Too much to do!

I don't even know where to begin.  I've been sick, I've been busy, I've been tired.  And so much that needs to be done has gone undone.  Especially with regard to my mother.  I feel horrible that I haven't even answered her trustee's emails, let alone talked to her.  I've barely managed to get at least some of her bills paid.  I think/hope the trustee is taking care of the rest.  It's just all been beyond me...including submitting my receipts so I can get reimbursed for trips I've taken to Florida on her behalf.  And it's not like I don't need that money, rather desperately at this point.

I'm really having trouble thinking about how to deal with everything logistically speaking.  When do I set aside time for this, when do I set aside time to do that?  Ultimately, none of it happens and things fall by the wayside.

The only thing I've begun to do is get a handle on getting enough sleep.  This is a step in the right direction, because I've been feeling so anxious and needy lately and I'm sure that's not helping me actually get what I need.  Some of which is the help I need from other people, because I simply can't do it all myself.  And yet I hate that lately all I've been doing is taking, taking, taking.  Not a whole heck of a lot of giving.  And maybe that's just how it has to be for now.  I dunno.

Things happen the way they happen, I guess.  I'm terribly sad about a person whom I've known for many years, who I haven't spoken to more than a handful of times this past decade, but without whom I wouldn't have been playing mah jongg since 1994, who is now in hospice, dying of leukemia.  And that game is such a constant in my life and so important, it's invaluable.  And he's a young man, at least younger than I am, which makes it even worse.  He had a lot more to give, a lot more life to enjoy, and it looks like he won't be able to.

Fuck cancer.  Fuck being scared and depressed and anxious.  To hell with it.  Life is to be gone on with.  Right?  Right.

Today

Today, I miss Mouse. I miss John more than words can say. I still mourn all those people on those planes, in those buildings. I've managed to avoid feeling sad the last week or so leading up to this, despite getting sucked into watching one TV show about some people in the North Tower. Today, however, I'm already in tears.

I have no plans to commemorate the day. No memorials to attend, no taking time off, no burrowing under the covers. Almost wishing I had made some plans, but really, I very much want to have this become like any other day, one where I get work done, eat, exercise. Eat.

Maybe I'll try to have dinner with a friend, so I'm not alone the whole day. Just hearing a plane go overhead a few minutes ago, after changing the date on the Google doc I use ... I feel awful. This will pass, I'll recover. Just for now, I'm mourning.

Sometimes the Universe listens

A little while ago I was feeling very blue all of a sudden. Lonely. Very. Feeling friendless. Or at least not having the kind of friends and neighbors that I'd like to have--that is, the kind to keep me company sometimes. (Ignoring the hours and hours that some really dear, wonderful friends have spent helping me over the last month and a half or so, getting ready to paint the apartment, during the painting and the aftermath.)

Doesn't help that, even if I could think of someone to call on the spur of the moment (in New York? On a Friday night?) to say, "Hey, let's go to the movies", I still couldn't do it because I'm stuck with this stupid foot issue and I'm supposed to do "minimal" walking (whatever that is--but it surely doesn't include going out to the movies).

I was just starting to get past this feeling of loneliness when my phone rang. It was my upstairs neighbor, Nick, saying that he was going out for Chinese food, did I want him to get me some?

Such a nice, kind thing. And I didn't even accept, as I'd already planned on making dinner myself, same meal I had last night, which was delicious. Plus I'm counting my pennies. But that he thought of me, that was so sweet!

Funny, there was an ex-neighbor who emailed me just today, too, suggesting we get together for lunch sometime soon. I should pay attention when life puts opportunities in front of me. (No, not those kind of opportunities. Nick is married and about 30 years younger than me and Rob, the ex-neighbor is more than 30 years younger than me and, last I knew, had a drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend.)

Anyway, it is getting late and I am going to go make that wonderful dinner.

Been a while

Just waiting for Mad Men to be over so I can go play it on my DVR so I can zap the commercials. Checked out a blog written by someone I admire (who happens to take awesome pics of her fine kitties) and, since I'd been thinking that I hadn't been here in a while, decided to write a bit myself.

Mom's failing, I think. She has congestive heart failure and, while I know this can go on for a good long while, I think she'd rather it didn't. Her Alzheimer's seems to be getting worse, but it's hard to tell on the phone. She just doesn't sound as "with it" as she did a mere six months ago. It may not even be entirely the Alzheimer's but her heart problems that are making things worse--her brain not getting enough oxygen--or it may be 50/50 or something like that. And it really doesn't matter. I don't think she's in pain and, so far, whenever she falls (and she tends to do that a lot, it seems), she hasn't actually broken anything. She keeps asking me to come down again to visit and I've assured her that I will, but I know it'll be several months before I'm willing/able to go. I'm hoping her trustee will start paying her more attention, I think she misses someone taking care of her, which I can only do in small bits and from afar.

Anyway, work is going okay. Baby steps towards keeping to my budget and getting things paid for that need paying for. I really need to increase the amount of business I get, but I'm afraid the Sharks just won't be able to handle much more work. And finding good new Sharks is So Very Hard. Thankfully, I just found someone new and, although he's got some interesting, I'll call them "quirks", he seems to be working out well.

Okay, it's late enough, I'm going to shut down and wrap up the evening and tie it in a bow and get to bed. See you soon, I hope.

Bad to worse?

Well, if you're talking about my relationship with my mother, yeah, it is bad to worse. Although I had thought it was getting better, actually, since my stepfather died last year and I've been spending more time coming down to Florida to help my mother with ... well, life. But between my temper and stubbornness and her temper and stubbornness and Alzheimer's, the going has not been entirely smooth. Oddly, those times when I could recognize the Alzheimer's symptoms, those I have found easier to deal with than the old patterns--you know, the ones where she pushes my buttons because she's the one who put them there.

But now she's found this new "friend"--a neighbor who has been both helpful and very much not. In what is really old behavior for my mother, she's choosing to trust her and distrust me and this is an awful situation. Not looking forward to the meeting that we're having on Thursday with mom's lawyer, to which my mother has invited this woman. Not sure my mother will be speaking to me afterwards, but as long as I know that both her and, frankly, my needs are being met, I'll be okay with that. I just don't think it's going to be pretty.

Here's the thing: this woman (the neighbor) is inflicting more pain on me, whether she means to or not, and I have had enough of it. I really would love to find a way to keep her away from my mother entirely, but I don't think that's possible, at least not right now. Meantime, I'm sitting here at 2 in the morning, unable to sleep because of the conversation I had with my mother, where she as much as told me that this other woman is closer to her than I am. Those were pretty much her words.

So I guess you could say that I'm losing her to Alzheimer's before I have to, thanks to this neighbor.

Anyway, not sure sleep is possible right now, but I'll try again soon.