Cold Sweat
It's warmer tonight, this morning, at 3am than it was all yesterday even at noon. But it's been raining. Thank God it's been raining.
I didn't mean to sound nonchalant talking about my mom in that last entry. I've actually been pretty spooked all week. I had to go home before school started last week, to fix my computer, and when this woman told me that she thought my mother was losing it, I wanted to slap her. I mean purely that this is the kind of woman who will make drama out of anything because she's bored with life, and rightfully so in her case. She loves gossip more than my mother loves chocolate and if one of her very own friends went a little clinically loopy, I think she'd host a tea to discuss. But there is something to say for the fact that her friends are all in agreement that they're worried for my mother. She hasn't been the happiest or carefree of women in the past couple years, and she has lost weight, but I'd say that was because she's become more health-conscious not less so. She's physically fit, she eats well, yes she's stressed because our house hasn't sold and she's having to count pennies a bit more lately than in the past, but these things happen. People handle stress in different ways. My mother's always been flighty, as am I, and even when we don't have a million things on our minds, we have the worst short term memories in the world. The two of us are a pair of space-cadets, but how are her friends so concerned all of a sudden.
I asked Mrs. Linville to please justify herself. What was my mother forgetting more than usual. Oh, little things...that aren't so little. Like, she asked when Katherine would graduate from college, forgetting that she'd hosted a graduation party for her just last year.
I guess that's legitimate. You don't exactly forget your best friend's daughters graduation parties, especially when you host them. But then again, it's mom. But how long have I been brushing this off as, "that's just my mother"?
Sarah says that women experience serious declines in their memory after menopause. The loss of estrogen and such things which I can't exactly explain myself, but--
Here's the issue, if memory loss could be prevented with estrogen supplements, my mother still wouldn't take them, because a side effect would be an increased chance of developing ovarian cancer, and she'd rather go positively loony than have her hair fall out. Let's face it, she's already pretty loopy.
The fact of the matter is that she and her friends, and my dad's friends are all feeling it, the strain. Two of our close friends have died, another is decaying from the inside out from an advanced case of arthritis. Some have fallen, broken hips.
When I was home last, my dad and I were in the kitchen when we heard a bang from the basement. It took me a moment to register the fact that Mom had fallen down the stairs, but dad jumped immediately to the door and down to her side. He was lifting her off the ground before it really sunk in just how instinctive his response was. He seemed rehearsed almost in the routine. Like he knew it would happen, like it had happened before.
I don't know, I'm just scared. It's hard being the youngest, when all of your friends around you at school have younger parents and don't really know quite what you're worried about. My parents are getting old.
Three or four nights ago, I had a dream that my mother was diagnosed with something life-threatening. She had a matter of weeks, and I woke up crying. The tears were already on my cheeks, slipping down to my neck, pooling in the hallow of my collar bone, or that was cold sweat. I can't say for sure.
I didn't mean to sound nonchalant talking about my mom in that last entry. I've actually been pretty spooked all week. I had to go home before school started last week, to fix my computer, and when this woman told me that she thought my mother was losing it, I wanted to slap her. I mean purely that this is the kind of woman who will make drama out of anything because she's bored with life, and rightfully so in her case. She loves gossip more than my mother loves chocolate and if one of her very own friends went a little clinically loopy, I think she'd host a tea to discuss. But there is something to say for the fact that her friends are all in agreement that they're worried for my mother. She hasn't been the happiest or carefree of women in the past couple years, and she has lost weight, but I'd say that was because she's become more health-conscious not less so. She's physically fit, she eats well, yes she's stressed because our house hasn't sold and she's having to count pennies a bit more lately than in the past, but these things happen. People handle stress in different ways. My mother's always been flighty, as am I, and even when we don't have a million things on our minds, we have the worst short term memories in the world. The two of us are a pair of space-cadets, but how are her friends so concerned all of a sudden.
I asked Mrs. Linville to please justify herself. What was my mother forgetting more than usual. Oh, little things...that aren't so little. Like, she asked when Katherine would graduate from college, forgetting that she'd hosted a graduation party for her just last year.
I guess that's legitimate. You don't exactly forget your best friend's daughters graduation parties, especially when you host them. But then again, it's mom. But how long have I been brushing this off as, "that's just my mother"?
Sarah says that women experience serious declines in their memory after menopause. The loss of estrogen and such things which I can't exactly explain myself, but--
Here's the issue, if memory loss could be prevented with estrogen supplements, my mother still wouldn't take them, because a side effect would be an increased chance of developing ovarian cancer, and she'd rather go positively loony than have her hair fall out. Let's face it, she's already pretty loopy.
The fact of the matter is that she and her friends, and my dad's friends are all feeling it, the strain. Two of our close friends have died, another is decaying from the inside out from an advanced case of arthritis. Some have fallen, broken hips.
When I was home last, my dad and I were in the kitchen when we heard a bang from the basement. It took me a moment to register the fact that Mom had fallen down the stairs, but dad jumped immediately to the door and down to her side. He was lifting her off the ground before it really sunk in just how instinctive his response was. He seemed rehearsed almost in the routine. Like he knew it would happen, like it had happened before.
I don't know, I'm just scared. It's hard being the youngest, when all of your friends around you at school have younger parents and don't really know quite what you're worried about. My parents are getting old.
Three or four nights ago, I had a dream that my mother was diagnosed with something life-threatening. She had a matter of weeks, and I woke up crying. The tears were already on my cheeks, slipping down to my neck, pooling in the hallow of my collar bone, or that was cold sweat. I can't say for sure.