Let's Play Catch-up. Again

 Here we are, a new year and a long stretch of non-communication since the last time I posted (and promised to post more often, but we can all see how well THAT turned out).

Lots has been happening. Not much of it has been good or happy, either, which totally sucks.

The pandemic is STILL going on and we’re STILL at home, eyeing every stranger (and a few family members) with suspicion and standing fast with face masks and cans of spray disinfectant at the ready. I honestly think we could have enjoyed it a lot more if we hadn’t taken Tammie’s mother in to live with us. Dementia sucks, and her mother, besides being a victim of dementia, is also a HUGE fan of drama and is still quite capable of inflicting all kinds of havoc on the household. On purpose.

Due to several small strokes that have jettisoned most of what was left of her mind, the Old Woman has taken to wittering (a kind of high-pitched mumbling) about whatever she’s doing. For instance, “I’m walkin’. I’m walkin’. Here I come. I’m walkin’.” as she very slowly makes her way down the hallway from her room to the living room. It’s a very long walk. The house isn’t large, but when someone is narrating their adventure from one room to the next, it gets both larger and smaller at the same time.

Most mornings she’ll sit back in her bedroom stuck halfway through getting dressed, with her pants at her ankles, all the while saying, “Stand up, pull up. Stand up, pull up. Stand up…” you get the idea. This will go on for an hour or more, despite being reminded several times that if she wants breakfast she needs to finish getting dressed, which means she needs to STAND UP and PULL UP her pants. Wittering continues once she’s in the living room, because everything must be narrated. It’s like having a mosquito buzzing around your ears for hours and there’s absolutely nothing that will make it stop. Then there’s the regular whining about all kinds of things.

Twice this month she gave us a break and spent a majority of the day in her room, talking to no one, at least no one we can see or hear. I like those very rare days, because with music from the stereo, most of the wittering is drown out and we have some peace. Tammie checks in on her every 20 – 30 minutes or so, brings her food and makes sure she’s okay. Around 4 p.m., right about the time we’re starting dinner preparation, she made her appearance.

Yeah, 2020 was not a fun year, and some of that is leaking into 2021.

Besides the extra help the Old Woman began needing, things were kind of scary all over, especially during the Black Lives Matter marches in Portland and Seattle. That’s when Tammie discovered that friends of ours had strong opinions of the protests and had no compunctions against lobbing them at her. Tammie and I are firm believers and supporters of Black Lives Matter and are doing our best to be anti-racist. It’s hard work with lots to remember (which is the hardest part because stress is beating the hell out of our ability to remember stuff), but it’s work we’re more than happy and willing to do.

Our friends, on the other hand, while insisting they aren’t racist, will not support BLM because “all lives matter” “they’re destroying legitimate businesses just to wreck things” blah, blah, blah and no amount of offering up information would change their mind. They “know things” because they listen to “the deep, dark web where ALL the REAL, unfiltered information comes from” and it’s the same with the “hoax virus” which leads them to not wear masks. Tammie was crushed. We had both hoped that we could nurture a friendship with them, have couples movie night or host dinner and table games. But that doesn’t look likely to happen now. What hurts the most is their cavalier attitude that some high-risk folks are simply expendable (like Tammie, me, and the Old Woman). Nothing says “fuck you” like refusing to keep people safe.

To keep with the theme of 2020, we ended up closing our hat store. We had high hopes for our new location, but between the plague and the Old Woman, we were done, physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Even though the new location was truly wonderful, any time you move a business, even if it’s to a cleaner, safer location, you lose business. So, with all those things in play, and no end of the pandemic in sight we decided it would be best if we just closed it down. It still hurts like hell.

November rolled around and we had the elections. Then came the fun part. Let me just sum it up: Fuck. Good grief. WTF?!? and, of course, the HOLY SHIT! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME day of January 6^th.

My fear level had already been cranked up into the red zone, and reading things on social media didn’t help, especially with the pundits pundit-ing that there would be more trouble on inauguration day. The thought of seeing all the hopes and dreams we hoped and voted for come to a horrific halt was more than I could bear. Things started to spiral down, hard and fast.

One morning, I woke up and was hit with an old feeling that I hadn’t had in a very long time. A crushing hopelessness, dread, and regret. Regret that I woke up because I knew I was facing another day of the exact same things that we’ve struggled through every day for nearly a year, another day of fear, stress, more stress, and trying to keep Tammie supported while she deals with her mother and her mother driving us both into despair. It was too much. I had reached a point where I wasn’t sure I could, or even wanted to live through it any more. I no longer cared about me, or anyone else.

Tammie had to spend the emotional and physical “spoons” to comfort and support me. It was hard on both of us, as neither of us has the energy to spare. I made the decision to get off of facebook for the foreseeable future. There are not enough videos of baby animals that could lift that mood.

While stepping away from facebook has helped some, we’re still assailed on a daily basis by many of the things that constantly beat us down and contributed to my despair. It goes on every fucking day. ALL FUCKING DAY LONG. Every so often, we can distract her with a magazine or catalog with pretty pictures in them, but she loses interest and if the television is off (“you don’t need to turn it on for my sake”) the wittering begins. On goes the testosterone-poisoned westerns, or the Walton’s with their whiny harmonica soundtrack, or, gods help me, Little House on the Prairie. It’s like being verbally and emotionally beaten by noise that offends. It’s crushing, not just emotionally, but spiritually and mentally. And, to make things even worse, all the elder care support groups are no longer meeting due to the pandemic.

Then on January 20^st, nothing horrible happened. President Biden was sworn in, took the office and began undoing some of the horrors that was caused by the previous administration. It was a HUGE load off our shoulders, both Tammie and I felt it, and from what we’ve seen on the few social media outlets we still look at, we weren’t alone.

My funk has receded enough that I might consider feeling some hope, but it hasn’t shown up yet. We’re working on clearing out the spare room (because it took the brunt of harboring stuff during the holidays) so with luck, Tammie’s sister will come and take care of their mother for a few days and we can go somewhere else. Someplace where we can find that hope, feed it, and allow it to return, even for a little while.