So here is what is really going on ... and why I'm suddenly obsessed with the NC legislature
I was sorta kinda planning to return to NC to take care of my parents as they get older.
I wasn't thrilled about it. I would go so far as to say I was actively putting it off (just one more thing and then I'll ...)
But they are, ultimately, my responsibility.
They're not Old On The Verge of Death or anything, they're just getting to that age where someone should be in the general area, to take the water hose in and relight the pilot light or whatever. My mom has taken care of my dad for years, but now she's getting to the point where its too much for her all the time. For a while my sister was living with them, and then she went to Mexico. Long story. She's kind of useless anyway.
For complicated reasons involving my brand new health issues and the implementation of Obamacare or lack thereof, it is becoming clear that I can no longer easily do this. I mean ... wait for it ... thanks to the party of family values I cannot move to NC. Or I can but I risk having a seizure with no insurance. And I can't do that.
Or, of course, get a job in NC which has insurance which covers my pre-existing condition, which btw maybe they will or maybe they won't these days, because "freedom."
State's Rights! It aint just for gay marriage and abortion anymore!
I mean I've very lucky that Illinois is doing the things they are doing because I WILL be insured and it WILL be okay ... as long as I remain resident here.
And I've been trying to discuss this with the 'rents, and they're various degrees of resistant, and naturally so. Because who wants to hear: you have to move to Illinois because of the Tea Party and the Nullification Clause. (They're from India. I don't think they really GET the Nullification Clause.)
ETA: Yes, I am aware that this could turn into a big 14th amendment smack down in which the ACA is imposed on NC by federal decree. I'm not basing my family's future or my own on that. Also there are other options like we could all move to California for example, but the conversation isn't getting that far.
My mom is gambling on the NC legislature going back to the Dems in 2014, which given the way things have been redistricted is unlikely. I think my dad is simply gambling on dying before my mom gets too weak to look after him, which is a whole other kind of macabre and passive aggressive.
And meanwhile, I have to figure out what I'm doing with my life.
I've spent a lot of time putting major decisions on hold on the theory that any day now I'm going back to North Carolina. And now here they all are. There's just no end to the stuff on hold, I find. A particular boy who I've been not getting involved with because what would be the point. Finding a home that is not an apartment in the Dorm of Sad Drunken Men. Do I take my freelance business seriously? Do I take my freelance business to California?
And how am I going to deal with my parents now?
You know I'm so loving the Party of Family Values forcing me to discuss putting my mother in a nursing home. Maybe this is a Desi thing, but that doesn't sound pro-family to me at all.
You know, for "freedom."
It's like waking up one morning and realizing you are in the movie Brazil.
I cannot be the only person in this bind. I mean there is probably an NPR piece in here someplace. But I'm too emotional about it to write that right now. Still there is an element of this that is public and is about the world and not about me personally and eventually I'll figure out how to tell it. But meanwhile, here it is. It's a problem.
I wasn't thrilled about it. I would go so far as to say I was actively putting it off (just one more thing and then I'll ...)
But they are, ultimately, my responsibility.
They're not Old On The Verge of Death or anything, they're just getting to that age where someone should be in the general area, to take the water hose in and relight the pilot light or whatever. My mom has taken care of my dad for years, but now she's getting to the point where its too much for her all the time. For a while my sister was living with them, and then she went to Mexico. Long story. She's kind of useless anyway.
For complicated reasons involving my brand new health issues and the implementation of Obamacare or lack thereof, it is becoming clear that I can no longer easily do this. I mean ... wait for it ... thanks to the party of family values I cannot move to NC. Or I can but I risk having a seizure with no insurance. And I can't do that.
Or, of course, get a job in NC which has insurance which covers my pre-existing condition, which btw maybe they will or maybe they won't these days, because "freedom."
State's Rights! It aint just for gay marriage and abortion anymore!
I mean I've very lucky that Illinois is doing the things they are doing because I WILL be insured and it WILL be okay ... as long as I remain resident here.
And I've been trying to discuss this with the 'rents, and they're various degrees of resistant, and naturally so. Because who wants to hear: you have to move to Illinois because of the Tea Party and the Nullification Clause. (They're from India. I don't think they really GET the Nullification Clause.)
ETA: Yes, I am aware that this could turn into a big 14th amendment smack down in which the ACA is imposed on NC by federal decree. I'm not basing my family's future or my own on that. Also there are other options like we could all move to California for example, but the conversation isn't getting that far.
My mom is gambling on the NC legislature going back to the Dems in 2014, which given the way things have been redistricted is unlikely. I think my dad is simply gambling on dying before my mom gets too weak to look after him, which is a whole other kind of macabre and passive aggressive.
And meanwhile, I have to figure out what I'm doing with my life.
I've spent a lot of time putting major decisions on hold on the theory that any day now I'm going back to North Carolina. And now here they all are. There's just no end to the stuff on hold, I find. A particular boy who I've been not getting involved with because what would be the point. Finding a home that is not an apartment in the Dorm of Sad Drunken Men. Do I take my freelance business seriously? Do I take my freelance business to California?
And how am I going to deal with my parents now?
You know I'm so loving the Party of Family Values forcing me to discuss putting my mother in a nursing home. Maybe this is a Desi thing, but that doesn't sound pro-family to me at all.
You know, for "freedom."
It's like waking up one morning and realizing you are in the movie Brazil.
I cannot be the only person in this bind. I mean there is probably an NPR piece in here someplace. But I'm too emotional about it to write that right now. Still there is an element of this that is public and is about the world and not about me personally and eventually I'll figure out how to tell it. But meanwhile, here it is. It's a problem.