Julie Tullos

Baby Girl lies to me daily. With emphasis. She insists that she is NOT tired, not at all, not even just a tiny little bit. Then why are you crying? I ask. “NOT because I’m tiredddddddd” she moans.

Girl you were born tired. You haven’t slept right in six years. Neither have I. I KNOW tiredness. You, my child, are the epitome of tired. You almost have me beat in the tiredness game but not quite. I’m more tired than you because I’m in more pain than you. Because I’m old. Because I was old when you were born.

Baby Girl also has severe FOMO. Fear Of Missing Out. She can hardly stand to make decisions because she can’t decide which route will lead to the better time. The more fun experience. Does she come with me to run errands – which I can assure you is never fun – or does she stay and hang out with Dylan in the barn? She wants to be with me – she wants to be sure I don’t do something fun without her. Buuuuuttttttt she knows the girls at the barn are always accommodating to her. She is the princess of the paddock y’all. Everyone accommodates her. She’s cute and she loves hanging out with people. Possibly everyone is really accommodating ME by keeping her out of my hair…. hmmm. If that’s the case then I’m grateful. Supremely.

At any rate, Baby Girl has red eyes and a quick temper – every minute of her life. She certainly looks tired. And 80% of the time she acts tired. She yawns a lot. She falls asleep in the car but she won’t take a nap. The other day I bribed her with “movie night” in my bed if she would just lay down with me in my bed at 1 pm. I watched YouTube Kids with her for twenty minutes as part of the bribe (heaven help me). We took a “sleepy pill” (melatonin). We listened to Alan Jackson. She finally did fall asleep and slept for almost two hours. Of course, then I was unable to get her to sleep that night until 10 pm. You can’t win for losing.

Each night she starts to spin in a downward spiral of exhaustion. We have our routine down pretty well but it doesn’t slow the spin. After I finally get her out of the bath it starts in earnest (many times it starts while still in the bath.) She starts out with whining that she is cold, her hair is dripping down her back, she needs me to help her get dressed.  Somehow she’ll manage to hurt herself – stub her toe or scratch something. Then… it’s the giggles. She laughs while I try to put her pj’s on. She shows me her booty. She farts and is hysterical. She makes me crazy, and let’s acknowledge it – pissed off. So I finally lose it and yell at her. Her eyes fill with tears and she runs off to hide.

Now, I ask you, if she knows this is what will happen why does she do it? When we finally get past that, I have to tell her twelve times to brush her teeth. To pick out her stories. She likes to have stories on the computer lately. But if anything, and I mean anything, is not to her liking, total meltdown ensues. And again, I get frustrated. I would like to have a few minutes of sweet snuggling with my Baby Girl, not tears and rage from this wee monster child. I’m tired too so we feed off each other, I’m sure.

Maybe I would be able to handle all that if it weren’t for… the fact that she also GETS UP at 6 am every day. EVERY DAY. Even now that I have her sleeping in her own bed, in her own room. If she hears me make a move she’s up like a shot. I’ve even moved the cat into the back room at night so that he won’t start yowling and wake either of us up. It helps. A little. I want to get up to go to the gym by myself. I much prefer going by myself – it’s that “me time” everyone talks about so much that I hardly ever get. Well Baby Girl does not want me to go by myself. I get my cup of ice water ready the night before, my clothes are laid out, my shoes by the door. So I can sneak out silently before she hears me. (Insert eye roll here). I make it to the gym maybe twice a week, and at least one of those times she’s with me. Y’all it just isn’t as much fun when I have to keep looking over and checking on her.

And even if I don’t aim to get up early and go she wakes up anyway. It’s just hardwired in her. Her brain just knows there’s got to be something more interesting to do than sleep. 9 times out of 10 she wakes me up, too. Wait, no. 10 times out of 10. Who am I kidding?

So here we are, mother and child. Both exhausted, all the time. I’m so tired I’ve almost given up drinking.

Almost.

Plus, she is so cute when she’s asleep.

 

A bubble of despair sits on my chest. It’s heavy and it’s making its presence known. If someone looks at me sideways – or doesn’t – it’s going to explode into rivulets of tears down my face. This bubble welled up out of nowhere, I’ve already had one explosion today. In my bedroom, dark and deep, where no one could hear or see it. But apparently my grief and fears want an audience because it’s back, and larger than ever.

My husband sits down with me on the couch and just like that the bubble pops. Baby Girl doesn’t know what to do when this happens, she wants to cuddle and pat my arm but she is shooed into the playroom because “Mommy is sad.” Mommy IS sad. It’s the type of sad borne out of an unableness to fix what’s wrong. Mommy is used to fixing what is wrong.

What do you do when you no longer have control? How do you watch your loved one wither and morph into something you don’t recognize, and which doesn’t recognize you? I’m not sure, I tell my brother, that she knows exactly who we are, but she knows we are important to her. She knows she loves us. She knows she wants us there. She does not call me by my name.

She is in the hospital, and I am sitting by her watching her sleep. I have moved a chair so that I can finally hold her hand, after three months of not touching. I rub the soft spot between her thumb and forefinger. The corners of her mouth are turned down and there are tears at the edges of her eyelids. Her chin is a mess of black and blue from where she fell. There is some dried blood around her mouth. I  notice long hairs on her chin and upper lip that I know she would be mortified by if she knew they were there. I am struck by an urge to pluck them for her, but obviously I do not. She has gained weight and her arm is a bit swollen from putting the IV in. She wakes up and looks at me briefly. She is calm and for that I am grateful.

My mom has been in the ER and then in a hospital room since Wednesday night at 11 pm. It is now Friday at 8 am. I talked to the ENT that transported her to the hospital and was assured the hospital had all my information and would call me. I hear nothing further all night long. When I called the facility where she lives at 9 am Thursday morning I am assured she’s in her room, resting. I am relieved and go on about my day. Thursday afternoon at 4 pm a phone call tells me she has been admitted to the hospital. From …. where? I ask. From her room? What is going on? No, she was never brought back to the facility. She was in the ER until 1 or 2 pm today when they finally admitted her.

SHE WAS IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM ALL ALONE FOR 16 HOURS?! Horrified, I immediately call the ER she was taken to and the person that answers was actually my mom’s nurse. What on earth? I ask. Why did no one call me? I had no idea she was there by herself! The ER nurse said that they did not have any phone numbers. And you couldn’t call the facility and GET my number? “No,” he said. “I didn’t bother to do that.”

Y’all. Have you ever felt so enraged that you could jump down that phone line and rip someone’s F&(#$&% balls off?

You didn’t bother? I slowly state, just to clarify what he said. “No,” he said, and “I can see this conversation isn’t going anywhere so can I just transfer you to the third floor where she is now?”

I get that he was probably pretty busy but seriously WTF. She has Alzheimer’s – I am SURE the ENT told them she has advanced dementia. She was all alone in a place she did not recognize, could not speak for herself, and did not have anyone to advocate for her. She must have been absolutely terrified. That nurse took advantage of the situation and knew that my mom could not understand, and could not speak for herself and HE decided she would not remember and therefore was not AN ACTUAL PERSON who needed a family member. To top it all off, I also found out that one visitor per person is actually now allowed at that hospital so I could have been there with my mom the entire time. Actually physically present.

I. Can’t. Even.

I called my brother. He promised me that he would “do what he does.” Heads will roll and if that nurse isn’t fired I will be surprised (and pissed off.) I am usually all about forgiveness, and making mistakes and people being people and screwing up. NOT THIS TIME. In no way does that nurse NOT deserve to be fired. He clearly did not care about his patient. Her emotional needs were not considered. He did not care when he was speaking to me, he simply wanted to pass me along and get me off his back.

There are so many things that are wrong here. Mom is finally back in her room, with her cat, whom she does know is named Margaret. I believe she is probably doing as well as she can be. She was not actually injured from either her fall, or her prolonged stay in the emergency room. She doesn’t actually know what happened – she insisted that she “didn’t do it.” Whatever IT was in her mind – she was sure she wasn’t at fault. I can hear her, in my mind, and I know she was scared.

There is so much more I could say about being with her in the hospital, and how she was, and what my thoughts were. About how we finagled the system and got my Dad to meet us in the lobby so he could see her and hold her hand for five minutes before I took her “home.” I have so much to say. There is so much that I feel. But grief is the top emotion, and grief is what causes the bubble of despair. I am supposed to be my mom’s advocate. I was denied the opportunity to be there for her, and I am filled with anger.

So today I am a mushroom – hiding in the dark and hopefully gaining a little strength by being alone so that next time, next time, I can be there for her in all the ways that matter. I am her advocate. I am her daughter. She is not alone, no matter what that ER nurse thought. She has people. SHE HAS ME.

We are at the zoo, Baby Girl is having a screaming fit in the souvenir shop. She’s clutching a blue and white striped stuffed zebra and weeping, wailing and moaning that she wants a decoupage owl as well. She knows she only has twenty dollars to spend – her birthday money. She knows the two items together are way over her budget and she has been told she has to choose.

We spent time discussing how much money she would have and what she could expect to buy with it in the car on the way to the zoo. She has been looking forward to going for a week, every day asking if it’s the right day yet. I do everything I can to prepare her for the day. I tell her we will do the water park part of the zoo if there is time, but that we are going to see the animals first. She insists on giraffes (of course) and zebras and a snowcone. She wants to ride the train. I pay $8 for a two minute train ride. We do everything she wants to do.

Then we get to the water park and look at our watches. There really isn’t time to enjoy it and with COVID they are only letting a certain number of people in at a time, so there is no way to tell how long the wait will be. It does NOT seem that they applied this same theory to the zoo itself, though, as it was crowded and plenty of people in my six foot space bubble at any given time.

Baby Girl sees the picture of the water park – she points and yells for us to look! She’s excited beyond measure. She’s also exhausted. She only slept eight hours last night and she always needs at least ten. There are two reasons she doesn’t get enough sleep – one is that if I have lessons or we do anything out of the ordinary she will not go to sleep on time. She has classic FOMO syndrome – Fear of Missing Out. She fights sleep like a two penguins fighting for the same rock. She’s NOT GIVING IN. She gives me a hard time every single night over every single thing. And it makes me tired, and angry. I don’t understand her willingness to piss me off just to play up and be silly at bedtime. She definitely doesn’t take the easy, compliant road. Melatonin is our best friend. Her sleepy pill wins the day every single night. 99% of the time she falls asleep right beside me and I end up moving her to her pallet on the floor.

The second reason is that she wakes up too early. I wake up early every day. Usually it’s because of the cat yowling at me. The cat is 14 – surely they don’t live much longer right? But if Baby Girl senses that I am awake she jumps up and follows me. She will not lay back down – she will not relax and go back to sleep. Therefore, more often than not, she does not get enough sleep.

So back to the water park. I lean down to explain that we will save the water park for another day. You can imagine the response. Eyes roll back, crocodile tears well up and she is bawling – noooooo I wanna swimmmmm….. – I try explaining every which way I can and end up just turning and walking away. Which is very hard to do when you know that she clearly has a fear of being left and also when you have a fear of her being snatched. But I safely walk away and she does dry it up and follow me. Yay I think – crisis mostly averted!

Which brings us to the prize shop…… I am standing there completely bewildered. I know why she is acting this way. I also know that I am embarrassed and that I am not very sure what to do. She screams loudly when I grab her arm to tell her to cut that shit out. Anytime you grab her arm she screams and tries desperately to free herself – at home, at the store, in the damn zoo shop. It’s the worst possible thing she can do to me. I am certain someone is going to think I am abusing her, or worse, kidnapping her. I make her pay for the zebra and we’re out.

We leave the gates and she tells me she has to pee. SERIOUSLY KID?!?!?!? I know she’s going to fall asleep the instant we get in the car (she does) and before I can find a bathroom. I drive in peace for thirty minutes. Then she starts to cry. She starts to cry before she wakes up. She then wakes up fully and is crying even louder. She has to pee. I know!!! I know, Baby Girl, I am working on it! It takes me twenty minutes to find a bathroom – y’all know the stretch of I-35W where there is absolutely nothing for miles? That’s where she woke up.

At any rate we finally do find a bathroom and some doritos and we drive the rest of the way home. I turn the TV on for her and lay down on my bed – I pass out for thirty minutes.  I often feel like most Mama’s would be able to handle all of this way better than I do. I often feel weary and inept. I tell myself most Mama’s must have more patience, or more alcohol, or something. I cannot deal with Baby Girl’s temper. It frustrates me at the best of times. She is also always wanting MORE. Do I chalk this up to wanting to explore life at a record pace? Do I indulge her passions? Do I think wow this kid wants to learn and do and I should encourage that?

Yeah… no I don’t think any of those things. I think how exhausting she is. I think about how she is never satisfied. I think how do I make her more grateful? I think how do I make her SLOW DOWN?! I think when can I just relax?!

Have a moment with me, mama’s. Life is hard and passionate children make it harder. I pray that someday all this drama and persistence will turn into something positive for her and into a nice shady front porch with a drink in my hand for me.

It’s a Sunday night and I’m in the bath. Her bathtub, in her room – in the house she lived in for only a year. Still, it has her essence – her clothes I can see in the closet, her bathrobe hanging from the hook by the tub, her shampoos and conditioner to turn frizzy hair straight. I use the last of the bottle of bubble bath – her favorite scents, vanilla and patchouli fill the room. I breathe in. I try to relax, I try to calm my troubled heart and head. After I get out of the bath I go in her closet and try to imagine her there, choosing her own clothes, her own shoes. I try to remember when she’d be in the bathroom with her coffee putting her makeup on and getting dressed, in the old house. When the doors were shut and she didn’t want anyone to interrupt her, much less help her.

Don’t think about the fact that she started to wear the same clothes day in and day out. That she stopped wearing pajamas. That she would put three or four shirts on one on top of the other. Don’t agonize over when you had to pack up some of her clothes and had to throw away so many of her pants and underwear due to stains. She was so proud. She would not want you to remember that. She would be mortified if she knew you had noticed. Don’t dwell on how you looked at the bras in the drawer and dismissed them. She wouldn’t wear them anyway. You considered the socks and decided against – just another slip and fall waiting to happen. Bare feet or shoes are best. She was never a fan of socks anyway.

I look at all the things in her bedroom and bathroom. These were her things. The stuff she picked out for her own and enjoyed. The ornamental birds, the tiny doll bench at the end of her bed, the yellow rose antiques she inherited from her mother. I can’t stand thinking that she will never see these things again. And if I took them to the place she’s at – I can’t call it her home – would she remember them? Would she look at them vaguely and say oh how nice! Or would she say oh! Yes, I remember this. I loved this.

When they call me through video conferencing, she is so happy to see me. But even so she can hardly figure out how to hold the phone so that I can see her face. A lot of times she puts her thumb over the picture, as if she is stroking it. As if she would stroke my hand if I were with her.

Because of COVID-19, I haven’t seen my mom in person in over two months. I haven’t held her hand or hugged her. She seems happy enough most of the time. A week or so ago she fell in her room and had to be sent out to the ER because she had split her lip and hit her head. I knew she would be terrified. The lovely ER nurse that answered the phone when I called told me “I know how hard this is for you. My story is different, but I have a story, too.” The ENT’s had made her aware that my mom has Alzheimer’s. I didn’t need to panic. She let me talk to my mom on the phone – twice. She got her a coke to drink when I told her it was her favorite thing. She thanked me for telling her. She kept my mom close to her and I am SO GRATEFUL. It seems so rare to come across such kindness, but I believe that one thing COVID-19 has done is to make us ALL more grateful to and for the nurses and doctors taking care of our loved ones. They may not have the same story, but they know your story is so personal and important to you. This nurse didn’t try to dismiss my feelings, she helped me process them. How many nurses do you know that have ever done that for you, in such a heartfelt, caring way? Her name was Gerri. I am exceedingly grateful that she was the one that was there, in that place, at that time.

Mom’s cut is healing, she no longer has a vivid red mark across her upper lip. She has a friend, John, that she was sitting with today and having a “wonderful time.” Those were her words. She could not tell me what she was actually doing, but the fact that she was enjoying herself was balm on my troubled soul. I miss her. They were having holiday cookies and just talking I was told by the Activities Director. The best caregiver I’ve known there, Seema, immediately took over taking care of my mom’s precious cat when I was no longer allowed in. I didn’t have to ask or worry about it. People step up, you know. People go above and beyond their call of duty. God has sent angels to watch over my mom while I can’t be there. Today was a dark day for me, for more reasons than my mom’s situation. But at my lowest point, when my heart was weeping, that call came through and I was able to see my mom’s smiling face. I can no longer tell her that I am upset, that I miss her, that I need her to comfort me. I don’t want to cause her anxiety so I don’t tell her about my colt that died, I don’t tell her that I often feel impotent as a parent. I don’t spill my rage and hurt onto her shoulders anymore. I don’t tell her that I never thought I’d have to raise my child alone, without her, and that it sucks.

Nobody listens like your mom listens. So I think I will tell her. I’ll go down past the pond and choose a paddock, choose a pony, and I’ll vent and weep and rage. And I’ll listen. I’ll listen to what she would have said, when she was able. I’ll feel her close by and I’ll be comforted by her touch that whispers like pony whiskers on my arm. And in the horse’s soft nicker and gentle nuzzle I’ll know who is listening.

I’m pretty sure she’ll be there.

 

I’ve been crying for three days. Crying, ranting, raging – unable to handle one more thing. Losing it with Baby Girl, losing it in general. Tears come unbidden, at any random time. I curl up in my bed and let it go for a little while. I write bitter, venting words that I share with my husband and a few friends. I cry so hard I can’t breathe. I scream at the Devil and he laughs.

And then. There’s a little sliver of light. From nowhere it comes and I welcome it. I grab it with both hands and I hang on. It came while I slept. It came somehow, without me doing anything to ask for it. It came and I saw it.

Life right now is so uncertain, so unbearable and shitty. But bear it we must. There is no other choice. And I must be the one to be strong. For Baby Girl, for my Dad, for my Mom, for me. You’ve heard it before but I’m telling you right now that when the Devil told me I couldn’t withstand the storm I almost believed him. I wanted to shake my fist at him and rage “you Mother EFFER – give me back my mom! Give me back my life and my sanity and my confidence!” And then I realized. He’s not the one.

I have never in my life given up on anything. Not when things were as bad as I thought they could possibly get, not when I lost the first baby, not when I was told I would lose Baby Girl. I had FAITH I would get through it, I bore my parents’ pain, especially my Dad’s when he cried for Baby Girl. I told him it was going to be OK – instead of him telling me. I laid my head in his lap and I told him it was going to be OK. And it was. God saved Baby Girl – and he saved all of us, too.

And so when I feel like I am not the best mom in the world, when I am downright sure I am the worst – I tell myself God gave me this one for a reason. She was meant to be mine and as hard as it is someday that reason will be clear. Everyday I fight depression so hard it threatens to swallow me and Baby Girl up with it. I fight, I struggle and I lose a lot. Depression is no joke when you’re right in the middle of it. The meme’s and “words of wisdom” that implore you to “choose happiness” – that shit doesn’t fly when you have severe depression. If I was in any way capable,  I would certainly choose happiness. Wouldn’t we all?

I see happiness in that sliver of light. I can’t quite grasp it but I’m going to try. There will be more days when I can’t handle a single thing, when I yell at Baby Girl for no reason – there will be days when I am tested so hard I want to crumble. And maybe I will. For a little while.

But then, I’ll see that sliver of light – that hope and happiness and goodness – and I’ll stand up from my knees and I’ll say with strength from God “I AM THE STORM.” And the Devil better be listening cuz I’m only going to say it once. I’ll shake off his doubt and despair and I’ll cloak myself in faith. I’ll be strong again. I’ll be ME again.

 

I feel like she’s been locked away. Like they used to lock away people in institutions for mental or emotional or physical handicaps. She seems so remote from me, and from everything she should be doing and experiencing right now. There is a depth of anger in me so deep – so deep that I might drown in it. I never knew it was possible to feel anger so deeply within my soul.

The reality is she is NOT locked away. She is where she needs to be for her own health and safety. But reality doesn’t mesh with my feelings about it. The fact is – I cannot take care of her. I was not trained for that. I cannot maintain any semblance of a “normal” relationship with her if I am cleaning her up after an accident or constantly re-directing her actions or helping her eat with a fork. My heart breaks enough just being with her and not being able to hold a conversation.

They call me, they do. At night when she’s so upset that she can’t breathe. I talk her down off the ledge time and time again. I tell her she’s loved – so much – and I tell her everything is alright and then I tell her stories about her granddaughter and the horses and whatever else I can think of that will make her heart smile. I wait on the phone while she takes her medicine she was refusing earlier. I wait until she can breathe again, I tell her I’m drinking wine and that she should be too. She laughs and says “that sounds good!” I make it a point to bring her a few beers the next time I come to see her. I tell the caregivers to be sure to open it and serve it to her over ice – she can’t do it herself.

They call me during the day with video conferencing. I am desperate not to miss these calls. I wish they were more consistent but I understand that they are busy and doing their  best. I’m glad to see her face, if even for just a few moments. I’m glad to hear her voice. She still sounds the same as ever. I have an old voice mail she left for me a few years ago and the entire reason I have not gotten a new phone is that I don’t want to lose that voice mail.

She should be here. Enjoying this beautiful sunny day. Gardening, or cooking something new to try. She should be playing with Baby Girl and laughing and rolling her eyes with me at her sassiness. She should be sitting on the back porch and watching the squirrels and birds and appreciating life. She should be there when I go to see Dad. She isn’t.

Would it have been easier if she had died from cancer or such? From an accident? Something quick? I don’t know if it would have been because that isn’t the way it’s happening. Instead Grief hangs over us all, unrelenting because in a way it hasn’t really started yet. We are all just holding on. Waiting for the inevitable. For a future where we have to learn to live without her entirely. A future where Baby Girl gets married or has babies without her Grandma to witness it. Where she graduates high school or wins a champion ribbon in a horseshow. Maybe joins the swim team. There is no telling what Baby Girl will do – but it is absolute that her Granny won’t be here to bear witness to it.

That is what makes me the most sad of all. I know we can’t go back. Back to swinging in the hammock in the back yard in Tyler, chilling out drinking a beverage and shooting the breeze with Dad while Mom makes my favorite meal. Sitting at her table with her in the evening discussing everything from books we are reading to the mysteries of life. We can’t go back to the every day phone calls and the advice and love she gave me every day. It’s the future that we will miss most of all.

She’s not locked away, this I know. She’s safe, she’s healthy and I’ve got to believe the people there really care about her wellbeing. All the same, she’s “locked away” from my everyday life. And I find that impossible to bear. Sometimes I take my anger out on my husband, sometimes on Baby Girl. I try so hard not to – I know it isn’t fair. My husband understands. Baby Girl doesn’t – so I sigh and try to calm down and reevaluate the situation so that I can be fair with her. I hope someday she’ll understand that it was very difficult to have a Mommy with a constantly broken heart. I hope she’ll forgive me.

And I don’t want you to worry Mom. In all the important ways – I’m holding on tight to you.

Baby Girl is in her element. She doesn’t have to get dressed. She can play all day and eat all day and make a huge mess all day. She can go outside when the weather is nice and ride her pony. She is free to be her very best self. Well, at least her truest self. Which is not always her best self. In fact it very rarely is. The kid knows how to push my buttons and that’s a fact. She’s smart. She thinks she knows everything. She will tell you she does – she will scream it into your face. She will argue every point you try and make.

Occasionally she’ll tell me “you’re right Mommy! You’re right and I was wrong.” Like it is completely inconceivable that this could occur. She is in wondrous rapture when this happens. Meanwhile I’m looking at her like she has two heads and has grown wings.

Baby Girl is spunky. She has spark. She has a ferocious temper. She will, God willing, grow up to be a force to be reckoned with – in a good way I pray. She hears conversations I have with Tony from three rooms away. She remembers everything. She especially remembers if I am having a “day” and get frustrated with her and say something like “I just wanted to have a nice day with you and now look.” She’ll say it back to me if she’s the one that gets frustrated. But unlike ME, she’ll say it over and over while wailing and pounding her fists in her pillow and punishing me as forcefully as she can with her crocodile tears.

And if you think to yourself “what in Hell’s teeth do I do now?” as I often do, you might also think well maybe I should try talking to her. Big mistake. Huge. DON’T DO THIS. It’ll just unleash another wave of fury and sobs. Walk away, just walk away. She’ll come around. Have a drink. Have another. Be patient.

If the kid is anything like me (and we all know that she is) she’s continuously trying to figure out how she feels about things. She’s not about to give in, and she’s not going to give up. And she’s got almost 39 years on me. So I worry. And I’m weary. All these crazy changes lately and these scary things going on have me like “Lord just let it all be over. Let it all go back to normal.” But normal, at least for me, wasn’t that great either. Right now I’m saving time and gas by not being able to drive to visit my parents but that is simply replaced by extra worry because I cannot see them. For people whose parents do not have medical issues this may not be a big deal – for me it is crucifying. My mom can’t even have a decent conversation with me so all I can do is have five minutes with her by video chat whenever I don’t miss that call. I know that every day is one day closer to her not remembering who I am. And I’m missing this crucial time with her. And while I’m super angry and sad about this I am also not willing to risk her health and the health of the others around her. She wouldn’t survive Corona – I know this. The facility is on lockdown and no one except staff and medical personnel are allowed in but this certainly doesn’t guarantee that the virus will not be brought in somehow. And here’s the worst possible thing – if she does get it and is admitted to the hospital I won’t be allowed to see her there either. I can’t even begin to image my mom in a hospital, confused and sick, and I’m not allowed to be by her side. The worry is overwhelming.

And my Dad. My Dad is already in a hospital. Having had three (four?) surgeries in the past week alone. His new doctor is amazing, I know this even though I have never met him, because he saved his leg. It was weeks, maybe days, away from having to be amputated. Bullworker has a bit of a following on Facebook and I am grateful to all of you that have posted words of comfort and support. I know he reads them. I am not allowed to visit him there, and I will not be allowed into the rehab place either. However, I am hoping against hope that I will be able to transfer him from hospital to rehab thus getting to spend some time with him, if even just for as short a time as that. I imagine that the rehab place will take good care of him, but again, the coronavirus is an ever-ominous threat and I am worried. My aunt has taken up residence in his hospital room, after refusing to leave once she brought him in, and thus she is now trapped. If she left for any reason they would not let her back in. I am exceedingly grateful to her. She is a Thomas, after all, and persistence and damn cussedness runs in the family.

So, Baby Girl has the run of the house and the property (and me) because I currently cannot focus on anything else other than the worry surrounding my parents. I want to work, but the rain and cold has stopped me short. Plus the persistent pain in my foot which makes me want to scream with annoyance. Riding and Crossfit – my two go-to’s for ME TIME both make my foot hurt worse.

This is just a season right? This too shall pass. But lately every time something passes, something new and worse takes its place. My dryer went out yesterday. Just because it could. My phone won’t hold a charge anymore. My kid has got my number and I’m too weary to do anything about it. So if you’re having a hard time too I totally feel your pain. I’ll have a drink for you and I’ll pray for you as I have been praying for myself. I know I’m not alone though it sure feels like it when we must be socially distant. I’m pretty good at social distancing but it’s always been of my own volition not the government’s. So that of course just pisses me off. Baby Girl and I don’t like anyone telling us what to do. I would laugh if I wasn’t already crying….

Breathe deep my friends. This too shall pass. The future may not be any brighter but the hope that it will be is what keeps us going.

**Disclaimer** If you are offended by cuss words I’d advise you to stop reading now.

A few weeks ago I noticed Baby Girl scratching her head. So I did what any mom would do and I ignored it. Just kidding, I really looked at her head. I searched and searched and didn’t see anything. So I moved on. Chalked it up to the continuous weather changes and dry scalp.

A week later Baby Girl got her hair cut. Deep conditioned and three inches shorter – she didn’t seem to be itching anymore. The hair stylist didn’t mention seeing anything odd. I even told her that Baby Girl had been itching and she concurred that it must be dry scalp! So we moved on.

A week after that – last Sunday – we are at my friend’s new house in a sleepy little town called Pelican Bay. Baby Girl and her friend are sitting on the floor playing and I’m standing above her. I look down and I’m like “what the FUCK is that? Friend!!!! Are these fleas?!” She looks. They are so big and so many that I can easily pluck one from her hair. Um. No. OH HOLY SHIT IT’S LICE. My whole world stops moving. I panic. I throw up a little in my mouth. I toss Baby Girl in the car and my wheels screech as I spin out of the driveway.

AND I IMMEDIATELY GET PULLED OVER. By the Pelican Bay policeman who must be the only one on duty and must be bored out of his mind. I’m like WHY?!?! Why dude why? I have got to get this kid home and burn my house down! I’ve got heads to shave! WHY did you pull me over?

Ma’am you didn’t use your blinker coming out of the subdivision.

(By the way I was turning RIGHT. Not left). ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. So of course I tell him my husband is a police officer. And he says oh really? And comes back with just a verbal warning that I need to be more careful. I seethe. I make a big point of using my fucking blinker as I merge back onto the road.

I have, of course, frantically called Tony during this exchange and tell him that A) baby girl has lice and B) I got pulled over. He is way more concerned about the lice (as he should be I suppose). We quickly ascertain that we have some products in the house we can use. We HAVE done this before, unbelieveably when Baby Girl was 18 months? Two years? She somehow got lice even though she literally never left the house unless she was with me at that point. But her hair, though amazingly thick for a two year old, was much much shorter and easier to deal with at that point. I mean, have you guys SEEN Baby Girl’s hair? It’s been like adult hair since she was born. I never even used baby shampoo on it. We had to condition it from about six months old on. It is the thickest, most luxiourius mane you’ve seen this side of an African lion. She’s very very blessed with her hair.

I’m screwed. How in the hell am I going to get a comb through that mess?! And let me assure y’all that her head was CRAWLING with lice. Not just a few. So while I’m speeding like mad to get home – Tony is at home with a blow torch. Seriously – he wouldn’t do that even though I was thisclose to telling him to. But he WAS washing, on high heat, everything in the house. Every blanket, every jacket, comforter, sheet, pillowcase and stuffed animal he could find. We vacummed and shampooed the carpets. We did her hair with the lice killing shampoo and the comb. We used tea tree oil. We did my own hair. We did Tony’s hair.

I bet you are scratching your head right now, am I right? I am.

I tell her teacher she has lice. I didn’t know this but last year the law changed and now kids can attend school whilst having lice in their hair. WHICH IS WHY BABY GIRL HAS IT. WHICH IS WHY WE WILL PROBABLY NEVER COMPLETELY GET RID OF IT. Nobody’s safe. Did I send Baby Girl to school then? You bet I did. To be fair we DID treat her hair before she went. Also to be fair, she’d already been for weeks before we even knew she had it.

Kindergartners are the sweetest lil things ever. You walk in and they all run to hug you. They don’t even know who you are or why you are there. So I can’t imagine how on earth you can keep lice out of a kindergarten classroom. Even if you bug-bombed it every single night. They share hats, and hair bands, and they keep their heads close together over coloring pages and books. They sprawl out on reading carpets and sink into shared bean bags. I mean we are fighting a losing battle here.

I have now treated Baby Girl’s hair three times and tonight will be the fourth. I’ve treated my own hair three times and literally cut six inches off to make it easier on myself. I am pretty sure our house is lice free. Pretty sure. If I see another one I am going to just burn the place down, I swear. I have been in a RAGE all week. I am one tired Mother.

If you see me this week take pity on me and tell me you like my haircut. Tell me life is actually worth living even with lice in it. Bring me wine and chocolate. But for God’s sake don’t hug me.

We never know which tiny piece of snow holds back the avalanche. We don’t know until that one piece finally shifts, or lets go, and then everything rushes down. I’ve been searching for my own Atlas, and I haven’t found it yet. Today was just one more tiny piece of what I hope is the crumbling pie.

Atlas holds the weight of the world on his shoulders and this is how I feel everyday. But more than just feeling responsible for everyone and everything around me, is the shame and disgust I feel about my own self. That may sound harsh but it’s true – so true. Five years ago I was about 40 pounds lighter and a half a world away from F*A*T. Ten years ago I was 50 pounds lighter and strong – and happy. Stressed out of course – because if horses are your life you are ALWAYS stressed – but happy nonetheless.

When you are five foot two fifty/forty pounds is a LOT. So what happened? I couldn’t even tell you. Getting older? Sure. Hormones changing? Sure? Depression? Probably. But I honestly think that not being able to live life MY WAY all the time was the kicker. It’s easy to blame having a child for your body to change – but having a child also changed the entire way I view my world. As it should, right? The kid becomes your universe. But somewhere in the last five years I lost myself.

It started with less riding, and then pain set in. The pain got worse until it became unbearable to ride. The fear factor was there as well – if I ride I may fall and then I won’t be able to take care of my kid because I will be hurt and it’s also hard to take care of her if I’m in pain. I became less confident. Less confident equals less riding. I remember just a few months after Baby Girl was born I was riding a large pony and for some unknown reason that pony decided I was trying to ask for a lead change (I was not) and he did not agree that a lead change was in the plan. So he bucked me off. And I was surprised as I landed on my back in the dirt, surprised that he got me. And it shook me. The pain was intense. My baby was only two months old.

Along with less riding and more pain comes more responsibility. Who is going to watch Baby Girl if I’m not? Especially in the beginning when my husband was in Haiti. My parents didn’t live close and most of my friends didn’t live close either. It was hard. I used to strap her car seat onto the four wheeler in order to go feed the horses. But she’s always been a demanding child and doing anything while watching her was damn near impossible. So I stopped cleaning the barn, fixing jumps, and taking care of the paddocks, except for what was absolutely necessary.

I was tired. I took a lot of naps. Depression set in and all I wanted to do was sleep. I still take a lot of naps – it’s an escape. The only time I do not have to be responsible for anything. And then came my aging parents – who are not to blame of course, but as their daughter I am one-half of all they have and they are my responsiblity as well. We’ve always been a close-knit family and I’m certainly not going to let them down.

I’ve been trying for years to lose weight – even as I watch it creep higher and higher still. I worry about sugar, and diabetes, and depression (sugar blocks seratonin after all) and I worry about heart disease and most of all, about Dementia. I think that the healthier I get the more likely I am to avoid Alzheimer’s. I have read book after book about healthy eating. I have made a lot of small changes. I joined CrossFit. I push myself. But I’m still tired. Still overweight. Still hate the way I look in the mirror. When push comes to shove and I get stressed I turn to sugar and carbs every time. It’s easy.

I hate to cook. I prefer things that are ready made. I don’t want to peel vegetables and figure out what to do with them to make them edible. I did cut out most fried food awhile back – acid reflux made that decision easy. Dr. Pepper and Diet Coke are way more satisfying than water. I’m only counting down the hours til it’s time to drink wine anyway. I do drink water – just not enough. I eat all the right things – just not enough. I go to work out – just not enough. I’ve cut back on the sugar – just not enough.

What will it take? Where is my Atlas? I need that avalanche to fall – I need to lose weight and not hate the way I look, I want to look sexier and younger and I want to FEEL LIKE A BAD ASS. I want to wear the clothes I already own and not fill them out so well and so much. I want to fit in jeans I haven’t worn in years. And I want to be a bad ass Mama. These kids that look at their mama’s in the gym while they’re lifting 200 plus in a clean – I want to be one of those mom’s.

I know I can do it. Maybe the wine is my Atlas….

My brother and I just spent our very first family Christmas together, alone, without our parents. It’s something I wasn’t prepared for. With mom in memory care and Dad in the hospital it was just us and our four children. I made the kids wait until my husband woke up on Sunday morning before we could open presents. It just felt too weird not to have another adult there. Like some sort of bizarre plot twist in a time travel movie.

Overall we had a good time. We did go visit my parents and the kids opened gifts from them that Grandpa paid for but never saw. Dave ordered them and I wrapped them and the kids gleefully tore into them, unaware and unconcerned of what emotional price I was paying. We went to Babe’s chicken one night and ordered pizza the next. No traditional Christmas dinner was planned nor cooked. No cookies were baked and no pies were devoured. My nephew watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas four times. I’ve had “wa hoo wa hoo wa hoo wa hoo something something Christmas day” stuck in my head ever since.

The two girl cousins had a great time until there was a misunderstanding over a stuffed unicorn and both girls were in tears and tired of each other. I was done drinking and ready for bed before my brother was, which we were probably both disappointed by but there’s only so much I can handle before I need to escape. I’m still recovering.

Today is Christmas Eve. Tony and Baby Girl and I went to see my mom and took her gifts for Christmas. Her room at the memory care center is always fairly destroyed when I arrive. She spends her time moving her possessions around, packing them up and stuffing them in bags and cabinets. She is clearly confused by her surroundings at the best of times. I tried to decorate her apartment with all the things she loves best: pictures of her and Dad, pictures of me and David and all her grandchildren, things my dad made for her and things that belonged to her mother. My grandmother loved yellow roses, yellow roses were all over her house, especially on these fancy plates. There are big plates and small plates, gold rimmed plates and plates that should be hung up and plates that sit on fancy holders. There are cups and saucers, too. They’re all beautiful and they’re all extremely old. And precious to my mom.  Oddly, I feel absolutely no nostalgia for these things except for the fact that I know my mom loves them.

Today I found a broken saucer. Did she drop it? It’s split clean in half. She had shoved it back in a cabinet and I found it there and sadly pulled it out. Oh no! I cried to Tony, look! I was devastated. Mom couldn’t tell me how it happened. She told me not to worry about it, she seemed very unconcerned. And as she was sitting there WITH BABY GIRL NEXT TO HER, she asked where is Baby Girl? I looked at Tony and he looked at me and neither of us said anything at all. She opened one of her gifts, a shirt, from me and told me she loved it. Later, when we were getting ready to go she said “oh I don’t need that thing.” Referring to the same shirt.

We took her to Whataburger for lunch. She was overjoyed and kept repeating “this is just incredible” and “you are so sweet to do this for me.” But at the same time she was very worried about being in the truck and absolutely unsure what was going on at any time. When I took her into the restroom I noticed that once again there was a wet spot on the back of her pants. She also told me that the place smelled but I am pretty sure it’s just that she gets STUFF under her fingernails. STUFF that I don’t want to spell out. Because she can’t remember to use toilet paper and gets confused in the bathroom. THIS is why she’s in memory care, this more than anything else. It just guts me to realize that it will still happen, even with the best of care. You can’t tell her, either. She’d be extremely embarrassed and she wouldn’t let you help her wash her hands. So there’s no point but to just endure the outing and get her back to her apartment as soon as possible and hope that someone there notices and does something about it.

Like the saucer, I am broken. I can’t enjoy this season. I am sad and angry and not yet ready to relax about it all. I wish my Dad was at home, I am not sure if that would have made any difference but it would have been nice to have him with us at our Christmas celebration. The thing that tears me up most, about the broken saucer, is that Mom wasn’t concerned about it. What was once precious to her has been forgotten.

Sometime, in the not so distant future, my brother and I and our children will all be just like that broken saucer.