Lying in bed this morning, hoping to get back to sleep, I roused myself thoroughly with the thought, “my self esteem is all tied up in this!” What the #*@%^*#!
Why on earth would I allow myself to depress over whether or not another adult eats what has been lovingly prepared for them by a 75 year old RN who primarily just wants that other adult to have the best and enjoy the most out of their remaining days?
And why, why, why, why should I feel like a failure if, okay, of course we’re talking Maxine here, doesn’t find it the highlight of her day to take a walk with me or bicycle in place on the porch every day.
What earthly difference does it make, if, when I go to talk with her about going to the “organ place” to complete a survey she missed taking a few weeks ago, because her bowels were exploding, she gets irritable, states she “doesn’t know”, (doesn’t know? Doesn’t know what?) and tells me eerily reminiscent of how her son told me twenty years ago he didn’t need therapy, and if I did I could go without him, that I could go and she’d stay so the nurse could get in? And then, once we get there (to the organ place) we find ourselves subjected clearly to a sales pitch, (sigh, well, at least one of us can see we’re clearly subjected to a sales pitch), as the survey is all about how her organ lacks a dozen or more newly added features on another that will be played – professionally – for us so that we can add our most valuable opinion as to whether or not, we, strike that, she, can work herself up into believing that if her organ was different, she would play it and it would produce the sounds she’s just heard produced by a young man a third her age with a memory totally unimpaired by the ravages of a disease she convinced herself she doesn’t have because she’s dredged up evidence she was in a car accident wherein facial contusions brought on memory loss.
Before you rag on me for creating a ginormous paragraph based on only two sentences, take a minute and rejoice with me spending a brief moment basking in the notion I have something minutely in common with Cormac McCarthy. Thank goodness, it wasn’t All the Pretty Horses that contained page plus long sentences.
If I remark upon POOR or DECREASED JUDGMENT, in this post, I can only do so with a swirl of emotions. There’s more than one reason for that. No matter how coolly, how calmly, how quietly, or, even, how irritatingly dignifiedly, a person might say the words and share the examples that reflect poor or decreased judgment, the reality of it invokes an emotional response, at least if the person gives only two tiny figs for the person displaying such. I would venture a guess that none of us suffers fools gladly, even when that fool is our self, so long as it is obvious.
Speaking of the self being that fool, a bipolar begins and ends and in betweens their escapades, their episodes, their ups, their downs with marked judgment lapses. It has not been a lark for me to come around to realize the fool I am capable of being.
It is Maxine of whom I should be speaking, so, back to her. One of the first times I nearly lost it with her was when I came home from a walk around six in the evening in the winter. I found the door unlocked, which I thought strange, and as soon as I opened it I heard a deep male voice. “Oh, how odd!”, I said to myself. Odder still, it was when I rounded the corner from the kitchen and saw knees extending way out from a chair that had never seemed petite until then. There sat a young, rangy man with all the surety of a circus ringleader, charming Maxine into signing a contract for half of what she already had in the way of satellite television. She was flashing her toothsome smile, telling her numerous stories and laughing for all she was worth, primarily at herself and I simply did not have the heart to take over and create a ruckus. I quickly learned he had no business card, his shirt said the name of the other half of what Maxine already had, he only showed me his driver’s license (which I wrote down all the information of – it was Washington, this Arizona) reluctantly, and I could not get him to exit quickly enough.
At the time, (now is still way too close to the time), I had not learned that she would not be reasoning along with me when I pointed out she had invited a total stranger into her home, who was easily three, if not four times her size. Her nurse had been telling her for months not to do that. She also had no idea what she already had with her TV, or whether or not, it was even true what he represented as regards saving her money. All that was beyond that she only watched the same channel all the time, despite having dozens available.
Oh, what I would give to carry on a reasoning conversation with this woman! It is such a pain to remember she has an illness, she doesn’t remember (unless you’re hoping she doesn’t), she’s not going to improve (unless she’s in front of someone else), and that’s just the way it is.
It saddens me to have heard last week from a neighbor, how often she felt badly for Maxine’s last husband, when on several occasions that he would be out front and Maxine would be visiting on the drive with someone regaling the virtues of her previous husband. That seems a judgment lapse, as well. For sure.
Kar-en 2ft. from GOLD 