I don’t know what to write here. I had previously tried to make some poetic entry about me facing my call to a “hero’s journey” but it felt ridiculous and just a tad over-the-top. Not to mention a little conceited as if I am some hero that can vanquish the demon I am about to face. Yet, it isn’t even my monster. It’s my mother’s.

A year ago my mother went through a slew of tests to find out why she was having such a hard time trying to find the words to speak what it was she wanted to say. She explained it to anyone that would listen that she could see what it was she wanted to verablize but could not make her mouth do it. The final diagnosis was that she was “stressed” and needed to get on anti-depressants, see a therapist, and read the bible. That last instruction was a legitimate resolution given to her by the nurse practitioner. He advised her to memorize passages to help exercise her brain. Even after all of that, did she even take his advice? No. Instead she has chosen to watch fox news and become obsessed with checking her bank account, multiple times a day, and printing it off every single time as if it was her first time viewing it in months.

At the time my family and I accepted these results because we didn’t want to bring ourselves to believe what we feared it could be, alzheimers. His thought that this was over-stress fit into the ditch of denial we had dug and we gladly lay in it, until at which time it has become blatantlty obvious that this was not the actual answer.

In that time since her first visit, it would appear we have returned to the situation even worse for the wear. My mother’s thoughts have now become consumed with paranoia and panic that the foundation to their home is sinking. She also has become consumed with shuffling and rearranging piles of paper.

The foundation thing was a sharp alarm. She took me through their house pointing out all these very, very mundane things as if there was some catastrophic event that had occured, while simultaneously alluding to the idea that some person had snuck into their house to rearrange their posessions and leave without taking a thing. Her persistent insistance was even more troubling.

The moment my heart truly sank was watching my mother sit and stare at an e-mail she had printed that contained at most five sentences. For at least fifteen minutes she read and re-read it and still could not grasp what it said. I would tell her, she would say “yeah,” shuffle through the papers and come back to that same e-mail to run through the same task.

Since then my thoughts have been obsessed with thinking of her, my parents, the situation but I refused to see why. It wasn’t until another one of my cousins, who I NEVER speak to, insisted we talk.

I learned today that my mother’s older sister has been diagnosed with alzheimer’s. Hearing that made my suspicion even more concrete. There are now too many red flags to ignore.

The thing I find most enfuriating with the situation thus far was my cousin’s phone call, wherein she implored to me to think of my mother as if I hadn’t been already. As if I lived some fanciful life with no thought or care of my parents. And in the same breath telling me that my mother wanted a baby so much and was so excited to finally have a child, and oh how she loved me, to guilt me into caring for her. These thoughts bring about a lot of anger in me, mostly being why is it that everyone else got to live their fucking life and have their children but fuck what I want or desire in my own? Now it’s all about my parents.  Their lives now run mine, as if I’m supposed to let them because they cared for me. Well, I didn’t want to be born. I didn’t ask for life. They selfishly wanted children so that, what, they could have someone to care for them and watch them fucking die?! It’s ridiculous. And if that is truly the way of life, and how things go, who the fuck is going to be my servant when I’m old? I can’t have children without a lot of fucking effort put into it, and how am I meant to make my slaves if I’m meant to be burdened by my parents?!

I say the last part in jest because the logic of “you care for your parents, like they cared for you” bull shit is irritating.

The worst part of all of this, is if I was to have children (which at this point seems pretty ridiculous to even bother) I could possibly do the same to them. I’m very nearly my mother’s age when she had me. So I could get dementia and have my brain turn to mush right when their lives are really starting. And if that were to happen I would want to be put out of my misery. Alzheimers does nothing to the one with the disease and does EVERYTHING to those watching you have it. And that to me is my own personal hell. Just like this journey will be.