It would appear that my mother’s disease has taken another unexpected hard left turn. To my knowledge it began yesterday morning when I went to pick her up. Instead of her perky self she was sobbing uncontrollably.

The nurse told me “she just started crying and asking for you. We don’t know why she’s so upset.”

Sobbing, her face bright red, I got her to my car, stowed her walker in the back seat and got behind the wheel.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She looked me dead in the eye, terror shaping the wrinkles of her face.

“Do I have a nose?” She said.

I have an awkward smile and tapped the end of her nose. “Yeah. Right here. Don’t you see it?”

“I don’t have any legs.” She said.

“Mom, you do. Look. See,” I pat her knee, “you have legs.”

“Those are someone else’s.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m dying!” She sobbed harder.

“Mom, you’re not going to die.”

I put on some Patsy Cline and drove to Starbucks to get our drinks. As the time passed she seemed to calm down. And stayed that way most of our time together. It wasn’t until the last hour when it all started to derail again.

She started rotating through a series of three stories all in the same breath. One involved her dying and having no legs or toes. The second, was her owing someone money. She didn’t have the money to pay them. She has to pay them.

The third, was when she turned my dad into a villain. He was a womanizing wife beater in her tales, which are nowhere near the truth. My father had his demons but he would and could never do those things.

I dropped her off back the home and she sobbed in even as we pulled into the parking space. “I have to be honest. I’m a Christian.”

I rolled my eyes but I had no idea what this was referring to.

Get her back to her room and she’s calm and cheery.

The next day, Sunday, the home calls me and tells me that she is inconsolable and keeps talking about having no legs. They’re concerned that she’s in pain and they don’t know. So they send her to the ER. They run all the tests. She’s healthy as a horse. Their diagnosis for this little escapade is that her dementia is progressing.

Well, no shit.

I’m curious what my visit on Tuesday will consist of. My husband (and I tend to agree) think someone may have doubled up her meds or got them mixed up with someone else’s. We think that only because of how quickly it came on. But then, when I think of how this all started it wasn’t a slow progression it was just one day she was talking absolute nonsense.

This is one of those songs that the moment I hear it, the energy around me vibrates to life and morphs itself into almost the identical one I felt when this song was released. This was the first track that graced a playlist I began to compile of tunes that I became irrationally obsessed with. It also accompanied the most drastic shift of my life and encapsulates that period beautifully.

I don’t know where you’ve been if you haven’t heard this song. Up until a year ago this little diddy was still heavily filling the airwaves of my local radio station. If it is a new one for you I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. To this day, I have a little dance I do whenever it comes on.

This came out about the same time I caught my husband on Grindr.

I find that statement hilarious because what was I doing on there? I was doing the same thing he was, trying to cheat. We were supposed to be monogamous but that wasn’t really going according to plan.

He was on his way to Palm Springs to visit his dad and had uploaded a picture to his profile. The moment I saw it my heart dropped. I couldn’t believe he would be so bold, but he wasn’t going to be in town so who would know?

I favorited his account and watched it the entire time he was gone. He was on there for hours, well into the night.

We both share our cell locations, because we’re co-dependent like that, and I would keep checking to see if he ever left his dad’s place. He never did.

When he got back I confronted him about his account. He sat in frustrated silence. I told him that he needed to choose from three options: either we break-up and cut our losses, we see a therapist to resolve our issues, or we open up our marriage. Aggravated he looked me in the eye and said none of them. Which, if you think about it, is still a choice. It just wasn’t a productive one. He didn’t want an open relationship. He was “too possessive.” And he didn’t believe in therapy because the moment a couple goes they might as well just get divorced and save the money.

So, like all the times before, we swept it all under the rug and didn’t broach it again. That is until after we had separated for a week.

My husband is so bougie that he went to stay at a swanky hotel. I still had his account starred and obsessively watched him try to hook-up the entire time. Then after a couple days, when I didn’t welcome him back as he had expected, he went to stay with a friend. There he got even more angry. I was at a loss because I wanted to fix things, but he didn’t want to do anything. He wanted to keep doing whatever the fuck we we had been. And all that did was hurt us over and over again.

It was during this time that I found out he had been secretly seeing some dude. I was mad because he was lying to me. And if I had asked if there were any secrets he would deny there being any. It drove me insane.

St. Patrick’s Day, he thought I was going to ask for a divorce. I told him, are you insane? I confronted him about this guy and he finally came clean. It was then that we opened up our relationship. We became “poly.” He had his guy and I had mine.

The ultimate moment of this time and what makes this song a favorite was the night we spent out at a bar in Palm Springs. We’re both feeling good (on our preferred cocktail: vodka and red bull) and he finally decides, on the outdoor patio of Hunter’s, to come clean about everything. He told me about all of the infidelities he had kept secret through these years.

The relief I felt was incredible. Finally! I wasn’t the horrible one. I wasn’t this huge monster who continuously cheated on this honest man who took me back time and time again. We were equal.

The next morning I told him I forgave him and didn’t care what had happened. I was just glad there were no more secrets.

When you listen to the song, it tells the tale of two people who get together after the death of another relationship. It’s strange to me that it makes me think of a really horrible time with fondness. I think because the ultimate outcome brought about a new life for our marriage. Because of the honesty and the agreement to open things up we have a little polycule that I don’t know what I would do without.

It really sucks that none of my family have the same political beliefs as me. Not one. They’re all “rah-rah America”/“blue lives matter” assholes. I’ve only ever felt like I do not belong in my family and this only makes it worse. I’ve said it time and time again, but here is one more: when my mother dies I’m going to not have anything to do with my family. We don’t talk. We don’t do anything. They don’t invite me to anything. There is no reason for my presence to exist in any of their spaces.

I just feel so alone. I really wish my parents had had more than just one fucking kid. I could have someone to help me with all of this bullshit, instead of it AAAAAAAAALL resting on my shoulders. And what makes it worse is I DO NOT WANT TO DO IT. And what do I do when I have absolutely zero desire? I procrastinate.

Then to add insult to injury every fucking time I try to knock something off my list, every task is then preceded by all this other fucking bullshit. Every goddamn time. I just want to scream.

The one person I would or could rely on to help me is dying and can’t do shit. And instead of helping I have to help him. I just don’t know what to do. That‘a a lie. I know what I have to do. I have to do all of this shit. Alone. It’s just when will it get done.