Mom & Me Three Archive

    She had a good, though somewhat short, day; a minor nap; felt good, statted good, tiny fever before going to bed, almost couldn't be considered a fever but I gave her acetaminophen anyway. Very, very good mood. Sometimes taking care of her is such a treat!

    Late this afternoon while she was napping the holiday spirit finally hit me. It now feels to me as though I am on the eve of The New Year. I thought about what period of time this old year has encompassed and I think the first day was 10/25/03 when she injured her back. Although we've had other problems since then, that's when this tension, which seems to have released today, began. I thought it was over when we sold the house in Mesa but it wasn't. Now, though, for no reason of which I can think, I feel like the year's at an end. I'm ready to celebrate. Finally! I don't care that the holiday celebrations are officially over. For me, they've just begun.
    Reminded me of something I read some years ago, can't remember from where it comes: A rumination suggesting that instead of celebrating birthdays we should celebrate those times in which a person feels she has reached a goal, recognizes that she is at an end and a beginning...celebrating that day as a birthday of sorts. This is how I feel today.
    It's not that I think I will never again feel overwhelmed by what I'm doing here nor do I believe I will no longer have low periods. I think what has happened, though, is that I've mastered a few challenges so that future events which draw upon these experiences will no longer seem like challenges. I can't tell you what the challenges were. I can only tell you that I feel as though, today, I have reached a point where old challenges are no longer challenges and I am ready to face new ones (after some celebration, and maybe some rest of course, if this is what the gods allow).
    I feel so strongly that I have, today, crossed some sort of landmark and that my crossing is meaningful and, hopefully, auspicious, that if I still practiced astrology I would rifle through ephemerides looking for transiting and natally progressing planets that have recently turned direct (or retrograde, perhaps) and compare those with my natal chart. Since I no longer practice astrology, though, I'll confine my search to the landscape in the new direction toward which I feel as though I've turned, scanning for clues about the possibilities that are about to unfold.

    This evening, for the second time in about a week, my mother decided that her bathroom light no longer works. What's happening is that she's remembering that in Mesa the bathroom light was the bottom switch and the bathroom fan was the top switch. She's throwing the fan switch here, thinking it's the light switch and isn't leaving it on long enough to hear the fan and realize she threw the wrong switch. I think this will straighten itself out. She has an old mind, though, and I've come to accept that every once in awhile it's going to decide she is somewhere other than where I think she is and try to do things from a past reference point.
    It's interesting. Sometimes the trigger is obvious: For instance, one of the top sheets I use on her bed is one we bought on Guam decades ago. Interesting comment on old sheets, that they last so long. Anyway, on a strong pink background it displays large, oblique yellow and white flowers with orange centers. It's a striking sheet. She always notices it when I've used it to make her bed. Occasionally when she's slept under this sheet she awakens "on Guam" in the sense that she remembers morning routines and house layouts from our life there. The position of the bedroom in which she now sleeps belonged to my two younger sisters. When she awakens "on Guam" and exits the bedroom she wonders where they are. When we're in the bathroom on these days she remembers the perfume MFS used to wear, a Faberge scent with the word "wood" in it; very strong; the bathroom would retain it for hours after she showered and sprayed herself with it. I'm thinking "Woodhue" but that might be incorrect. I have no idea yet what "trigger" causes her to reverse the bathroom switches here but I expect it will in some innocent way reveal itself.
    I haven't had any trouble remembering that this year is 2005. I've always favored the odd years, though.
    I'm ready for bed. Mmmm...feels good.
    Later.