The Ugly Truth

(photo by my seven-year-old)

Dear Mary,

When I envisioned this project, I had all sorts of ideas about showing how juicy late-40s women can be.  It was going to be sort of an "In your FACE, popular cultural views of mid-life women!"  And then life happened.  Boy, did it ever.  And I have never felt more un-juicy.  Desiccated is more like it.  (Interesting: when I looked up "desiccated" just now to make sure it was spelled as weirdly as I'd remembered, one of the definitions was "lacking interest, passion or energy."  Yup!)

My father is in a nursing home; the dementia is getting worse.  I haven't been over to give him a backrub in a couple of weeks because my mother spontaneously sold her house and moved to an apartment, and it is up to my sister and me to pack/move, distribute or discard her belongings, and to remind her to do things like eat.

I try not to be resentful about the timing of this enterprise, coming as it does at a time when I am trying to plan a big trip (the fresh-new-start trip meant to repair some of the damage of all of the traumatic events of the past few years -- ha!).  But the resentment is there.  Along with an astonishing array of other emotions.  Grief, mostly.  And lots of anger.  I have become a rage-prone person, which you would find dumbfoundingly bizarre if you had known me all my life.  I was the sanguine child, not the choleric one.  The child who, when banished to her room, could conjure nothing more fiery than pictures of people sticking out their tongues (it was my sister who would kick the walls and hurl all of her toys out into the hall).

But I soldier on.  I see my holistic health practitioner, pop handfuls of supplements meant to heal my thyroid and adrenals, eat a ridiculously clean diet (but treat myself to a cup of coffee most days, because it's a cheap and enjoyable antidepressant), hug my children, exchange bad-tempered but humorous text messages with my sister, fill my house with roses from my garden, and play a whole lot of digital Scrabble.  And I live in hope that even though things seem to be getting worse, they are just bound to get better eventually.  Right?

Much love,
Your Little Mess of a Friend