Good Behavior

There is a new TV show called Good Behavior on USA Network.  I love the show.  The joke is that the protagonist is on parole from prison because of good behavior, but she practices lots of bad behavior on the outside including hooking up with a paid hitman & blowing off her required visits with her parole officer Christian.  Christian is also paying for some previous bad behavior as at one time he was a University Professor, but is now a parole officer due to some "hanky panky" with one of his students.

I don't know what this has to do with me, but I enjoy the concept that perhaps we are always paying for previous bad behavior by trying to do good.

I by no means believe that I have earned the load I am carrying around with me now.  It's just the way it is.  I've been in the right place at the right/wrong time. Did I show enough good behavior in the past to prove I'm up to these challenges?  Are these stressors really here to help me learn a lesson? I want to yell " OK already, I get it, let me live in peace."

I don't have the discipline to write every day, even tho I want to.  I have made promise after promise to no avail.  Thus my first blog post since March, I think. Yesterday I was talking to a case manager from Pima Council on Aging (my 3rd or 4th in less than 2 years)  I don't fire or drive them away, there is just a huge turnover.  I keep holding on by my finger nails until I have to tell the whole story to a new person.  If they are supportive & tell me what a lot I have faced & how well I have handled it, I have a stress induced pity party.  Ironically, these phases are sometimes when I get the most done.  ( I really want to climb into bed & pull the covers over my head which I'll admit I do at times).

The case manager was here yesterday to review services my mom is eligible for.  Currently, we get 8 hours of respite care a week & financial assistance with her bathroom needs.  In the last 2 years and 3 mos, we have spent approximately $98,000 on caregiving services & other necessities such home owners insurance, property taxes, household repairs,prescription co pays, food, electricity, car insurance, etc, etc......
We are not wasting money.  We have a 15 year old car, have taken no vacations or purchased much clothing & certainly no lottery tickets.  The landscaper keeps the yard looking nice. I couldn't do that.  The pest control guy helps keep scorpions out of our house, I figured out the other day that this house costs approx. $12,000/year just to sit here with no people living in it.  We are selling the house & moving to a 2 bedroom apartment.  My mom doesn't like it & I'm afraid it is speeding along the advance of her dementia.  We had a month long garage sale.  I have sold almost everything of any worth at the garage sale, ebay & craig's list.  We have been living on these proceeds for the last 3 months.  I think I have to stay in the house until it sells, but I'm sorely tempted to figure out how we could move now & get it over with.

I've been reading The Minimalists on Face Book.  I love the concept.  My mother & father had so much stuff in this house that it took a full 3 months to get it out of here (either selling or donating).  They were not hoarders by any means, but they were collectors.  I've had to face that things are not the people who passed them on to you.  The people are in your heart forever, the stuff is just that, stuff.  It wasn't just my parents stuff we disposed of.  I sold keepsakes I didn't think I would ever part with.  I recycled my old year books.  Sold all of the games & almost all of the furniture. As all of this stuff left the house, I felt so much lighter.  I felt as though I had been carrying the weight of it around on my back because I knew someday I would have to figure out what to do with it. Don't worry, we still have at least 18 photo albums that need to be digitalized some day. My mom's chief caregiver thinks that what I want to keep will not fit into an apartment.  We shall see.



For those who do not know this is a summary of the last 13 years:  My father is diagnosed with a brain tumor& dies within a year, A month later, my sister is diagnosed with colo-rectal cancer & spends much of the 22 months before she died being cared for by me.  Meanwhile, my mother's health declines, breaks her arm, is in constant back pain, & is hospitalized about 5 times.  In 2013 I am diagnosed with colo rectal cancer, have radiation, chemo, surgery, more chemo, more surgery as well as breaking my arm & my ankle, getting kidney stones, heart arrythmia, & a few other things.  I realize this isn't all about me.  These things happened to my dad, sister, mom.  I was just there to help them. Who mostly took care of me? my friends & family helped a little, but in the end it was me & my mom's caregivers who took care of me.  Sometimes I was paying 2 caregivers at once.  I have never seen money disappear so fast in my life! Don't want to give anyone the  impression I need a bake sale, just your willing readership!