This isn't a recipe post. I just didn’t really know how to title this one. Depending on your general philosophy, the title can express negative and positive feelings. Are you a glass half full kind of person? Then you might find this post to be mildly pleasant. Who knows? And since I will not be advertising this one in my Facebook timeline, very few of you will end up reading any of it any way. I guess I could have titled this “The Things I’m Not Prepared For” but that’s such a big list of things. Or it’s a short list.

Things I’m not prepared for: everything.

We are preparing for my mother to go to assisted living. Now, I have been a huge advocate for assisted living. In fact, I urged my mother to consider moving into a retirement village when she sold the old house. Unfortunately, retirement communities had already taken up negative mental space in my mother’s brain and she flat out refused. Instead she bought the house next door to my sister, which further isolated her from her usual activities. Bit by bit, since moving into that space, my mother has become less active. We are now at the point where she doesn’t leave her house unless my sister takes her somewhere and the toll it is taking on her mental and physical well being is very obvious. Her doctor recommends we make the move by December.

I want to believe that my mother’s mental health is going to drastically improve once she is in her new little studio apartment. It is the time between now and when she is actually settled is the part that is making my stomach hurt. My mother took almost everything from the old house. Boxes of things I know I personally put into the dumpster while cleaning out the old home will randomly appear when I arrive for a visit. “Oh I found this stuff of yours. Do you want it?” I have stopped arguing or trying to make sense of it. Instead I enthusiastically say “yes!” while putting the box in my car. Then I drive it away and dispose of it properly, saying goodbye once again to things from my past. And I honestly do not think I have the energy to do this for a whole house again.

Every time I have visited my mother this year, she has been almost frantic with what she was going to do with all of these things. My sister and I have both told her that she only needs to think about the stuff she’s taking to the new place. A love seat. A full size bed. A dresser and nightstand. Clothes. She won’t need fifty bath towels or twenty sheet sets. She won’t need her pots and pans even. My sister and I both have told her this and that we will find someone to help us take care of the contents of what’s left. I have a number for an estate sale company, but these are all things we can not do until my mother is settled in her new space. We are at this uncomfortable holding pattern.

I was not prepared my mother to age so quickly. I was not prepared for her confusion or how soft her body feels now. I was not prepared for the boulder of guilt that I am now carrying around with me because I feel like I am not doing enough or I’m using my distance as an excuse to not do more. Some of that guilt boulder is made from apathy. I just don’t care about all of the stuff in my mother’s house. I don’t value it the way she does. I have never valued the things as much she does. This has always led to contention. She sees it all as her memories and I am inconsiderate for not placing the same values on these memories as she does. I will be taking her car and I feel guilty for that even though I have the blessing from both siblings. I don’t like asking for things, even when it will make my life easier.

Today, while trying to figure out a visit for Thanksgiving, I was looking at Airbnbs and it just felt so expensive. This is when it hit me. I no longer have a home in Tulsa, at least not one that accommodates all of us, Michael, the Cabbage and Josephine. I know I am always welcome at my brother’s. They have a spare bedroom or at least I think they do. But all four of us visiting is cramped and I hate doing that my brother. And all of these feelings and anxieties have been festering inside of me for weeks now. I don’t dare write about it all because my mother doesn’t react well to anything I’ve written about her in this space. I’ve been considerate of her feelings for oh so long, but I’m filled up to the max. I’m not sharing this to Facebook with the idea that this is the only way she knows how to get here.

The things I wasn’t prepared for was the hard stuff. Yet every time I am presented with the impossible, I have moved forward in some way….hopefully healthy. I may not be prepared for it, but I seem to be pretty good at improvising. Macguyvering my way through life, one sheet pan full of roasted veggies at a time.