In the fog
Sometimes I worry about Alzheimer's. My paternal grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's for 10 years in Saskatoon. Ten long years, and then she died in her 90s. My father went to visit her during this time and she didn't know who he was, her only child and she didn't remember him. My father and his mother were not close, not ever as far as I know. There was a major family rift when I was very young over an inheritance after my grandfather died that my father and his mother fought over. Whatever happened my father never forgave his mother, and so even though I had a grandmother living in Vancouver when I was a child living in North Vancouver, I never knew it -- never saw her, never heard from her, no nothing. In fact, I just found out this information this year when I was wandering around a Canadian census from way back when on the Internet. I wonder if she ever journeyed over the Lions Gate Bridge to perhaps drive by our house on Glenview Crescent and see if she could spot us playing outside. I'll never know.
It's strange that though my grandmother did not remember her own child, my dad said that she remembered my mother and me (me, no doubt, as a baby). It's a mystery why someone remembers certain places, events and people, and not others. I've been operating in such a fog this year that sometimes I wonder if this is the beginning edge of Alzheimer's. I put things where they don't make sense. I lose things that I never find again. I almost forgot my name yesterday - just for a second, but it was kinda freaky. I don't remember people's names and things like I used to. I've forgotten some of my long-ago cats' names; this bothers me a lot. I seem to be functioning on some kind of what often feels like a semi-conscious level. I'm here but not really totally here. Maybe this is the way people on drugs feel like, only I'm not laid-back; I'm stressed because I'm losing my edge. In fact, I may be falling off the edge into the mud below. I have a vacation coming up. I'm hoping that perhaps all this blurred-edge living is the result of just being totally worn out. After all, it has been a trying year so far, what with taking care of two very ill cats for months who I ultimately had to put down within two weeks of each other. Work has, on the one hand, become more complicated and, on the other hand, it is mind-numbingly boring.
I'm jealous of Mavis Wanczyk of Massachusetts who just won the $758 million Powerball. She can retire, do what she wants when she wants, and she has the money to do all that forever (if she's smart about the money). If I could retire, I would sleep until I want to wake up, travel to all sorts of cool places, eat in nice restaurants, drive a car that's not 22 years old, buy a decent sofa, and find a quiet, natural place to live in for the rest of my days. And I would get a dog and we would go everywhere together and we would be best pals. And none of this has anything to do with Alzheimer's because hopefully my brain/spirit fog is not a real, solid thing out to destroy who I am. I'm hoping that if I can dream, that if I am truly falling off the edge, there is a new and better path once I reach the bottom and I will carry on in crystal clear light.
It's strange that though my grandmother did not remember her own child, my dad said that she remembered my mother and me (me, no doubt, as a baby). It's a mystery why someone remembers certain places, events and people, and not others. I've been operating in such a fog this year that sometimes I wonder if this is the beginning edge of Alzheimer's. I put things where they don't make sense. I lose things that I never find again. I almost forgot my name yesterday - just for a second, but it was kinda freaky. I don't remember people's names and things like I used to. I've forgotten some of my long-ago cats' names; this bothers me a lot. I seem to be functioning on some kind of what often feels like a semi-conscious level. I'm here but not really totally here. Maybe this is the way people on drugs feel like, only I'm not laid-back; I'm stressed because I'm losing my edge. In fact, I may be falling off the edge into the mud below. I have a vacation coming up. I'm hoping that perhaps all this blurred-edge living is the result of just being totally worn out. After all, it has been a trying year so far, what with taking care of two very ill cats for months who I ultimately had to put down within two weeks of each other. Work has, on the one hand, become more complicated and, on the other hand, it is mind-numbingly boring.
I'm jealous of Mavis Wanczyk of Massachusetts who just won the $758 million Powerball. She can retire, do what she wants when she wants, and she has the money to do all that forever (if she's smart about the money). If I could retire, I would sleep until I want to wake up, travel to all sorts of cool places, eat in nice restaurants, drive a car that's not 22 years old, buy a decent sofa, and find a quiet, natural place to live in for the rest of my days. And I would get a dog and we would go everywhere together and we would be best pals. And none of this has anything to do with Alzheimer's because hopefully my brain/spirit fog is not a real, solid thing out to destroy who I am. I'm hoping that if I can dream, that if I am truly falling off the edge, there is a new and better path once I reach the bottom and I will carry on in crystal clear light.
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