Battle Fatique

 In the midst of the past week and the ongoing father-in-law adventure was a horrible election.  This historic - yet again - event did not get lost in the shuffle and in a weird way, it was a relief that it wasn't front stage and center in my brain.  Because if that was the only thing I would have had to focus on, I would still be in bed.

So...here we go again.  Except this time it will probably be worse; as there are no guard rails this time. I cannot sugar coat it.

As staying in the bed for the next four years is not a viable option, I focused on what could be done.  I wrote about this the last time this disaster happened.  (see 2016 and 2020 posts)  This time I fear for peoples safety.  This time no one is safe from the actions of the incoming administration.

On one of the social media apps someone said "Well, at least we live in a blue state so we're lucky..." and that was immediately shouted down.  It was rude, like eating cake in front of starving children, and it was not a good take.  We will have a target on our state because it is blue.

The first thing I did as a coping technique was cull through my facebook friends. I did not look at the count so I don't know how many were deleted.  Anyone whom I haven't interacted with at all were deleted, many who are now Red Hat Wearers were deleted.  Requests I accepted "just because" - deleted.  The gentleman that I've written about commenting/"debating"/educating me on my posts after being asked not to. If you can't honor boundaries then I will make mine bigger.

Remaining are people that I consider friends, family members, neighbors, coworkers - past and present, and friends of Kevin/race car friends.  The friend count is mis-leading because the family is a big one.    There may be further cuts and there were a few that I wavered about.  

My point though, if you can't honor boundaries or if you cannot be a decent human being and/or still support the very devil incarnate, I'm not interested in giving you access to my life.  This isn't a simple disagreement about "politics", this is now a choose your side and hope you're right situation.

Next task was to cull through my email subscriptions.  Gone were the news updates and breaking news alerts.  I unsubscribed from the newspaper that declined to endorse a candidate.  Anything that is going to mention TFG on the daily was unsubscribed.

Then The Hollywood Reporter posted this article: How to Block TFG from All Your Screens   I suggest giving that a browse if you are so inclined.

Which brings me to the twitter/threads/bluesky situation.  I downloaded my profile on the twitter and deactivated the account.  It feels like bluesky is going to be the front runner on this kind of platform and that's where my BFF has an account so I'm going to try to focus on growing that profile.  I may put the news as focus on one and entertainment on the other.  I don't know yet; other than I don't have the attention span to monitor/upkeep both.

More pragmatic ideas that I have read:

One of the most comforting ideas that I read was to treat these next four years like we did during the pandemic:  Stay home, stay safe, do comfort activities.  Work on improving the space around you.

Get vaccinated. Get all the immunizations you can, while you can. Make sure you're up-to-date.

Get all your health stuff completed: dental, physical, vision exams. MENTAL HEALTH.

Cancel any health tracking or period tracking apps.  This may seem paranoid but I've seen it suggested multiple times; enough to list it here.

Get or renew your passport

Complete legal paperwork - get the divorce, complete the will, change your name, adopt the children.

Get a library card and use it.

Have cash on hand for emergencies.  As much as you can afford and/or are comfortable with.

Make the big purchase now...if you need a refrigerator, car or home improvements do it now before prices increase.

Stock up. Like the pandemic, stock up on paper goods, canned goods, non-perishables, OTC medicine, etc.  Stock up on clothing if you have kiddos and it's feasible.  Supply, demand and prices will be an issue.

People suggest stop using the shamazon.  I understand the principle and support it.  It's not feasible for some though.  If you live rurally, shamazon can be a lifesaver.  I'm reading that Target and Lowes are good alternatives however.

Donate - if you are able, donate to these organizations:

• Planned Parenthood
• ACLU
• Trevor Project and any LGBTQ+ organizations
• The Human Rights Campaign
• Local non-profits
• PBS and NPR

Hopefully this is a little bit of help when many of us are feeling bleak and powerless.  If you have any ideas that I haven't included, put them in the comments and we can post a list later for quick reference.

Top Ten of the Past Week

 We have established and it has been greatly recognized that I have a very dark sense of humor.  See previous post.  This might be another one to skip if that's not your vibe.

As a, perhaps unhealthy...or healthy?...coping mechanism, I am going to present the Top 10 Moments of the Last Week with the Terminator.  I swear there is no exaggeration or hyperbole in any of these.

10.  Making the joke that we are all grounded forever and being haunted the rest of our living days for not knowing her advanced directive and making the ICU nurse laugh.

9.  Hoping to all of the universe and all that you believe in that her spirit did not hear us cursing profusely.  see: grounded forever. Especially the "STOP BEING A D*CK THEN" in response to a brother's quoted worry of being abandoned.

8. The food aide coming into the room and asking what my mom wants for lunch. I gestured to a clearly comatose elderly person and I say "No, she's on comfort care. She isn't eating."  The aide asks "So, no dinner then?"  MY GAWD

7. While helping my niece clean up the crime scene that was my mother's bedroom, she happened upon my dad.  In his urn, in a box, in a bag, on the top shelf of an unused closet.  "What is this?" she says as she brings it down.  "Oh, that's Dad." I nonchalantly reply because I forget that people don't live in my head. "WHAT'S HE DOING UP THERE!?!" she exclaims and I really don't have an answer that is appropriate for a granddaughter who loved her grandparents.   "Well, I am taking him Out of the Closet!" which made us both giggle.

6. Still cleaning closets with the niece. In another cupboard she brings something down and says "Auntie, what is THIS!?!"  And she shows me Another Urn.  "WHO IN THE HOLY HELL IS THAT!?!?" I yelled in response.  A few minutes of investigation and she discovers that it's just my mom's empty urn.  WHEW.

5. These texts:

4.  Again, cleaning out cupboards and closets.  Niece will need therapy forevermore for finding this beyond inappropriate novelty next to her grandpa's chair.  I need therapy FFS.  As a true family member, she hid it for another unsuspecting family member to find.

3. Keeping baby hair was a thing of generations past, to my dismay.  I found two small boxes of baby hair in my closet adventures.  One labeled, one not.  When someone pouted that they felt they were missing out, I asked "I just found Mom's baby hair. Did you want that? Because that's what you're missing."  AND THEN sister-in-law finds a gift box full of "Mom's name hair" and it's curls.  PINNED CURLS.  I am not a screamer but I am a curser.  I am just telling myself that those were extensions. *shudder*  

2. Family Text Chain...we all know how those can be.  We received a text that Grandma is gone with a black heart.  Seems pretty clear.  I wrote something nice.  Nephew wrote something nice. Younger Brother posts a photo that he took that morning. Nephew #1 says something nice.  It's clear what has occurred, specifically after Brother texts that they were loading her up now.   Younger brother texted Brother and asked if mom was going to be around the next day.  I mean...what.  Brother phones him and said "You saw the text..."  Younger brother said he didn't understand and that he should have called him.  Well, he just attended your mother's death so...how about no.

1. We're waiting for a room upstairs while they were still trying to stabilize her in the Emergency Room.  We waited...two hours?  The ENTIRE TIME Younger brother would not stop talking. It was like if he wasn't talking he was going to die.  I can rationalize that he was traumatized but he wasn't talking about that anymore. Even though he did overshare details that none of us needed to know or be able to visualize.  He was talking about crazy ex-girlfriends and cars and money and how a guy on the internet are proving scientists wrong because what do scientists know and the Boeing strike etc. etc.

At one point during the stream of word salad, he starts talking about when my grandfather dropped dead of a heart attack at my house when I was 15.  I literally loudly said "CAN WE JUST NOT" and he stopped. Looked surprised, even.  Then he continued with the word salad when he asks "Where are you at with menopause? are you done?"

FOR FUCK SAKES.  WE are In the MIDDLE OF THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT, outside our DYING MOTHER'S ROOM.  SHUUUUT UUUUPPPP 

I was silent for the count of three and looked at Kevin who was rendered SPEECHLESS and this never happens.  I quipped something about just about done with that without making eye contact or body language of any kind showing that this is an okay conversation. Then he began to  continue with questions.  Sister-in-law - came out to interrupt and was like "Oh no, we're not talking about that..." Later, Kevin said that he said it so matter-of-factly, so assuredly, that he assumed maybe we had a conversation about it?  And that somehow made it worse.

So, yeah.  This is what I meant about my family.  I can think of no other examples that would more clearly explain who they are/can be.  Which brings me to this meme that I will hold forever dear to my heart:

RIP Terminator

 I'm not sure how to start this one...I'm going to go with the caption that I put on a snap to my BFF a little over a week ago:

"My mom fell and is dying. I didn't have that on my bingo card. FML"

Or...I can start it like I did in the email to my job partner: 

"Okay, this is going to sound weird and you need to remember who I am as a person.  My mom is dying.  She is actually supposed to be dead by now but she’s the effing Terminator."

Apologies if you're sensitive about these kinds of things, you might want to skip this post.  It's just been A LOT and based on a solid foundation of childhood trauma.

Longtime dear readers know that I had gone low-to-no contact with my bio family since the pandemic. Well, that just changed in a big way, for a moment.

Quick non-gory summary: she was 89 years old, living alone and in failing health; both mental and physical.   She fell, unattended, and was found 2-3 days later.  Alive but barely. The cause of the fall is unclear, it could be the poor health or a simple fall or both.  It doesn't really matter, I suppose.  She had fallen about a month prior and hid it from the family and didn't seek medical attention.  So falling was a thing.

With her age and the state of her health and now diagnosed - in the emergency room - cancer throughout her body, there is no reason why she should have lived.  Or why she held on for SIX GDAMN DAYS after being discovered.

She had an advanced directive.  I knew this and I had a copy of it.  I knew she didn't want to be kept alive, and that is the extent of my knowledge.  I am, however, not the executor, power of attorney, or keeper of her so that didn't come into play for me.  I trusted that the siblings would have a handle on this.

They did not.

Turns out that her advanced directive was a long list of big, fat NO's.  She wanted zero interventions. None. Not even antibiotics.  We had, in fact, gone against her wishes by simply calling the ambulance.  Yeah, this is no ordinary mother.  We are probably all grounded for eternity and will be thusly haunted for the remainder of our days.

Yes, I can joke during this. It's a fun little trauma response, I've learned.

She had actually flatlined in the ER but because the advanced directive was not on hand, they did bring her back.  Somewhere she is sooooo pissed about that.

When she made it through four nights in a room and one night in the ER, the hospital discharged her to hospice, as was her previously stated adamant wish: that she died looking out over the lake.  I was not in agreement with this plan because  I am painfully aware of the hospice process. (I'm pro-Hospice, it just has to be done for the right reasons and family)  I didn't think it was fair to place the burden on the family but again: not the decision maker.  She lasted one day at the house then went peacefully as she wanted.

I was not there.  I sat vigil at the hospital for a few days then had to extricate myself from the entire situation.  Years of self reflection and therapy were tossed out the unopenable window of the hospital in no time at all.  Sure, at first, everyone was on their best behavior but that isn't sustainable; especially in emotional situations.

Also, my belief is that she wasn't there.  That was just the body she inhabited.  I had already mourned her loss, if you will, in the past year or so.  And it has to be acknowledged: this situation was nothing like my mother-in-laws. 

Now we're closing the house and that has not gone without drama on multiple fronts.  To a Shakespearean level, there has been resistance, passive aggressiveness, gaslighting, pettiness, anger, sadness, denial, and thievery.  All of the seven sins have been fully represented under that roof.

Not to say there hasn't been moments of levity or kindness. Those happen even in the worse situations and for those, I am grateful.  But I am ready to be done now.  I'm ready to say a final goodbye to that house and that parent and breathe.

So, rest in peace Terminator.  We speak your name, Mom, and you're probably hating it.