Disconsolate

I am despondent this Easter Sunday.  My cousin informed me yesterday that she was leaving to go home Friday morning.  I will be back to full time caregiving duty.  There is no escaping it.  I will be in my own home for a few moments each day just to check on things and to sit in peace to reflect among the wreckage my richly textured things.  

I felt as low and lonesome as I ever have last night as I made my pho dinner.  I sat outside as the drumsticks boiled into broth.  Sunset, or nearly so.  Saturday dusk.  The streets were quiet.  Not a soul passed by.  The emptiness crept in as I looked to my future.  There would be no travel, no nights out or even nights just sitting alone.  All that would be replaced by routine and duty.  

Friday, flying high, I did what I was told people do on Good Friday--eat fish.  I went to my favorite sushi restaurant and had a feast.  

Tonight I must dine with my mother and cousin at the across the street neighbors' house.  Mom's life, not mine.  But it has been so long since I've had my own life, I have only remnants now.  I've done nothing, really, for well nearly a year and a half, and little before that.  Even stupid things like a trip to the cafe or a happy hour with gymroids have been compromised.  Forget about anything large like a trip to Cali to see my mountain buddy or a trip to the Midwest to look for America with my old colleague who now lives there in her old family mansion.  Nope.  I can't get further than a few miles from home.  

As lonesome as I was last night, though, the stake was driven deeper into my fragile psyche when I watched this (link).  It is a YouTube fellow's piece on reformed pot haulers from the '70s and '80s in the Everglades.  Don't watch it.  It is too long and sometimes redundant, and the "outlaws" are far from interesting now, I think.  But it was the call of Everglades City and Chokoloskee that hit me hard.  My friend grew up in that part and has been after me for years to go down on a photo tour with her.  Last night I realized I will probably never get to go.  I had hoped to get away for a few days before my cousin left.  I thought I might have more time, but the Friday thing was rather sprung upon me.  I am sure she is tired of playing caregiver to my mother.  It is not the vacation time she has grown used to.  

I don't want to dramatize too much.  It isn't a prison.  Jesus, I can't imagine what that must be like.  No, I will have all the modern conveniences, the food I want, shows on demand, coffee and liquor, etc.  And for the moment, at least, I can leave my mother for little bits of the day.  That will, I assume, eventually come to an end.  

People tell me I should hire some help, but "help" is someone to sit with my mother for a shift.  They may make lunch, I don't know, but I don't need a shift off.  I need days and weeks.  What would I do with a shift?  Go shopping?  No, a shift will do me little good.  I am tethered either way.  

A group from the factory is meeting for happy hour on Monday in Grit City.  My cousin will still be here, so I am going to try to go.  That's as far out of town as I will get for the foreseeable future.  In my despair, I think maybe in the rest of my life.  

Every day now, I become less interesting as a person and more the automaton.  I must drink less and read more.  My experiences and ideas will now only come from others.  

My cousin is taking my mother to church today, so I am off the hook until dinner.  I am horrible, I guess.  I never take my mother to church.  That has never been anything in my "wheelhouse."  

Quotation marks.  

I've got to figure something out.  I will care for my mother, but I must figure out how to care for myself, too.  My mother will live to be 100.  I feel as if I'll be lucky to make it another year.  

"Lucky"?  

I'd be luckier if someone would send me a bottle of phenobarbital.