This Body is Bullshit

The 36-Hour Day

I keep having this vision of my dad getting lost in the woods and me having to call everyone I know to organize a search party. My brain just keeps going there — what if this happens, what if that happens, what if he gets in the car and we can’t find him. I don’t know what to do with these thoughts because there are no answers. Just questions that loop.

How do I get him to stop drinking before he falls and really hurts himself? Because that’s what I’m scared of — not the drinking killing him, but him getting drunk, slurring his words, shuffling around, and going down hard. And God forbid you try to take his arm. He’ll pull away and get pissed off because he doesn’t want anyone thinking he needs help. That pride is going to be the thing that gets him.

How do we get him off the road? He gets lost and then loses his mind when you point out that he got lost. What happens if he hurts someone? What happens if Kathy loses everything because of an accident? There is truly nowhere he needs to go and nothing he needs to do without one of us with him. But how do you take away someone’s independence without stripping their dignity? He’s so damn proud. So vain. It feels impossible.

Does he even know what’s happening? Does he have any sense of it at all? Every book and article says he can’t comprehend it, that there’s no explaining or reasoning with him, that we’re the ones who have to adjust because he can’t. I understand that intellectually. I cannot accept it emotionally. I keep thinking if I find the right words, the right moment — but there is no right moment. That’s the disease.

Meanwhile Kathy is go-go-go every single day and she is going to burn out. She’s living with this every minute and I don’t know how to help her slow down and breathe. I worry about her as much as I worry about him.

I’ve been trudging through The 36-Hour Day — supposedly the bible for caregivers. It’s long and depressing and half of it is obvious and the other half is dead-on accurate and I can only do the audiobook because if I try to actually read it I fall asleep. I’ve been listening to it in the hammock in the backyard, sun on my face, just swinging and existing and absorbing other people’s grief about this disease. It’s become my weird little ritual and I’m not sure if it’s helping or just keeping me company in the spiral.

All of this is in my chest and my brain and my sleep. I wake up exhausted and clenched. And then I go to work where grown adults cannot follow basic directions and I have to write them up. Fucking idiots. And then I wonder — do I have dementia too? My memory has been genuinely terrible lately. Probably just the menopause, the anesthesia from surgeries, the medication, the three thousand things I’m tracking at any given moment. Probably.

There was a rainbow this morning. I took a picture, posted it, wished everyone a good day. It didn’t really sink into me. But I’ll smile anyway. Make people laugh. Get my job done. That’s what I do.

At least Frank is on the mend. Finally acting like himself again — aside from the explosive diarrhea this morning. Living room, dining room, and laundry room. Because of course.

And one more thing — why does nobody ever tell me when my eyeliner is halfway down my face? My husband did point out a whisker the other day though.

That’s love.