Mom & Me Three Archive

...not really burning out on caregiving but covered with the ash of the need for some alone time and the need to not have to keep my eye on Mom. The ash snuck up on me yesterday. I thought, most of the day, that I was and we were having a good day. I awoke Mom at 1000 and she didn't resist. We talked about going to WalMart to look for some new bras for her (although rain later in the day stopped us from doing that). We had a hair day in the morning and finished her hair just after her early nap. I played with her hair, creating a new style with which she was pleased. The only glitches in the day were that from just before lunch I didn't feel like taking her stats and I became mildly pissed that her awakening from her nap interrupted some much needed laser focusing during a teaching-myself foray into creating some dynamic aspects to the Table of Contents I'm designing for this site. It felt like I got over that easily, though. The major ashing didn't become apparent to me until the evening. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was watch back-to-back episodes of Sex and the City. That was okay with Mom. As well, I didn't want to make any dinner so I offered Mom a Just Desserts dinner, the last of our brownies and English Toffee ice cream, which I shared. Sugar on the Tube and Sugar down the tube. I should have figured it out then. I don't favor sugary meals and rarely eat dessert.
    Mom retired around 2200. I remained eyes fixed on the set staring down the last episode of the first season of Sex and the City. Then I thought, well, I've got some uninterrupted time here, I'm not tired, I'll pick up where I left off on the computer earlier. My mind and my emotions were mush, though. All I could do was play Solitaire, which is also rare for me.
    Suddenly, at 2230 Mom was up, leaning over the railing binding the living room that blocks her from accidentally falling into the lowered room, smiling coyly, telling me she couldn't sleep.
    What few spirits I had plummeted. Without monitoring myself I blurted, "Mom, I can't handle keeping an eye on you right now. I desperately need to be alone. Do you think you could go back to bed?" Oooh...I cringed. I have mean memories of my father telling her this in a much less diplomatic fashion when he was so mean drunk in the evening that he couldn't deal with himself nor anyone else. Those memories always included Mom simmering and refusing to go to bed. Good for her. But I've never wanted to do anything similar to her. Yet, last night, I did. Lucky for me, she just shrugged and said, "I'll sit in the dinette and read." I'd gotten her a new batch of gossip tabloids on Tuesday so she had plenty of reading material.
    I thought that would be sufficient but my meanness didn't stop there. Around 2330 after I'd been sitting in front of the computer, not even able to play Solitaire for the simmering, not really doing anything but randomly going through emails and trashing them, it occurred to me that Mom wasn't going to go to bed until I did. I launched another thoughtless attack: "Mom, in case you're waiting to go to bed until I go to bed, I'm waiting for you to go to bed so I can go to bed. Look, I know you think you're perfectly fine unsupervised but just the way you weave and shuffle through the house, well, I have to be up when you're up. You're not safe without me keeping an eye on you. That's my job. That's why I'm here, to protect you from yourself. And this evening, I need a mini-vacation from caring for you so I'm having to provide it on my own, but you being up is making that impossible. I'm not a happy camper, tonight. So, when you go to bed, I'll go to bed." I cringed again.
    Mom didn't. "Okay," she said. "Well, I'm going to stay up a little longer."
    At midnight I felt so awful, physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, I figured the best place for me was bed. I announced this to Mom. She was amiable. We both headed into our separate bedrooms. Her light, though, I noticed, didn't go out until about 0100. She was reading her current book in bed. When her light went out I fell into a fitful sleep.
    This morning I'm feeling, well, still ashed over but better. I'm pleased that I don't have to awaken Mom until 1300 because of her bedtime last night. I'm pleased that the rain has set in again. It feels to me as though it's done this just for me in the past few days. Yesterday, especially, there was no indication of it on the weather channel. It just set in about the time I started ashing over to wash off the ash, cool down the ember. Today it set in around noon, in time for me to relax before I awaken Mom.
    Sometimes the universe conspires to ameliorate negative intention, as well as bolstering positive intention. Now, with luck, I hope I can get through today in a fairly decent mood and not meansnap at Mom.