Contemplation. Hmmm.

I'm currently "cat-sitting" for my mother over at her house. Daisy was my grandmother's cat and really the last link we have to her, so I of course love her to death (my grandmother was very special to me, one of the few family members I have that I can truly say I loved very much), so when my mother said she was going to go down to the Virgin Islands to see my brother, I said I'd be happy to watch her. Anyway, I noticed this morning that the house... is getting rather junky and things are starting to fall apart. The toilet seat in the bathroom literally split in half before she left, so... guess who's attempting bathroom visits without a seat? -_- Ugh.

What I've noticed, though, is the general disrepair of the house. This is not something my mother ever did - she kept that house like a hospital most of our lives, and to see things starting to quietly deteriorate... for me, that's a very bad sign. It means that she's losing strength and energy enough to keep the place the way she used to, and it means that she's starting to get to the point where maybe she won't be able to be so independent for much longer. This is extremely worrisome for me, because in a few years, I might be in the position where I have to live with her again... only now, it'll be as a caretaker and not the other way around.

Now, my mother and I don't get along - as anyone familiar with me and my situation knows well. But I promised myself, after they put my grandmother in a nursing home, that I would never let another of my family members be committed to one of those hellholes. My grandmother suffered from the day she went into that place until the day she died - and that was sadly one of the better regarded nursing homes here. I will never let another family member suffer in that way, ever. So if that means that I have to take care of her until the day she dies... if I have to squander my entire life savings to make sure she stays in her house, or with me... well, I guess that's what I'll have to do, won't it. A nursing home is not an option.

I guess that I'm just starting to face the fact that my mother - and eventually, my brother... and I... won't live forever. We're mortal. We die. Life ends. It's a hard fact to face, and I've always run away from it, I know this. I've refused to talk about my mother dying for the last 5 years, but I'm almost 37 years old now. She's going on 68. It's time to really sit down and start making some decisions and plans on what's going to happen in the next ten years. This isn't something I want to do, believe me. Despite all of the problems we've had over the years, I think about when I was 3 years old and cuddled up in my mother's arms listening to Helen Reddy's "You And Me Against The World" (a song that to this day makes me cry like a baby - I'm tearing up now just thinking about it, it always reminds me of me at 3 and my mother telling me she loves me), and somehow, everything that she's ever done to me to hurt me in my life just melts away. Stupid, maybe. But she's my mother. She's the only parent I've ever had. I can't leave her to rot in some institution - it's not right, no matter what she's done to me.

Augh, I'm crying at work, lol. Not good. They're going to ask me stupid questions now about "am I all right" and "why are you crying" and blah blah. I'm not going to tell them that I'm crying over a distant memory - they wouldn't understand. Most wouldn't, heh.

No big deal, I go back on duty in 20 minutes and if anything will get me to laughing, it's dealing with drug addicts, hahaha. (/sour voice)

Thanks for listening to me ramble, heh. Maybe a flashback later if I'm up to it.