Is it terrible that I am writing my Grandma's eulogy before she is dead? I wonder at myself sometimes. I know that people expect me to give these horrible little speeches but my feelings for Grandma are so complex, so different than they were ten years ago that I haven't been certain I could pay tribute to her. But I was mowing the lawn and thought of a way - and I guess it is okay - I don't wish her dead. I am devestated by the tales I'm hearing of her loss of independence, her loss of optimism, her loss of the things that matter most to her. So really there are parts of her life that are dead now, and I am already paying tribute to that even though her battered spirit lives unwillingly on. My Dad is a wreck - I talked to him earlier and he just can't accept her weakness, can't accept that she has given up and just doesn't want the pain and hospital visits to continue.
It would be nice if we could die quickly, if we didn't linger on for months and years after life becomes intolerable. But too often dying quickly means dying young - like Brian's dad. Do I want to live to 95 - twenty-five excellent years more than his dad, but be weak and declining the last five or die at age 65. Thirty years difference between him and my Grandparents. Almost all of my life - I think I would like to live those thirty extra years, even if it means weakness and helplessness at the very last. Of course, the choice isn't actually ours to make, is it?
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Mood getting worse
You thought I was in a bad mood earlier; I'm about ready to chew nails and spit them at anything that moves. Any particular reason? No. PMSing? Not that time of month, thanks. Could just drop-kick a kitten through an electic fan, or perhaps a full-grown cat if mine don't watch their step today. Think I'll go beat or dig something outside.
My life has been railroaded
All I've done for the past two weeks is rearrange the house, figure out how we are going to survive with the Mother-in-law in the house, get things set up. No writing, no editing - just back to survival mode. And it really pisses me off. I've got a f-ing satellite dish in the middle of my front lawn - I feel like trailer trash!
Maybe it shouldn't anger me like this - I should be kind and generous and all that shit, but right now I have a depressed husband, a house in chaos, and a stranger going to arrive in a couple of weeks and I feel like this is just bullshit. It would be different if she were doing terribly down there, had no friends and all that. But she has her bridge people, she has her community, yet she wants to come up her and be dependent on us. And I am sick of having dependents over the age of 18. Hell, over the age of 30! Summer and spring are my good times of year and they are being screwed by a person who is paranoid about hurricanes and a person who thinks acid reflux is a killer disease. This will be a summer of watching two passive people sit on a couch watching other people have lives and play sports while they let the world slip by without them. Can't f-ing wait.
Maybe it shouldn't anger me like this - I should be kind and generous and all that shit, but right now I have a depressed husband, a house in chaos, and a stranger going to arrive in a couple of weeks and I feel like this is just bullshit. It would be different if she were doing terribly down there, had no friends and all that. But she has her bridge people, she has her community, yet she wants to come up her and be dependent on us. And I am sick of having dependents over the age of 18. Hell, over the age of 30! Summer and spring are my good times of year and they are being screwed by a person who is paranoid about hurricanes and a person who thinks acid reflux is a killer disease. This will be a summer of watching two passive people sit on a couch watching other people have lives and play sports while they let the world slip by without them. Can't f-ing wait.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Still Searching
It was good, this past week - but difficult. My mother and I went up to my Grandpa's to get a little donkey and cart lawn figurine that was left to me when my Grandma died, but I left for Grandpa until he too passed away. We went into the back yard, and Grandpa's garden was full of weeds, grown over. He really is dead. If he weren't, the rich brown soil would be tilled, the tomatoes already set in cages, onions showing sprouts, asparagus picked and left to grow. And he would have been out there on that beautiful day, talking with Mom about what peppers he wanted, how Grandma's roses were doing, digging me some onions to plant in my garden. There is no going back. Time was not suspended in that little back yard so that Grandpa could plant his veggies one last time. The evil bitch of a neighbor had pulled up Grandma's roses and half the lilacs - so even those are gone. I wanted to firebomb her place and pour weed killer on her flowers, but settled for sending nasty karma her way. It's not enough, but will have to do.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Paranoia
Just read a poem on paranoia that I love. It's by Phillip Lopate:
Isn't that awesome? When I start thinking everyone in my life is out to get me - I read that and have a good laugh at myself. Sometimes when one person hurts me I start thinking everyone in my life hates me and is plotting against me - but that kind of paranoia just makes me more insecure. It's better to trust that it is just one isolated jealous person and not hurt myself more with suspecting people who really care for me.
We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disasterous personality
then for the good of the collective.
Isn't that awesome? When I start thinking everyone in my life is out to get me - I read that and have a good laugh at myself. Sometimes when one person hurts me I start thinking everyone in my life hates me and is plotting against me - but that kind of paranoia just makes me more insecure. It's better to trust that it is just one isolated jealous person and not hurt myself more with suspecting people who really care for me.
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