the 'right' flicker of inspiration until this morning when checking out Jamie Ridler Studios where Jamie issued her weekly prompt for
Wishcasting Wednesday for Wednesday, March 17, 2010 "What Do You Wish To Pay Attention To? Ohhhhh...what a goodie this is!

I knew immediately what I wanted to share in regard to what I wish to pay attention to. I wish with alllllll my heart to pay attention to what does and what does not infuse me with a sense of well being or being well.

While in Ohio my soul was in absolute agony observing my mother and numerous practices that I knew could not and were not contributing to well being for her. Speaking of some of them with her did NOT go well at all and were countered with irate hostility. And speaking of or trying to address conditions that were unsuitable for anyone at all, least of all myself, coming to her aid whether day to day or in a possible emergency situation were, sadly, even LESS well received. Her oft repeated response that she was 'surviving' made me so very sad. I want, wanted, for her to 'thrive', not just survive. And I want it for me too.

Upon my return I have come to realize I thrive on sleeping in my bed with memory foam pad. My body needs LOTS of water, green tea and lemonade - not even an ocassional pop/soda. I can less afford recovery time from just pushing through than time for rest breaks to avert fatigue and/or pain. And I'm still thinking and listing...

Chaos, Anger & Tears

...have been my life the last six+ weeks. I know no other way to summarize it. The details are exhausting and painful to recall, never mind recount. I haven't journaled, barely blogged and have only ocassionally managed so much as a Facebook status.

The situation I anticipated addressing with my mother when I came to Ohio from California is sooooooooo much MORE intense and hopeless than I could ever have imagined. I am saddened, sickened and discouraged beyond what words can express. COPD, alzheimer's, hoarder/OCD disorder, incredible hostility and resentment - I had NO IDEA what I was in for! How physically challenging it would be/is to daily/hourly deny the pain and limitations of my RA. How emotionally draining it is to daily face openly bitter hostility in one you would stereotypically hope to find encouragement and nurture. How heartbreakingly disappointing it is instead of being welcome and received as a help to be seen as a troublemaker and agitator.

I had hoped to be like a pebble in a pond sending ripples of kindness and caring through the waters and instead often feel like a misdirected whirlpool jet.

I have had to face and embrace the fact that much really is impossible - I CAN'T reason with someone who's become unreasonable. Am having to come to terms with the probability I will HAVE TO be cruel to be kind and I don't know HOW. Hard to think of 'Mom' as opposition but that's what she's become and according to law, she holds the trump cards unless/until the eventuality that she actually DOES hurt herself. Prevention is NOT our option or priviledge and I am unaccustomed to carrying this much anger and frustration within. Only two of 4 siblings can agree and a third is vulnerable to the 'terrorism' of the 4th (who actually DOES bear a striking physical resemblance to Osama Bin Laden).

I feel useless and long to be 'home'.

I can't tell you...well, maybe I could but you wouldn't believe it. Or, IF I did and YOU did it would have to mean you've been here and made it through - in which case, I NEED to hear YOUR story - desperately.

The past month has been a roller coaster of chaos and tears, disgust, agony and grieving. Where is the happy faced, good humored life of retirees like The Golden Girls and those smiling old women golfing you see in TV commercials and magazine ads? Why didn't MY mother get to be one of THOSE? Instead, she's this cross, cranky, grumpy, mean-spirited (mean as a snake are her own words when she's in a GOOD mood, relatively)OLD woman at the eve of her 75th birthday and I wish every day I could turn my back on her and RUN/FLY back to MY life instead of trying so ineptly to clean up after her. It's sooooooooooooooooo like having a 3 year old again most of the day 'most everyday. When did she give up washing her hands after toileting, I wonder? And how is it she can't understand there's a link to inadequate personal hygiene and subsequent upset bowel/digestive issues? AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Oh...and I miss MY bed, MY shower, MY kitchen, MY TV and music - ALOT!