Breaking the Seal

It is a very great lot of pressure to write the first post on the new system. I've been thinking hard since last Friday about what I should write. I wanted it to be brilliant, just in case there were new people coming to this space for the first time.

I don't have time for brilliant.

Guessing from the incredibly slow turnover in my Google reader, I'm guessing that I am not the only one navigating those particular waters.

Maybe it's the spring busy time. After such a long arduous winter, the past couple of weeks have been insanely busy and/or stressful for almost everyone I know. Has been for me, what with the housebuying and dating and website fiddling. The only thing I have not tried to change is my job, and even that is only because I decided not to apply for the perfect job.

And I'm off to Stouffville tomorrow, to visit my sick Granny. Though accurately, she's no longer sick. She's over the infection that put her in the hospital, but the turmoil of it has made everyone realize that she's no longer safe living alone. Including her, though she is not happy about that realization.

It's good that she's healthier, it's good that she'll be out of the hospital once my dad and uncle have found her a space. And I worked as a housekeeper in an old age home from 15 to 18, so I can tell you that at least one of them was a pretty clean place.* The people who worked there were mostly nice, there were activities.

But they're all institutional. That can't be helped: the horrible greens and pinks, the disinfected smell, the terrible food from powders, the unrelenting sameness. The most I can hope is that she'll have a room to herself and we'll be able to move her favourite things over. Her white lamps with the blue flowers on them. Her two frames of decorative plates, the ones the same powdery soft blue as her eyes. The Robert Bateman print of a cardinal between them.

Come to think of it, that'll fit right in.

I'm more sad about this than I've been letting on, even to myself. I don't want her to move.

First, because she doesn't want to.

Second, selfishly, because she's the first of my elderly female relatives to have to leave her home. That's how I've seen the end of my life - a heart attack at home, maybe a few days in the hospital after, and then done.

Third, because I can put myself in her place and I can feel how lost and frustrated I would feel at my body betraying me so badly I had no choice but to leave the space that had made me feel safe.

Generally, I don't love going home. It's a lot of visiting, it's very tiring. Very little alone time. Most visits, I don't look forward to going, and I only go for a few days. This visit, I'm trying to rush the time before Amy arrives and we head out, until I can see Gran and hold her hand, try not to cry for her that everything changed.

*Provided I wasn't too hung over.