Realization

The past two months have made me realize that I need to be living my life not just existing.  My mom has developed dementia and it is moving along rapidly.  This is heartbreaking to see and hard to work with since Mom and I have not had a very good relationship throughout life.  She has been emotionally distant my entire life.  She never was the warm and fuzzy mom I wanted.  It took her until I was in my 40's to tell me she was proud of me.  My dad died when I was young and I was a Daddy's girl, so it devastated my world and Mom was so lost the first years after he died that I became responsible for her.  I married young to get away from her and now I'm recently divorced at 31 years and the dementia again means I must take care of her.  So since I was 14 I've been taking care of people.

So far in this disease process I've been several people besides myself.  My mom's sister Patsy, my dad's sister Dot, my Dad, My brother (I'm an only child) and someone named Erica (no ideal who this is)  I'm never sure who she is talking to.  I'm working to get her placed in a nursing home so she can be safe and I can stay sane. The good part of this is I know I've been a good Mom to my kids.  I think they like me for myself.  My daughter told me the other day that she not only loves me for being her Mom but likes me as a person and enjoys being my friend.  What a compliment.