South Star

It’s been 12 years since my mom breathed her last earthly breath. Today felt “off” in a lot of ways and when I finally recognized why I went a lot easier on myself and let my family know too. You can reset the day however many times you need and at any given moment. I’m also going to sleep before 10 on account of the time change so tomorrow me can be ready for the earlier sunrise.

It feels okay to write about what this south star concept means to me now that my dad is in the depths of his dementia and will never read or comprehend these words. This is in no disrespect to either of them I want to make that clear, but theirs was a marriage with a lot of turmoil. It was like two different marriages under one roof. My dad lived in a lot of darkness and depression for the decade after she died and before he got sick. She was the love of his life. Since he got dementia, he still thinks she’s alive, and it really works out better this way for all of us. My mom on the other hand wanted out. She voiced it regularly the last 5 years of her life. She felt stuck and tired and run down from holding up the marriage on her own due to the family disease of alcoholism. My dads raging alcoholism let him live in a fantasy world where everything was perfect, while she lived much of her life in misery – overworking to pay the always late bills, keeping the household afloat, martyring herself to the cause until it literally killed her.

I’ve forgiven them both in so many ways. And the biggest one is using their example as my south star. Whenever there is something out of harmony or reminiscent of my childhood growing up in an alcoholic home I don’t have to go resolve it using that same old beaten path. I can chart a new one and try something different. I can use any number tools that 12 step work has given me. I always have options and people to support me. I don’t have to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results (that’s the definition of insanity).

Don’t like a yelling house? Don’t yell and instead take your anger outside into nature. I screamed at the sky today and my throat still hurts. Don’t like passive aggressive behavior? Stand up to it and call it out for what it is in the moment. Ask for clarification and demand rigorous honesty. Be transparent with your kids about serious topics like money, sex, and addictions. Tell them where you’ve struggled and why. I didn’t get a North Star growing up but that doesn’t mean the next generation has to repeat the same traumas I experienced.

Gosh I miss my mom with such a huge part of my heart, but I wouldn’t have learned nearly all that I have in her absence. Her death pushed me to seek out healthy relationships with so many wonderful lifelong women friends and mentors that I know I wouldn’t have dared seeking out had she not died. I wouldn’t have the life I have today if she was still here, resentful and bitter. She loved a lot of things in her life earth-side, us kids above all else, being a grandma even if only for a short while, God, and even my dad despite his addiction. I don’t know how much she loved herself though, and that is another south star. Loving myself means I have love to offer others without reservation or judgement. She was a good example in modeling a Christ like love and for that I am grateful. Grief can me mixed and messy and this is what that powerful loss means to me 12 years later

A Hard Day

One of the hardest of recent memory. I moved my dad again today, not because I wanted to or even had a choice. His facility in Payson sent an eviction notice a couple weeks ago, apparently they and Medicaid can’t get their $hit together to facilitate payment smoothly. The house manager, Chris had called me repeatedly asking what I could do about it and my answer has consistently been a big ole nothing. I mean I’m doing our part, paying into Medicaid via my dad’s spend down and paying the facility agreed upon lower rent that Medicaid is then supposed to cover the difference. My dad was evicted because he is poor. Plain and simple.

We have a Medicaid case manager that I’ve been in touch with through all of this. She asked me a couple weeks ago coinciding with the eviction notice if I would be willing to move my dad out of Orchard View and into a facility that was easier to work with. I said yes and let her steer. She found the new place, booked a mover, discussed the new agreements and kept me well informed. She also told me that Chris had been verbally abusive to her so she was no longer communicating with him or Orchard View (OV). So I had some trepidation about retrieving my dad from there this morning.

When we got to OV this morning (we being the kids and I thanks to a random Monday off school) there was a palatable feeling of sadness amongst my dad’s care staff. Chris had excuses for his behavior, but I don’t buy it and maybe he’ll sue us but there’s literally nothing I can do to make up for what my dad couldn’t afford to pay while we waited and waited on Medicaid, don’t ever get old with no financial security it’s truly a nightmare and had my dad not had an advocate he’d likely be living on the streets.

Back to the main event though…There was lots of holding hands and comfort and some tears. He really does make an impact once people spend a good measure of time with him. He was also in a great mood, at one point of complete lucidity he said, “Let’s go back to Colorado”. This broke my heart wide open. This man rarely acknowledges that we’re even in a different state when we get him for outings despite all the Utah license plates, the landscape confusion and an interstate he’s unfamiliar with. I think maybe he was anticipating a drive today and maybe the long road trip we took when we first moved him to Utah just over a year ago. This is all conjecture, as his next sentence was, “I loved that song.” So who really knows.

So we get to his new facility with some of his things, still waiting to hear from the movers for his furniture. They’re surprised we’re there and aside from the vacant room are not aware that today was move in day…great. They let us unload and say to wait for Mikayla to come back from lunch. We unload while my dad sits and waits in unfamiliar surroundings, and waiting is just about the worst for him as it begins to get him agitated. I decide to run to the store with him for a few needed items and to break up the waiting. As the kids and I are grabbing our late lunch I get a call from the new facility’s owner asking all the questions and wondering when we planned on moving in. I said we were halfway moved in already and today would be great, in fact you’re our only option at this point. So we hurry back to the new place, meet Mikayla, sign a load of new paperwork, hand over a large check, all with my dad waiting once again, getting up to pace around a few times and having his mood sour further. When it came time for us to leave the movers still hadn’t been in touch, we were running late for a parent teacher conference back home, and dad was coming unraveled. He asked why we had to leave, could he come with me, why did he have to stay there, nobody was going to care for him. All of it and all of the guilt. I made our exit quick instead of lingering since any answer I was giving at this point was only making him more agitated.

The first thing I did when I got back in my car was call the movers, they were indeed still planning on today, their morning job was much longer than originally anticipated. Fortunately their dispatch called me several more times through the evening to let me know their progress. I think things finally got delivered by about 8pm. Good thing dad rarely goes to bed early. Megan, our Medicaid coordinator touched base while I was on my evening walk and I think is genuinely looking out for dad’s best interest. It’s going to be a rough few weeks adjusting to the new place if past experience has anything to teach us. I’m completely emotionally exhausted, am super grateful for my kid’s help with the physical parts, and at a loss for yet another example of a broken system failing us. It shouldn’t be this way. Yet here we are, the hard day is over and we get a new day tomorrow hopefully with far fewer obstacles.

I got lost in the weeds

It’s really been almost two months since my last writing. We’ve all been outside a whole lot (hallelujah!). I’ve been business planning, stumbling, tripping, getting stuck in fear and perfectionism, but I’m aware of that now and ready to step into action again.

I opened my planning notebook and the last day I took any business actions was the end of April. Then I allowed myself to get distracted by all the things; chickens, gardening, my dad’s things, my kid’s things. And on and on. It’s a destructive pattern that I can’t catch myself doing until I pause and recalibrate. Yesterday I plucked a box full of weeds from all over the yard. Last year when we got here there was little weeding to do – it was mostly dry and desolate, making the weeds very manageable and visible. The weeds I’m going after are brambly, all over the place, and once dry will become prickly goat heads. Bike tire killers, annoying to both people and dog feet everywhere. So I’m getting at them while they’re easy to pluck and soft enough to snag bare handed. But while I’m hunting I’m also thinking, (probably too much). About the state of our world, about the precariousness of starting a new business, about borrowing money for that business, about paperwork I still need to do for my dad’s needs, about driving all over the county for the next six weeks for Camden’s baseball, about Natalie starting some jobs this summer and how to shuffle cars for it all to work, about doctor and dentist appointments needing to be researched and scheduled. Like I said, all. the. things.

I got to the weeds for a few minutes this morning again but then had to stop. This goal of eradicating this specific weed in this moment is really keeping me from the work I need to do in pursuit of MY goals. Yes, it’s important, but I need not let it consume large swaths of my day. I need not exhaust my body first thing and then have nothing left in the tank for writing or planning later.

I’ve never been much for the write and schedule block in a planner, but maybe I need to change my mind on this. The things I put in the calendar rarely coincide with my own needs or goals. I have large chunks of day that I largely mismanage in service to the house or someone else. Do all mothers do this? Do all women do this? I thought I was more aware than I am.

The other thing that keeps coming up for my is the cynic who says that all of this effort is pointless so why even try. There are such huge societal issues playing out before our very eyes. We as a country are so sick and obsessed with weapons, more concerned with party over principle, completely numb to the horrors we hear of every single day. It’s exhausting to just be alive. What difference can a little store in the middle of nowhere (somewhere?) make? I could really use some encouragement in this area. The isolation of these thoughts keeps me stuck too. I feel powerless. So tell me reader, what you do to keep moving forward when we are the ones we have been waiting for.

The watermelon has expired and now it’s slime

(File this title in something I never thought I’d text my kids)

I pride myself on running a pretty tight ship around here. Not in a controlling or dominating way, but since I have the idle hours that I mentioned in one of my recent posts, some of those hours are used to keep it tidy and running smoothly. I like it that way and clean and organized helps to keep my mind in a good place too. This week the wheels fell off. Sorry for the mixed metaphors, some of my recovery friends use this term, I think I discovered my new term for when this happens: the watermelon has turned to slime.

Let’s back up to moving my dad. A couple weekends ago we trekked back to Denver to pack up his things and bring him to an assisted living facility in Utah. The road trip part of the move went far better than we could have expected. Even with a very very long driving day, unanticipated longer than usual stops because charging an EV in the extreme heat takes awhile. We’d get out, eat something, walk around, then get back on the road. He remembered so many landmarks along the way despite his dementia and probably more than a decade between him and the last time he ventured this far west. He didn’t seem to want the driving to end and the rest of us were far more exhausted than he was that day. I was informed that he slept really well that first night, like 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Amazing. So far, so good, so great actually. Maybe he’d adjust well to these new surroundings.

The following weekend we grabbed dad out for much of Saturday afternoon, we brought him to our house to explore and relax, an easy, mundane visit really, but things shifted as soon as we took him back to his new home. And I’m learning what his limits are, which is good for future planning. We got him back around 4:30 pm and he was fatigued and agitated, sundowning as it’s known in the memory care world. A visible shift from easy going and laughter to anger, confusion, and sadness. I gently explained that this was his home, I’d come back to see him in another few days, and even though he was upset he seemed to get to a place of acceptance I was able to leave mostly guilt free. This is akin to leaving your crying toddler at daycare and trusting that the overflow of emotion will only last a minute or two as you the parent drive off sobbing. Transitions are hard, and at certain parts of the day for him should be avoided.

A few days later I got a call that dad had tried to leave. He explained to the house staff that he was walking down to the store to buy cigarettes. He made it as far as the park a block away. This is the boundary we are exploring in this assisted living setting. His former home was a locked unit, so the temptation to leave didn’t exist. Here, the population of residents is mixed and folks can come and go as they please. I love that he can be outside as much as he would like to be, each time I go to visit him he’s sitting or snoozing peacefully on the front porch. Outside is good for all of us, I wish more places for the aging had the capacity to let their residents be outside for at least a little bit each day.

Two nights ago, the exploring became a little more fraught. I got a call a little before 6pm, dad had wandered off, did they want me to call the police or look for him for a few minutes first?. I said look first, and not five minutes later got another call that he had been located (in the park again), but was now refusing to get of the staff member’s car and was threatening to get violent. I offered to drive down to help get him deescalated since I likely have more sway with him than the people still just getting to know him. By the time I arrived about 40 minutes later, he had indeed exited the car but refused to go back in the house. Similar to the late afternoon drop off/transition last weekend, his haunches were up and he was quite agitated. But this dad is the one I remember from my childhood, alcohol had made him unpredictable and angry like this lots of times, there’s no reasoning with anyone in that kind of state, so instead of fighting him about going in I offered to take him for a car ride.

We cruised Main Street, grabbed him a Big Mac at McDonald’s, I stumbled upon a smoothie shop for something for myself, and very suddenly his mood started to visibly shift. I offered going back to his new home, and while he stated very clearly he wasn’t going back there, his tone was more matter of fact than angrily felt. I offered to buy him some (non alcoholic) beer and watch something on tv with him (this was his nightly ritual pre-dementia after all). He acquiesced and settling him back into the house was easy from there.

Yesterday I returned to visit during the early part of the day, took him out to lunch, and we have plans to bring him on an outing tomorrow earlier in the day now that we know better when he’s more available and less likely to become agitated. Now I get to balance the dog’s incredible separation anxiety with the human needs around me, but that’s a different issue altogether.

While I’m so grateful to be available to my dad like this, it takes a huge emotional and physical toll. Maybe that’s what my idle time has been for, for storing up some reserves so that I have the capacity to jump into action when the situation arises. It seems I have infinite patience for him and immediately know what to do when things like this happen. I don’t get panicked, even if told they don’t know where he’s at momentarily. But yesterday afternoon and much of today have been spent recuperating from the whole ordeal. I have to keep coming back to me and my needs or I’ll quickly get lost in what everyone else needs around me, yes even the dog (hello recovering codependent).

Back to the melted watermelon though. I woke up today to a mysterious liquid on the counter and traced it to a watermelon I had cut half of earlier in the week and then neglected to finish cutting a day or two later. I looked around and yes, Zach and the kids do a fine job at tidying up, making their own meals, etc. but it’s the little jobs like finishing cutting the watermelon that get overlooked. There’s a give and take, a balance, a dance we all do around my dad’s caretaking that does and will continue to shift and shape how we do things around the homestead and where and when we each contribute. A fellow sandwich mom (the generation of caregivers that are sandwiched between still raising kids while their parents age and need more help) that I follow on socials summed it up pretty succinctly, my kids may not need me the way they once did and it’s in different hours now. They have emotional needs that they didn’t before, and same goes for my dad. So I keep different business hours so to speak. And in all that I’m grateful once again for the time and space to come back to me and this place and get the wheels back on, or the slime mopped up or insert your preferred metaphors here.

Lived-in

The summer has absolutely flown by, what even is time?

We’ve been making this old house our cozy home for the past 7ish weeks, and still have a ways to go. The projects, at times, feel endless, but we also save plenty of space for rest and recreation. Our favorite close place is Palisade State Park, a 20 minute drive to a small lake where we can paddle board and jump off rocks. There’s also close hiking and easy access to recreation all around us.

Day trip to Manti-La Sal National Forest

The kids are both registered for public school five miles down the road in Gunnison. (BTW there is a lot of overlap with names of places here that Colorado has, sorry for any confusion). The feelings about school are a mixed bag around here. One kid thrives on structure and is excited, the other is more reserved and pensive. Fortunately they both already knows at least a handful of kids, so perhaps some of the first day jitters don’t have to show up. They start this Thursday (!), I’m quite excited for a return to solitary days since it’s been more than two years. We’ve had A LOT of one another during this whole pandemic/tiny travel life/houseless/couch surfing situation. Don’t get me wrong, I love those two nuggets like nothing else, but mama needs some alone time to get her brain screwed back on straight.

We had a fantastic visit with our Denver friends to celebrate both Sara and Utah’s birthday. Who will be our next visitors?

Work work work… the travel fatigue has worn off for Zach who commutes 90 miles each way to work everyday. He got himself an electric car after doing the math of car payment vs. paying for rent on a place in Provo. I go up to Provo either solo or with kids about once every three weeks for the bigger supply runs and to attend an Alanon meeting in person. I can say with certainty that I much prefer this drive to anything in the metro Denver area. The miles are big but there is virtually zero traffic, and now with gas prices easing up a bit it’s not nearly as painful on the wallet. Needs continue to be a couch (want something very specific second hand) and a deep freeze as we hope to get a half a cow in this fall, to also go easier on the weekly grocery budget.

Projects we’ve already knocked out include fence mending, building some gates from repurposed screen doors that were left here, furniture sourcing and mending, general electrical tidying up, drywall mending and paint, bathtub sealing, nonstop cutting and trimming of the big elm trees that drop things nearly every day. Yes, this place came remodeled, no not everything is perfect or was done in the most sensical manner, so we’re making it make sense for us with what we have and whatever else can come later. There’s plenty more on the horizon including getting some chickens and gardens going, we just got here a little too late into the growing season to make much happen thus far. I did apply for a native pollinator grant that the state was offering and I’ll receive 150 native plants in about a month, very excited about that.

Update on dad: The biggest impending update to share is that we are moving my dad to Utah at the end of the month! It’s been extremely difficult making decisions for him these past two months. Getting a call from his assisted living home ties my stomach in knots because there’s not a lot I can do from this distance. We played with the idea of him living with us and me being his full time caregiver, but in the end have decided on another assisted living facility so he can get the hands on support he needs and I don’t have to be worried about him falling in this old house that has so many weird half steps and thresholds, not to mention the claw foot tub situation, (like how would he even get in there?). Huge kudos to anyone giving an aging or sick loved one full time care, it is so much work and there are not nearly enough supports, that is what ultimately made our decision here. Could I do it, yes, Does it mean I should? For the time being, it’s a no.

Writing, dreaming, business-ing: With this much needed shift in available time, I hope to get back into wring this long form more often. I shared a lot over these last two years, the heights of our adventures and the depths of my sorrows with dad’s quick diagnosis and decline. I want to continue documenting the journey, and the writing process is so much more meaningful to me as opposed to quick blurbs on Instagram. We also have this whole storefront that we get to dream into something meaningful for our community. The wheels have been turning on ideas since before we even got here, more is always being revealed. We’ve been collecting intel on other historic mercantile buildings in the surrounding small towns, time to get some ideas into action. These last few months have felt quite surreal, Camden often mutters “this place is too good for us”, but I have a different perspective. This place is what we dreamed of for a good long while and the willingness to go on the journey that got us here makes us that much more grateful and appreciative of all the things big and small that make it so good. The locals often ask us how we found ourselves here. We joke that it was the house that found us. I still can’t believe that it’s true, but we are rooting in here just fine and the doors are always open for a visit.