Life Is Weird and Then You Die

I'm unimaginably tired.  My mind isn't working well, either.  I feel lost and confused.  I keep going but I am like a rat on a wheel.  I drive a lot.  There is a lot of driving to be done.  I am alone. 

My mother is on morphine, so when I go to see her, she is sleeping.  It is no good to wake her.  And so I sit for awhile, talk to the nurses, and say I'll be back.  Then I drive some more.  

I went back to her house yesterday to look through her records.  It is overwhelming.  There is much to be done.  I looked through paperwork for a long time.  I will have to do the same today.  There is a will and a living will.  There is paperwork giving me power of attorney.  I'm not sure what all that means.  

I walked through the house picking up things that needed to be laundered.  I put them in the washer, and then I went somewhere.  I can't remember where.  That is not like me.  When I returned, I put them in the dryer and called AAA.  My Xterra was sitting in the street with a dead battery.  When the battery guy showed up, he tested it.  Dead.  I needed a new one.  $240.  But I got my last battery from AAA.  I couldn't remember when.  I looked for the paperwork but couldn't find it.  He was able to look it up.  I had two months left on the warrantee, he said.  I'd purchased the battery in 2022.  I thought there would be some depreciation charge, but no.  I got the battery for free.  

"You're lucky," he said.  

"Not so much or very often."

I went back inside, folded the laundry and put it away.  I realized I hadn't eaten all day.  I opened the refrigerator.  I drank a little kefir, washed the cup.  I looked around my mother's home and then locked it all up and closed the garage door.  It was strange driving my Xterra after so long.  It needs some work.  I thought to look at the odometer because the AAA man had to write down the mileage.  It had just turned 190,000 miles.  Everything gets old.  

I went home.  It was 3:00.  I didn't know what to do.  I remember now where I went when I put the clothes into the washer.  I was dressed in gym clothes.  I went to the gym.  I walked in and walked right back out.  I couldn't do it.  So, still in my gym clothes, I decided to take a walk.  It was difficult.  The pain in my knee and hips and back. . . .  

Four.  I showered.  I went back to the hospital.

Nothing to report.  My mother looks more fragile.  She can't get out of bed now.  I tell her I love her and that I will see her in the morning.  

I'd already decided I would go to the good sushi place for dinner.  

I could barely walk for the pain.  

I got a seat at the sushi bar.  Miso soup.  Edamame.  Tuna kobachi with extra sushi rice.  Sake.  It was all good, but I felt alone.  Not lonely, but rather disconnected.  Hollow.  

I went home and thought to have a whiskey on the deck.  I hadn't had a drink on the deck since. . . when?  I can't remember.  I sat out for a minute, but it was hot and buggy and not so very pleasurable.  I went back inside.  I turned on the television.  I watched this.  

Intrigued, I subscribed to the fellow's channel.  Then this. 

The lofts were nice.  Artist's places are messy.  There are bits of things everywhere.  These were not famous artists, not major artists, just people who had decided to live as artists.  

I was getting sad.  

There was a knock on the door.  It was the tenant.  I hadn't seen her for months.  She wanted to know how my mother was doing, how I was.  As usual, when I talk about it, I teared up and started to cry.  She told me I needed to watch something different, something that would not make me sad.  When she left, I watched this . 

It made me sadder still.  This one was a heartbreaker.  I won't bother you with the rest of them, but I watched several more.  

When I woke up, I was on the couch.  It was midnight.  I went to bed and slept for five hours.  I tried to go back to sleep, but it was impossible, so I got up and put on the coffee.  

My mother called last night after dinner.  She said an Asian man walked in and told her she was on for tomorrow.  He said she was his first one.  The message was unclear, but that is all my mother could say.  It will need to get to the hospital this morning to find out what is going on.  Maybe she is going in for surgery.  His first one?  Is he a rookie doctor or did he mean she was his first surgery of the day?  I know that once they do the kyphoplasty, they are going to discharge her to a facility, but I haven't gotten a list of the possible places and haven't been able to research them.  Things are suddenly moving at light speed and I am afraid I will not be unable to keep up.  This is a lot alone.  It very, very much.  

I feel paralyzed.  I've been reading about the "barbitals," the old sedatives that have been basically taken off the market.  Sleeping pills.  It is the way sad famous people often died.  Marilyn Monroe, 36.  They are only used for animals now.  Vets use pentobarbital to put animals down.  It is sudden and painless.  I read that if you take phenobarbital and sit down with a drink, you won't finish it.  You'll simply fall asleep and never wake.  I can't imagine the cruelty of people who would want to take that off the market.  Everywhere I go now, I see worse things than that.  

Everything gets old.  Life is weird. . . and then you die.