I don’t write about my mother. I probably shouldn’t. The Journal SHOULD be this spectacular, wonderful JOURNEY of a thing where, even when I’m standing still – at least I’m EXPERIENCING and remembering! But it means that one of the subjects that’s been consuming me recently doesn’t get aired out. And I won’t get into SPECIFIC specifics, but how can I just NOT talk about my mother, especially as family is becoming a more unavoidable part of my existence.
For years I’ve wanted my mother to be willing to move out of our childhood house. Especially since my father died, it’s become just a noose contracting around our family’s necks, a place where good things happened a long time ago, but in the past 20 years – nothing positive is associated with the house. Ever since my father died it’s just been a roof under which bad things and trash have collected. My brother moved away from Maryland years ago. For the past decade or so I’ve refused to enter the house. I’ve been ashamed and horrified, and frankly it stresses me out. Not having space to spread your arms out without knocking a pile of discarded cracker boxes or unopened children’s crafts or whatever else makes me ANGRY and I end up throwing things across the room in a way that I never would if it looked like a space that mattered.
Yeah, some days I’m not helping.
For years it made me angry, and then a conversation with one of her therapists lead me down a strange path of acceptance: If these are the choices she’s made, and this is the way she’s comfortable, I can’t forcibly change it without actually taking control of her Life. And so absolving her of the guilt and the shame of MY judgment and saying “mom, Live how you like”, trying to acknowledge that clearing and cleaning the house while she’s alive will just be (and has been) an ongoing battle, whereas letting her Live as she wants, there will just be ONE battle after she dies. One and done. We can LIVE in peace.
But – in the past year she’s actually been asking for help. In roundabout ways, but it’s undeniable. And this summer she finally said “I want out of the house”. And so we got on waiting lists, and we made half-assed plans, and hoped.
Last year around this time, Kristen was heavily involved in moving her mother our of HER place to a senior Living community, and then early this year we did the same for her father. Well, I guess maybe that inspired my mom to be willing to do the same? And the waiting lists have been waited out, and the plans are beginning to fruish.
We’ve signed the lease on her new place in the same senior community as Kristen’s dad. We’ve addressed lots of random issues and questions and problems and this weekend we’ll move a couple of big things to the new apartment. Less than a week from today, Thursday, we’ll take my mother to a new apartment and say “you’re sleeping here tonight”. She half-tried to back out of it during my visit to her house this week. We’re trying to take it easy. But this is, literally, where we are now.
I don’t have an answer for my mother when she laments departing from all her STUFF because it’s “who she is”. I don’t know how much I should be trying to solve these sorts of self-worth issues, or how capable I am of doing it. *I* don’t particularly associate my mother with piles of stuff. They’re there in the background. When she’s out of the house she doesn’t bring it with her. As I move her out of the house, maybe it will start to fall away? I know it’s not going to be a FIX, per se. But being close, with coordinated care, being around other people, and being out of her literal shithole house seems like it can ONLY be a positive.
Right?
Right?!
Looking at the path ahead, there are moments when it looks easy – simply one foot in front of the other – but honestly it’s pretty daunting. 50 years of accumulation. My literal Lifetime of stuff. I can’t yet bear to just pay to have someone come in and clear it all. There’s things that need to be kept and my mother’s not in a condition to help with that. Too much distraction, too much trauma.
It all comes down to boxes, lists and a shovel…
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