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.