I’m feeling a little better!…

Except that I’m not.  I woke up this morning with a sore, mucusy throat.  But I believe it is from allergies, and not congestive heart failure so Holy Grail quote is still a win!

My Dr decided things looked good enough at my follow up to just keep me off my meds and see me in a month.  If I were gonna be honest here, my heart rate is looking better and better to me each workout but my blood pressure seems to be remaining high.

I am remedying that by not taking my blood pressure so often.  THE STRESS OF HIGH BP IS GIVING ME HIGH BP.  I didn’t even have to google for that diagnosis.  I am that good.

Sadly (really sadly, not funny sadly), the reason that I hadn’t come to spread my heart rate joy sooner is because my grandmother has developed another cancer.

No, not her second.  Her THIRD.  She is a month and 10 days away from turning 90, kicked breast cancer’s ass in 2001 with a simple lumpectomy and radiation, responded amazing well to chemo and put lymphoma in remission 2+ years ago, and now she has to deal with aggressive uterine cancer.

The Dr told her that no treatment at all meant a possbility of bleeding out.  She said she wouldn’t mind that so much.  And I totally get it.

What I didn’t totally get right away is how much of all this is now completely my responsibility.  Not her physical care – we agreed way back in the beginning that I was a coordinator/facilitator/and procurer of hard-to-find items such as a Bunn coffee maker delimer.  I have no medical background, unless you count the fact that I can hide tramadol in ground turkey and make a picky lion eat it.

But…with my father gone, not only does it make sense for me to be her health proxy there’s really no one else qualified to do it. 

It also made me realize that all the annoying red tape that occurs after someone dies will fall solely on me.  I am not adult enough to call social security and inform them of someone’s passing.  I cringe at being one-on-one with her southern good ole boy lawyer.  And the idea of being responsible for a funeral just plain gives me the whillies.  Or high blood pressure.

BUT!  NOT DEAD YET.  Me or grandma.  So I’m gonna cross that line then set it on fire with Jack Daniel’s when I come to it.

She has been more tired lately, and a little ditzy about remembering where we were on a conversation, putting words in my mouth that are actually from her dinner companion the previous night, etc.  Ya know, basic I’m 90 Get Off My Lawn stuff.  She is still with-it enough to make sure her own decisions so for now she will.  If she chooses treatments, I will coordinate more in-home care for her and rearrange my schedule as best as possible to be there for surgeries/appointments/what-have-you.

If she chooses no treatments, I will coordinate more in-home care or hospice as it appears to be needed.

In the meantime, I ordered the invitations to her 90th birthday dinner.  Because if my options are to plan for death or plan for life….well, one of them can include balloons and wine and one…huh.  I guess you could have balloons and wine at a funeral.   But maybe not as brightly colored balloons or such sweet wine (a tempranillo she and I drink almost every Wednesday together).

We will see her oncologist on Friday to get the results of further tests.  There is still one more Dr we will probably have to meet with before she decides on her treatment – the one that can say for sure whether a hysterectomy could be done laparoscopic or not. 

In the meantime, I will drive like the wind home from the Friday appointment to finish packing for the DC trip.  Our plane leaves at 8:10am Saturday.  I will get four days home (two of those spent with Grandma) before I fly to Chicago and help out on the farm for 5 days.

I am very worried that I will somehow injure myself hiking and will be unable to help care for Grandma or help my mother with planting.  Given my track record of spraining an ankle by tripping on PINE NEEDLES, I don’t this it’s an unjustified concern.

So if you see some squat lady in a hot pink leopard onsie traversing the north part of the SNP on hands and knees, stop and say hi.

When you were mine.

There was always wine.

Everything was fine.

Fed that same old line.

Last night, I dreamed of a first kiss.

It was between myself and this guy I know.  In real life, he’s not that attractive (to me) and even more socially unept than I am.  Our knowledge of each other (we don’t even see each other enough to use the most platonic and blase turn of the word “relationship”) is I suppose what you might call professional.

A few months ago, I let him down.  I guess.  It’s one of those times where looking back, you wish you did something different but for the love of fuck you still don’t know what that something is.

So he showed up in this dream, in a relatively realistic manner of our situation.  Except there was this undenying romantic attraction between us.  And somehow I ended up at his house.  And we kissed.

And it was awesome.

It didn’t surprise me to have this dream.  Somehow, perhaps, my psyche was trying to right the wrong – give him some attention he didn’t get in the real life scenario.

It also didn’t surprise me how much I enjoyed that first kiss.  I miss first kisses a lot.  I know I’m not supposed to say that and I am a horrible wife for it, but it’s true.  I was good at first kisses, first dates, first months, first sleep overs.  Yeah, yeah, the details get muddy for everyone over time.  But at least I can admit that just because I’ve said happily-ever-after doesn’t mean I don’t remember the journey to get here was fun.

I blink.

And my world is upside down.

The vague unease I felt being part of something big I wasn’t sure I deserved to be a part of is replaced by the vague unease that I am part of something I’m not sure deserves me.

But the truth is, on paper, if I push on I doubt anyone but myself will look back and think that.  Myself and the few others who are thinking the same thing right now.

I blink again.

A person who raised me and made sure I got exercise and ate my vegetables (I can only remember once hiding them underneath my booster seat), now relies on me to see the restroom signs, the street signs, the xs marks the spot.

She gave me metallic sticky stars for pooping when I was constipated at age four.  Now I look the other way and pretend I don’t understand when she mentions difficultly collecting a urine sample.

Blink.  Blink.

Is it all right side up again?  Have I won?

I should be asleep.  Instead I’m perfecting my ITunes library and remembering a time when Dashboard Confessional was on repeat.

On my one day off this week, I will go to Gainesville to discuss with my grandmother how she will live the rest of her life.  A life she doesn’t particularly want to live without my grandfather.

My father is fine with my deciding the fate of his mother’s laundry and eye drops.  Her bills and depends.  I am fine with him being fine.  My grandmother is fine with it too.

I am fine with it too.

I still wish I could turn back time.  I hated the insecurity Dashboard Confessional meant.  Hated the boy whom I so wanted to love because he caused the insecurity.  And as much as I wish I could go back knowing what I know now, I would gladly go back to a time when my insecurity was my biggest problem.

“Are you still up for tomorrow night?”

“Kinda.”

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah.”

Turns out, he was only kinda up for it as well.

I like him, I really do. As well as you can like anyone whom you’ve seen three times in the past five months.

It hit me the week of the AC breakdown/New Jersey trip. He’d had spotty internet access and was emailing about once a week. As I sat down to respond to his latest, I had to sit back and close my eyes against all the shit that had happened. How did I sum that up?

That’s when I realized that it really wasn’t going to work. Casual or serious, I wasn’t going to get what I wanted from a relationship – support and distraction. Someone to either battle my fears with me or take me out for drinks and make me feel pretty so I can forget about them for a while.

2009 Progress Update

I got to this point in the document without figuring out to whom I was referring.

Have you ever felt that any choice you made was going to be right and wrong?

That’s how it feels when you realize you want a divorce.

There’s no way to describe it and make anyone understand except those who also had to make this choice. Yes, I use the word, “had” and “choice”. A mandatory selection. One that you never thought you’d consider, but can no longer deny is staring at you from the ballot box.

And you can do your research. You can find out how other people handled this. And while you’re talking to them, you feel calm and good and know that you will make the right decision.

That feeling can sometimes last through the car ride home and putting away the laundry.

You will decide to trust your intuition – go with what “feels” right. Then he will call. Or not. You will ask if he will move into your apartment complex and he’ll say no.

2009 Progress update

My ex-husband and I still live in the same city, and have some of the same friends.

We are both remarried.  He to a woman younger than him; me to a man older than me.  Him with a child (a son, I believe) as he always wished (I hope); me childless with no plan to change that scenario as I always wished (and I hope Tom wants as well).

I truly don’t feel like I was ever married before.  Of course, I don’t feel like I am married now.

Life is a series of scenarios.  Of people.  Of instances.

I don’t believe you can say happily ever after to anyone but yourself.  That’s pragmatic and sad at the same time.

And yet….

As writing this, I realize the date of this post was one day shy of a potential 3 year anniversary.

Is life about potential and anniversaries?  Or pragmatic and sad?

Or is it simply technical?  Technically, due to lawyers and paperwork, it was a 3 year anniversary.  And technically, I couldn’t care less.

Or could I?