Viktor Frankl & can can dancers

A Jewish psychologist, Viktor Frankl, once presented human beings seek out pleasure to distract from lack of purpose.

Considering that idea really ruins my thorough enjoyment of mindless FB games. I’d prefer to hold to Freud’s theory (even if he has been largely disproved recently) that pleasure feeds some aspect of our psyche in a healthier way than it would be fed if left to its own devices. See, with Freud, I get pretty colors, angry birds, and justification.

With Frankl, I get no competition for digital medals (or bragging rights when I finally get the gold), no FB, and an active expectation of personal responsibility.

And I’d like to chunk the theory purely for convenience and comfort’s sake, but Frankl argued this point to his fellow concentration camp prisoners. They not only listened; they stopped committing suicide.

Imagine. Such oppressive, constant conditions, surrounded on every side by barbed wire and people who literally wish for reasons to kill – and finding peace, value in one’s existence. And this is where it becomes personally challenging for me to dismiss Frankl: he didn’t tell his fellow captives not to commit suicide.

He said if the person wanted to die, fine. Let your captors kill you. Because if someone decides to take their own life, that’s their choice. But taking the life of another removes the choice completely.

It’s the removal of choice which makes what would be just another tragic statistic into a noteworthy sacrifice.

Several conversations about one’s right to choose to die have happened around me recently. Given my mom’s health and my inability to stay away from weightier life topics, I can see why, but I never thought I’d be the lightning rod for that particular topic.

The first happened one sunny day at a train station.

A friend of mine, his partner, and I waited for our ride when she began ruminating about how her life would turn out, what would happen when she started to age. She presented the current reality of many elderly, trapped in breaking down bodies inside timeworn buildings which smell of antiseptic, powdery skin, and fading life. Imagine, she said, hushed and horrified, being unable to feed yourself, or go to the bathroom by yourself.

I thought of my mom, whom I’d helped do both of those things earlier that day, and just nodded. It’d be incredibly hard, I’d think, I said, but if my mom made that choice, I would be very sad.

There’s a secret understanding between my mom and me, something we’ve not ever really stated but know, about the final time my lifelong struggle with depression made me suicidal. All I wanted from life was go to be able to close my eyes and never open them. What I was given was a weekend of shopping with a bunch of my mom’s girlfriends.

Six of us stayed in a single hotel room near the world’s largest flea market. The first night, one of the women passed out postcards and told us to write our names on whichever we felt most reflected our personalities. I picked can can dancers featured in a decidedly a Parisian jolie vibe.

Then we passed the cards, each writing one thing we most wish we could tell the person the card represented. The comments were unsigned, all sorts of ink and feminine scrawl covering the backs by the time the cards returned to their owners.

I knew my mom’s handwriting and looked for her comment first. In pink ink, her pretty handwriting said, “If you were gone, I would be very sad.”

From that weekend, whenever moments pressed keenly but words wouldn’t convey feelings, we would say that to each other. I still have the postcard.

I can’t imagine what my mom deals with. Her body works, and then doesn’t. Every experience has to be wrestled away from a tired body which craves unconsciousness every moment. She forgets, then remembers in pieces.

If now most see through a glass darkly, then she sees now through a mosaic, with tiles constantly changing shape and size.

And yet, she chooses to remain. Still. 

I suspect out there somewhere, if Viktor Frankl heard of this story, he'd appreciate Mom's unique situation and her unquestionably worthy, hard response. And if she were gone, we could be sad together.

cake

A friend once did me a great service: she called me selfish. 

I was gobsmacked at the time, layers of defense cut clean by invested emotion. I remember blinking like a caught fish, as if the power of my moving lashes could affect time or delete the words. But they were said, and hung in the air.

I adored this friend, so how could I be selfish?! We met every week at the same restaurant. At the same scheduled time. Where she would eat the same dish. And have the same drink. Both prepared the same way. And then we would schedule the next meeting, even knowing nothing would change. Every time.

And I would be late. Every time.

My times of arrival changed each week, but it was always after what we'd agreed on. Which I could admit was passive-aggressive, but selfish!? Ha. Whatever.

Looking back, I see how I only saw my side, and how everything she did made her just. More. Wrong. I only saw how she was taking from me, and couldn't see what she was trying to give. 

I didn't see how I wanted my cake because not sharing meant more than keeping a friend.

Tonight, another conversation happened. Sue's 70, and cooked for 13 hours today; then set up for another long day to start tomorrow. She, with her grit apparent, spoke of her son's drug addiction. Her keen gaze focused on stew pots and muffin tins softened when she shared her son's been sober for a bit over a year now.

Then hardened when she asked how people younger than either of us could fill multiple WalMart carts using food stamps after visiting a local church to have someone else cover the electric bill. Her anger stewed as she pondered how others' slices seemed more impressive being ill-gotten. She blamed the government for making society lazy. 

She asked me what I thought, and I wasn't sure what to say. I didn't know how to share that no one was taking her cake, or how it doesn't matter what's on the menu when the soul's not satisfied. It's all tasteless pastry, flaking into nothingness.

But as we talked and washed dishes, Sue kept packing up food. Gumbo from the pots she scrubbed turned up in a packed foil-covered cup; along with another filled with soup while I was distracted, drying silverware.

Somehow, all told after an hour and a half of wiping down a kitchen, wrapping food, drying dishes, and being speaking truth when asked my thoughts by a stranger, I walked out with a foil cake pan filled with 2 Big Gulps of gumbo and beef soup, along 2 pieces of lemon cake.

And 8 pieces of chocolate cake to share. 

All because I stayed to help someone who could have done everything on her own and didn't really need me. She even asked if I didn't have some place to go at one point, and something else to do.

Nope, I said. I've got no plans tonight, other than to enjoy sharing some cake.

surrealistic Sunday, dull Razors

Today was surrealistic. 

I kept walking around the house after church, expecting to see Mom. Even knowing she was napping, safe, with yarn to crochet when she was ready and a fresh supply of chocolate. Or later, knowing she had dinner and went to bed around 7, each creak or gust of the wind made me think I'd've seen her if I had just looked up sooner.

As if she would be healthier if I had just been better.

And the truth is the possibility of Mom dying rubs against so many hard things I have to accept as a christian. It's in the hard times of suffering when I can do nothing other than watch and accept when the ideas of grace, or the beauty of some esoteric idea of God feels most irrelevant.

See, that seems to be the ugly, most hushed up secret about christians: we doubt, too. A lot. Often. In our heads and in our prayers. 

And the brave of us talk with God about it, hoping He has some time between dealing with failed American foreign policy consequences and the next hurling comet to listen.

Friends will listen, but faith is a personal choice, no matter its flavor. No matter how empathetic or sensitive the ear, each person's soul (or state thereof) has been trusted to a single individual. And their faith.

Two of my closest supports through this dark winter are atheists. They have both questioned faith, questioned Occam's Razor of living as if there were a god to dullness. And settled into the conclusion existence begins at birth, and ends at death.

The pragmatist in me appreciates the beauty, the clean-ness of that idea. This body recycled to the earth from whence it came, leaving only memories of a life lived. Those, in turn, take as little or as much space as is chosen and preferred. Debts collected would be written off, pictures, things collected dispersed into new homes or given to those with greater need and less possession.

But this in-between of Mom being-present-but-not resonates with part of me I have the least words for. The entire situation makes my inner pragmatist twitch, troubled by the absolute illogic, the overwhelming messiness, but that part has plenty of things to say.

The quieter, smaller part sees everything, but knows my eyes are not just cameras; they're also projectors. Small projectors tilted by fear of loss and the unknown, not showing what is but what may be feared to be.

And because fear cannot hold the same space as love, that still, quiet voice fills spaces with better, possible stories; stories of faith and questions asked of a God who makes time for a surrealistic Sunday and the occasional dull razor.

I'm not crazy. I had me tested.

I love Big Bang Theory. And I secretly love Sheldon.

He's quirky and brilliant and likes things the way he likes them. He can not see life any other way than the way he sees it, but he is surprisingly kind at unexpected times, and authentically wants to make the world a better place. Although this statement would make that little nerve just under his eye twitch, I feel him.

He doesn't always realize he doesn't know best because his way makes sense in his head.

Knowing that, he makes sense in my head; because there's not a lot that can be done with Sheldon except to accept him. He's not crazy. His mom had him tested when he was kid.

She's from far East Texas, after all, and admits Sheldon got all that science stuff from Jesus. She only sees life the way she sees it, too.

My mom gets Sheldon's mom. She thinks she's funny. And I love that about my mom, that she sees so many different perspectives so different from her own.

Before I was born, when love was still young, my mom went to a concert with my dad. They sat on a grassy knoll, listening to a Jesus hippie band. The night wrapped as they had dinner with some Filipino friends, whose daughter later became one of my best childhood friends.

Later, when my mom left my dad, she had me tested. I wasn't crazy.

Since the move in September, I've wondered if my result changed and no one's had the chance to tell me yet. Truth be told, that was a big part of why I started seeing a therapist.

I thought I'd braced for the culture shock, the difference in political perspectives. I thought if I were seen as capable and professional in Dallas, I would be in not-Dallas. 

But no.

I had seen life the way I had seen it, thinking I could fit this new perspective into all the others previously accumulated. I was gobsmacked.

Even after having an emotional meltdown in front of my therapist (complete with white knuckles and adrenaline spikes because really, even meltdowns need accessories), nights of not sleeping, days of not eating, 3 moves in 5 months, and a nursing home debt comparable to student loans; it can be said I have been tested. 

And cool. I'm not crazy.

earth mothers

I spoke with Maan Di, my friend on the North Carolina mountain.

Maan Di's one of those rare souls who lives every moment fully. Born in the in-between of California and Mexico, she became, naturally, a bible translator/missionary to Africa. And married a man named Sven, who was raised in a Jewish commune. She, Sven, and their little one wandered off one night, leaving the Lone Star State for a mountain in a land known more for its beaches. Maan Di's the name given to her during a naming ceremony in an Asian country. She prefers it to her American name, which is far too cute for the earth mother she has become.

She said she has great respect for me, which staggers and humbles.

Today, a gift came in the mail from Jan who prefers the solitude of her personal cave. 

She and her partner met in a scuba diving class in the middle of a completely landlocked urban area. Jan reads voraciously, buried contentedly by mountains of books lining her bedroom walls. Such a hippie rebel, she and her partner waited until her 40s to have kids. The boys went opposite directions for college; now, she attends to her partner through Parkinson's.

And dealing with that, she thought to send me a gift.

These women are my shelter, even though miles separate us. And in the middle of a land full of customs and thoughts I don't understand, I give thanks and feel at rest. 

there is no dry

"You're just too creative to work here, and I think you'd get bored with any of the positions in our current group."

"You're so selfish!"

"You're too aware of yourself; you're biggest weak spot? Not believing in yourself."

These are the things that were said; these are not the thoughts in my head. And as I am Borg, and they do not compute, shunted they are; left aimless in tangential code somewhere in my mental matrix until the next purge commences.

Anaïs Nin said, "I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living." And the first time I read those words, I thought I had found a lifeline, a justification for my mental deep sea diving. Feeling like some transcendent bohemian icon personally granted me permission, I plunged and lunged into the dark recesses of my psyche.

For a time, just plunging satisfied. Depths existed, and the knowledge sustained my wallowing. I floated in that in-between, relishing questions requiring no answers to justify their existence.

Eventually, though, the weight of unanswered, ever-present questions mounted, like the weight of water, and I took another deep breath before swooping down again, trying to escape the pressure.

One of the challenges presented in plunging the depths of one's psyche repeatedly (besides the obvious blurring of favored scifi references and running out of swimming synonyms) becomes where to store all the questions, no matter their need for answers or resolution. Because although they may not require resolution, they certainly fill up the mental spaces!

And not to put too fine a point on it, but questions exist to eventually be resolved; they float on the support of answers. Questions, in Yoda-ese, the Force are; answers, the Jedi be. One can exist, hovering in the ether with no correlating tether, but needs call to that which fulfills. And a master and pandwan must be found.

Because in no reality or universe did an astronaut venture out into space and avoid a planet teeming with new life and/or new civilization. Even when they were utterly lost in space.

The last time I took stock of the questions gathering space in my head, most of the questions didn't survive questioning. After all, what's left when all that's left are questions?

I questioned my questions. And found God.

Who led me to Oklahoma. And away from any semblance of stability.

So now the question beneath all the others, the pressing weight of Force and water; more powerful than the fear of being viewed as selfish, rebellious, weird, artistic, or worst, inauthentic, cowardly, and incapable, is this: dive or dive not? There is no dry.

Stitch and Shuffle

Today meant another visit to DHS to deliver paperwork. I got a speeding ticket on the way, which ate half an hour of my lunch and adds to my to-do list Friday. But most frustrating, it meant I didn't get to see my mom today.

She's doing better, so present and aware. When I saw her yesterday, she kept telling me to sit, visit, breathe. She didn't fuss, just gently held my hand and asked me to feed her. Her plate contained pumpkin, turkey, stuffing, gingerbread, with a medicinal shot glass of a lime green applesauce goo. She said it tasted like it looked; I told her to breathe through her nose and swallow carefully.

I remember in another life, my lip curling when people talked about what their loved ones ate, or if they did, when they did. It presented as a cry for sentimentality, like the person needed something from me I couldn't relate to or care to understand. 

I have become one of those people.

My thoughts, especially unkind to new parents whose worldviews narrowed solely to the wonders of baby bodily fluids and overly cheerful comparisons of helpful/educational toys, echo ironically in my head now as I recall meetings with the dietitian and trying to figure out the logistics of moving Mom from her wheelchair to her bed most safely and quickly.

It's not sentimentality which drives the need to share; it's clinging to a thin light against dark. If Mom's eating, she's not buried in the quicksands of depression. Asking for help means awareness of a need and a cognizance others await the chance to assist. Missing me means she's awake, aware; means she knows time has passed.

It's little things which cast the grandest light now. Last week, for instance, I knew she was getting better when she took three steps by herself. Three.

Something new and necessary on the list of things learned is the logistics of maneuvering from wheelchair to bed. We've worked out a system: Mom can raise her arms, put them around my neck; I wrap my arms around her, under the ribs towards the small of her back, and brace/adjust as I turn. Her shuffles move her, with enough momentum and a bit of force on my part. Et voila! She's on the bed.

It doesn't seem like much, but it's taken months to work that process out.

Last week, rather than me having to hold and move her all at the same time, she shuffled her feet all by herself.

The home team shoots. They score. The crowd (in my head) GOES WILD!!!!

It was a good Friday. And although my family is small, and breaking, it is still so, very good. 

rain in a dry land

"You are such an encourager."

Words float around my head, like clouds in attic windows. Sometimes they weigh, pressing like a coming storm, and I can't look away. Their power builds the houses we live in, show what kind of world we would create. Compliments, critiques, words with intention, mark like rain splatter.

The most powerful compliment I ever received came from an absolute stranger. It showed up as a tweeted conversation with a friend, a random comment from someone who tweets and retweets to thousands of people. He just happened to see my tweet in the rushing scroll, and commented.

But in less than 30 characters, he named me.

All the first date questions - where I'm from, where I lived, what I did for my job, even my passions or the current state of my character, none of it was needed information. He commented on my soul-house like it was art. He saw me.

And I don't even know if he realized how deeply his words resonated. I seriously doubt it.

But there's something enduring in that random gift of beauty, something reminiscent of rain falling softly into dry earth.

trust

Looking back on it, this week presented as a trust exercise. (Which would have been useful information to have at the beginning of the week rather than the end.)

Sunday, after a call on his way over, my landlord showed my house to a very polite couple. They declined the house and I trusted that to be the final word. They called Thursday, saying they'd changed their minds. And would it be possible for me to be out in 2 weeks?

Monday, an impressively honest conversation with my boss brought the suggestion I find another position by the end of the month. As I'm still a very ignorant stranger in an equally strange land, I trusted the advice and moved on it. Quickly.

Tuesday, a nurse my mom trusted told her I couldn't push her wheelchair back to her room unless I was willing to change her and put her to bed. Thinking maybe there was a change in policy, I asked another nurse, and was told to tell the facility administrator. Who would be back Thursday.

Wednesday, I started therapy with a new counselor. We talked about Mom, the move, all the events since Labor Day. After waiting far too long, I mentioned my dad was a bipolar schizophrenic who self-medicated with alcohol and God. No trust challenges there. At. All.

Thursday, met with DHS again to update Mom's case. They made a copy of a sizable check they recommended go to Mom's nursing home invoice, and I said I'd drive to Norman (again) to close my checking account and open another with the same bank. 

Then I went to the nursing home where my mom lives and had a conversation about the formerly trusted nurse. The nurse manager said she would resolve the issue.

I received the phone call telling me I needed to move on the way back to the office. Then I put in 4 more hours. 

After work and after setting up safe calls (because I trust God, but He trusts me not to be an idiot), I checked out two possible houses on opposing ends of town. After having a challenging conversation with someone I'd like to keep as a friend. Even if he was an engaged person making inappropriate comments.

Today, I drew a box and the artist watching handed me an art competition application. And I sunk into the dark box inside my head, the mean, angry voices echoing how if I did something well this time, it would be expected again. And again. 

And wouldn't be sad if I couldn't produce something of worth on a consistent basis? After all, isn't that how an artist is defined? I shouldn't really claim the label of artist if I can't follow through with it; that doesn't make me an artist. It makes me a liar.

Trust me to not trust me; to put more weight in a voice belonging to someone long gone rather than a person placing an opportunity (literally) in my hands.

Trust me not to trust. But trust, with hope and time, that to change.

Start Again Tomorrow

I start therapy tomorrow. Again.

I honestly don't know how to feel about it. 

The first time I was sent to see someone, I broke my therapist. Granted, this was back when insipid questions like "I see your mother just left your abusive father with everything she could pack in a Datsun 210 and two kids.... andddd how does that make you feel?"

Being 12 and not horribly kind, I tore into the well-intentioned, but very, very green psychologist. The first volley: "Well, it doesn't really matter how I feel about it, does it? It's not my name on the reports to be filled out, nor does my opinion have weight. I'm 12, and won't be seen as an adult for a minimum of 6 more years. Perhaps a better, more accurate question would be, how do you feel about it?"

It went downhill from there. At the end of the session (20 minutes later), she cried messily as she told her director she quit. I rolled my eyes and asked to go home.

The next attempt fared about the same. Mom, desperate for some sort of consistent, healthy role model, had my brother and me tested by an organization which paired young kids with adult mentors. The tests were fun, easy, and felt like a simpler version of my private school placement exams. 

They contacted my mother with the appropriately weighted and considered results, requesting she come in with "the child." I remember they asked her into a room, and she told me to sit just outside the open door so she could keep an ear out for me. Some vague professional sat behind the desk, and oh so empathetically shared the tests, saying I was too damaged, due to sexual and physical abuse, to be accepted in the program. Also, the professional shared, there wasn't really anyone they could recommend to help, as the damage was too extensive.

My mom was pale when we left, and I remember thinking the expression "shell shocked" could be a paint color descriptor of her skin.

The next time I tried talking about anything in my past, a christian mystic found me. He was wonderful and open, but, like most mystics, tended to be more of the Type B hippie at heart. When the Spirit moved him (or the stars aligned or however the message was received), he followed, off to the next opportunity to talk about God and healing and possibilities.

And I was left with my freshly re-opened, rather gaping wound. 

Dan the counselor stepped up to bat next. He had kind eyes and treated me like a child, offering games to play with while we talked. It helped so much to have busy hands. But Dan's patients couldn't pay his bills, and R&D could. He had a family to think of; and left less than a year after we met.

Tired and frustrated, I tried to start piecemealing together what I had learned. I tried to self-care as much as I could, and did passably well until high school. When I was 17, a junior in high school, I was diagnosed with a genetic heart disorder.

To be fair, I was obese, with a BMI of 61%. I lied when we all shared results and said it was 16%, and isn't that bizarre?!? Obviously can't trust those results. Making it up a set of stairs wore me out. I started having seizures so often, I could plan them.

Up the stairs, and stop. Catch my breath. Turn, take the next set. Check my watch, late for class. Wait, why does the floor look so much closer than it did a.... Come to. Another watch face smashed. Gather up books and hope I can reorganize that report. Ignore the cramps and aches. Get to class. Squeeze into the weird high school desk-chairs. Don't pass out; people are watching. Breathe. Breathe. Ignore the dark dots around the edges of my vision. Just gotta make it through class.

Mom knew something was wrong. One morning, I had a killer headache. She told me to walk into the kitchen, a straight line from the hallway where we were standing. I made it - after hitting the edge of two walls. And almost falling over. Three times.

She took me to the ER. The doctor thought I was faking. On the way back to my school, we passed another doctor's office. We went there, and I was tested. For everything. EKG'ed, MRI'ed, bodily fluids were collected for two weeks. Everything looked like it was supposed to. Until it didn't. 

Yet another professional sat behind the desk, and oh so empathetically shared the tests. He said my heart told my blood to make too many triglycerides, which were collecting saturated fats into little piles (like they were supposed to). The little piles had begun choking my heart.

If you want to see 18, he said, change absolutely everything.

It worked, sort of. I changed my diet, became more aware of the seizures and their warning signs. Everything else going on in my head got boxed and put on the to-handle-later list.

It worked until I decided to major in psych in college. I made flying colors in human sexuality, struggled a bit with the chemical side of Psych 101 (my prof was a psychiatrist and former nurse). 

Abnormal psych clobbered me. The chapters on bipolar depression, schizoaffective disorders, researching psychotic breaks felt like someone had recorded my father's story. And I was being told I had to relive it. So many triggers; far more than I could process, and I... drowned in my head.

I can say that now and see it, but then, dark oily waves of depression and despair overpowered and swallowed. I remember my mom seeing me and trying to pierce the unseen Jell-O-like bubble. And I remember wishing I could figure out how to help her.

It took little and big steps, all hard, all terrifying when I could gather the energy to care. But it got better. I even got to the place where I thought I'd processed enough to be in the normal range of the insanity spectrum.

And then a friend made a comment about how she checks in with a counselor every year. It made sense, she said, since she went for annual physicals, to have annual mentals, too. It rambled around in the house of my consciousness, echoing at the least convenient moments. Like when I least want it to, and most need it.

The resonance has been steady since Labor Day, like a drip of water or a still, small voice with all the time in the world.

And now... I start therapy tomorrow. Again.

craft change

I moved from Dallas to Ada, OK, a town smaller than its name over Labor Day weekend. A three bedroom house packed in three days. And my mom laid out in a pallet in the backseat. After breaking up with my boyfriend, giving away my two cats and dog, we drove for 2 ½ hours to the ER; checked in at the hotel around 4 AM, and stayed there for 2 months.

It’s been going on 4 months now, and it's been a trip. I had no clue the Red River really marked the entrance to, well, if not the Twilight Zone, an entirely different world.

The first staff meeting should have been a sign. When asked about what he did on vacation the week before, one of my future coworkers talked about qualifying for his right-to-carry license. And berated his wife for misloading a bullet. (A single bullet, mind you, after several hours and several rounds from differing types of rifles and pistols.)

Before going on a tangent about his rather passionate, impressively narrow political preferences (which included, but were not limited to, mindless, murdering Muslims, and domestic terrorists (also known as liberals). And we worked for a branch of HR. Yeah, fun times. 

It took three months to find friends, 2 ½ months to find a ranch style 3 bedroom house (or something comparable). I found a faith community the week after Christmas.

I read in a blog post recently change is good and healthy, that we were created to change. It’s a great theory, and I even say I'd intrinsically agree. 

Except.

Change is hard, and humans, with all our wonderful textures, have weak spots we'd much prefer to have comforted rather than changed. Change nips at those weak spots, blurring perspective with doubt, or worse, ghosts of changes past. Change reminds of what was taken, and rarely of what was given.

Change means, by its very definition, what was will not be again. No matter how similar it looks or feels, change means a difference. 

And there's a reason no one changes without a reason to: because you will be different afterwards. And there's no way to know how you will be changed; only that you will be.

How terrifyingly freeing a thought.

I have to confess, I am not a big change-lover. I have been me for long enough I know me. I know how I think, I know what I like, and I have to say, I treat me pretty dang well.

I like me. I don't have to change for me.

Except.

I know me. And given the choice between a mundane, uneventful, taupe-colored sort of life full of security and being able to tell the story of a life which includes lines like "So that's when I saw the European chocolate delivery truck pull into the gun range and I decided to stop following it," or "I left my home state, closest intimates, and everything familiar to live among people I have nothing in common with,"  I'd choose taupe.

Because I have not changed enough to know consistently what is best for me. 

The familiar would decide my future because it was known, not because it was good. I'd continue to not trust because I'd been hurt in the past, or rush in because waiting took too much time (or so I thought when I was younger).

Trusting those different wouldn't occur. And nothing in my world would be different than it was before.

Except.

Time would pass. Planets would spin. Things, events outside my realm and scope would shift and happen.

And I would miss all of it. Because all I could see, my world would be a safe, familiar taupe-colored once-home. I'd miss out on the quirky mid-century cottage slowly being crafted on the other side of my fear.

Today was not a bad day. It was even, really, a good day. 

Mom got up for all three meals, and she even had the strength to wheel herself back and forth from her room to the dining area. No fainting, no sadness. Her bruise from the wheelchair fall continues to fade. She was cognizant and present, and the smile I remember almost completely fit.

She even gave me grief when I razzed her. It was, really, a good day.

Except damn. It was a really hard day.

Once upon a time, when my mom was healthy and so responsible, she bought a life insurance policy. It's not massive amounts of money (especially after taxes, the nursing home, and the bottomless doctors' bills), but it was a great deal.

It was such a great deal, having the insurance policy puts her over the allotted $2000 she can have in assets. So we have to reduce the cash value of her life insurance so we can maintain her need to have a functional quality of life.

So the first phone call Mom made on her shiny new red Droid Mini was to the insurance company.
The company allowed us to take a loan out against her policy, slicing it down to less than what I pay for a single month's rent. The difference will go the nursing home, complete with lots of documentation to show funds moved from account A to check B, handed to Person Y... so my mom can live in a cinder block building until the state decides she actually doesn't have enough income to cover the $7800/month cost on her own.

When I left her tonight, she was nomming the state of Oklahoma made of European-style chocolate. She promised to finish her mashed potatoes and gravy, but poked the turkey which had been chopped to indiscernability like it was a rejected science project.

Tomorrow, I'll drive to the closest Chase (two hours away round-trip), so I can close one checking account and open another; then reset all the automatic bill pays, direct deposits, and other electronic ways I'm connected in the interwebs.

Then I'll send more documentation to DHS to verify what I did. This is after the 5 years of bank statements for the soon-to-be-closed account I supplied already. And the 5 years of bank statements for my mom's accounts. And the savings accounts. And the day trip to Dallas to get a copy of the car title.

Don't even get me started on the fun-ness of Power of Attorney paperwork. Or trying to convince a bill collector to take my money because my mom can't come to the phone as she's in a nursing home.

All so my mom can have a place to safely wander the grey valley between here and that far green country under a swift sunrise. And poke mystery meat while choosing dessert first.