Bless All Our Damn Hearts

God, it's been a frustrating day. One of those days where I should have just stayed in bed and wept at the vast hole of uselessness my life appears to be on these days.

I walked into Mother's room at the Assisted Living Place and she was obviously not doing well and she looked at me and said, "What are YOU doing here?" which was a damn good question. She seems to have given up on some levels and I don't blame her. It was probably nothing more than sheer will and determination keeping her going when she was living at home and now she doesn't need those things as much because there are others who are there to make her meals and do her cleaning and laundry and it's like she's lost her grit.
Again- I understand.
She's left with nothing to focus on but her pain and her dizziness and the things that piss her off and those are myriad. Just knowing, as she does, that the more she slips into helplessness, the better off financially she'll be, is enough to let her give up whatever fight there was in her although I know it wasn't possible to leave her at home where she could have burned the place up or taken all the wrong pills or gotten lost somewhere a few blocks from home or fallen and not had anyone to find her, or given all her money to a scammer (she gave SOME money to some scammers so this is not completely impossible), or, or, or.
But really- would that have been worse than what she's going through now?
I don't know. I really don't. That is not a rhetorical question. It is a true questioning question.

She is, yes, confused. And pissed. Not as pissed as the lady I saw down in the clinic who had drawn her eyebrows on with red lipstick (hey! I think that may have been a conscious choice) but pissed, nonetheless. She was pissed because they make you do everything there when you don't even want to. Or at least, she's pretty sure they do. They make you go to breakfast and if you don't want to go to breakfast, you don't get any breakfast! Which is not true. They bring her breakfast if she doesn't feel like going to the dining room but when I pointed that out, she said, "But then I spill things!"
She doesn't want to go to PT but they make her go to PT for her knees and it hurts!
I told her that she doesn't have to go to PT if she doesn't want to and she agreed that is probably true but...
But what?
Oh. I don't know.
She hates one of the women who sits at her table in the dining room. Frankly, I'd hate her too. She's a self-absorbed, prejudiced, snobby, snotty old bitch who finds great pleasure in putting Mother down. So I told Mother she doesn't have to sit there. She can sit at another table.
"Oh no I can't!" she said. "You can't move from one table to another."
This is entirely not true. Those sweet ladies up there who serve the tables would not care one iota.
But again...but...

So back down to the clinic where we all sat around (Mr. Moon, the doctor, the social worker, me) talking about the ways to make her qualify for the insurance which of course was all about her deficits. This just sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks.
GENWORTH. DO NOT BUY GENWORTH INSURANCE!
There. I just said it.

Then they set up an appointment for her to see the Orthopedist who was supposed to come in that afternoon so I was going to come back for that. I went and picked up my glasses prescription and went to the place where they supposedly make your glasses in an hour. This is true if you don't have the type of prescription I do, which if you do, it'll take 7-10 working days.
Oh well.
The nicest, nicest lady helped me. She was patient and she was sweet and she laughed at my snarky jokes. I found some red frames I liked. They are kind of funky but don't have any blingy, cheap-looking crap on them which even some of the most expensive ones do.


She didn't try to sell me every add-on they had. She honestly told me what she thought I needed and what I did not need. I agreed with her. I didn't walk out of there feeling like I'd been railroaded into anything.
Bless her heart.

I picked up a sandwich and went to Lily's to eat it. Owen has a cold but he's feeling okay. When I left, he said, "No leave me, Mermer!" which I thought was so sweet. I'll see him again tomorrow. I went back to the ALP to find that the doctor wasn't coming. The next time he IS coming is near the end of March. I called Mother's current ortho guy's office to make an appointment but they can't see her until April, so what the hey?
She said, "It doesn't matter. I've been in pain for so long that it just doesn't matter."

I sat and talked to her for awhile and she told me about the mean woman at the table again and we talked about some other things and then I left and came home, feeling like I'd been nothing of any use to her at all and feeling guilty and feeling, oh, fuck.
Just fucking useless.
Nothing got accomplished except that I ordered overpriced red glasses.
My mother is still in pain and will still BE in pain. I haven't tended anything today or created anything or even cooked anything. I have felt sorry for myself and I have felt resentful.
I feel like a worm or maybe worm shit.
Cold worm shit.

Mr. Moon is at a VERY exciting basketball game in town. FSU vs Duke and I know he's excited. I swear- that man deserves some real enjoyment. There he is with all of Mother's forms and everything is on his back and he's the one dealing with the insurance, he's the one being sweet to her, he's the one she calls when she needs anything. Anything at all.
And he's there for her.

Lickity split. He calms her, he humors her, he makes her laugh.

And then he listens to me whine and moan. He holds me up when I feel that I am going down. He doesn't judge. He is on my team. He fills the bin with dog food. He brings home the chicken feed. He comes home early to play with the grandson. He helps build the sets for the plays I'm in. He tells me every night how much he enjoys whatever it was I cooked. He washes dishes. He makes it possible for me to live this life I live and he seems to love me. He is there for the children, no matter what it is they need. He is just pure good. Or as pure-good as a spirit wrapped up in a human body can be.

All right. I've written myself into a puddle of maudlin tears. I believe I need to go paint myself some eyebrows on with red lipstick now and put on a nylon slip and make a drink of straight gin and sit on the porch and hope for small children or a stray dog to pass by to give me an excuse to yell obscenities into the darkening twilight and then weep into my dirty, tangled hair.

Hey! I'm an old southern woman! We get to do these things if we want to!
I'll wear my great-grandmother's diamond necklace while I do them. It will add to the charm of my insanity.

Or maybe I'll just go heat up some of those chicken and bean enchiladas and go to bed and wake up tomorrow when I have plenty of other things I need to do and accomplish and give it all another shot.

I'll tell you this, though, I am NOT giving my personal Rhett Butler a chance to tell me that he doesn't give a damn.
I hope.

And for my own personal Rhett Butler's sake, I hope that FSU wins tonight.

And in 7-10 business days, I will be wearing red eyeglasses which are just as good as red-lipsticked eyebrows as far as I'm concerned. And maybe the new baby will be here by then and I'll be crying sweet tears of joy.

"Let me know how...that daughter of yours....is doing with the baby," my mother said.

I will. I will let her know when her next great-grandchild is born. I'll even take her to see him or her.

I do all I can and on some days it is pathetically apparent how little that is. This being one of them.

And yet the planet still orbits the sun. Go figure.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon