Forgetting Love

Thanksgiving was good. Not as "thankful" as my meal on Sunday at the Schiewers', but still nice. One of the hard parts, though, was going to the nursing home to see my step-grandma. She's only been there two weeks, but it's hard for her to remember that. Because she has Alzheimer's.

This is the second time in my life where I've watched someone I care about slowly lose who they are. It's easier this time - I'm not as close to Gramma Anderson as I was to my dad's mom, and I'm not with her everyday, and it's not as physically devastating as cancer - but it's still hard. In the end, she will be just as unrecognizing of her children and grandchildren as Grandma Marcia was.

Watching Gramma Anderson and listening to her talk, I think about strength and frailty. About autonomy and dependence. About how transient our minds and memories are. How transient, in fact, we are. These are not new thoughts - not even for me. But they seem more important right now. Not just fleeting musings, but more pressing.

Gramma Anderson is probably in stage 6 of her disease, one of the latter stages. She's generally in a good mood, but asks every few minutes when she's going home. There's no sense of time. I think this may be helped along by the SSDD-ness of being in a nursing home. There's nothing quite like a regimented schedule in a bland environment to help you lose track of time. Life slides by in a blur.

I am one of those people who see connections everywhere. Usually me to something or someone else. (It always comes back to me, because that's what everything's about. Didn't you know?) If someone criticizes another person, I think of me doing/not doing the same and immediately feel guilty. If someone has a character flaw, almost no matter what it is, I identify with them.

I say this because I see me in larger nursing home, wandering the hallways without direction or sense of time. I spend most of my time living in my head, split between daydream fantasies of doing something amazing, being someone amazing, having something amazing happening to me, or nightmare worries that I'll always be stuck between never enough and forever too much.

The reality in my head - who I dream I am and the monster I know myself to be, constantly feeding each other - has everything and nothing to do with the way I live my life. In fact, it usually keeps me from living. I spend so much time worrying about how I present myself, rejecting vulnerability in favor of a comfortable facade, that I miss so many moments to be in my own life.

The ironic thing about all of this is that I believe we are all meant to lose who we are. Not in the Alzheimer's way, of course, but in the deliberate way of giving up all the ways in which we would prefer to identify ourselves - attractive, witty, talented, successful, loved - in favor of spending who we are to lift up each other. To open ourselves up beyond easy love.

I say the last thing because of what happened last Sunday. Our agape family ate our Thanksgiving meal around a table (that in and of itself is its own beautiful thing), then we went "popcorn-style" around the table and shared what we were thankful for. I didn't know what to expect, since a few people in our group are very private people, but it was amazing. Everyone shared. There were tears. And a lot of love. People stepped out of their comfort zone and made themselves vulnerable. I want to cry just thinking about it. I am so thankful for them and last Sunday.

We visited Gramma Anderson Thursday, then went back again on Friday to take her some things to make her room seem more personal. Mostly photos. Her younger self. Her husband. Her sons. Her grandchild (not me). Her great-grandkids. She recognizes them still, but can't think of names. I wonder what it would be like to see a picture of your husband and not remember his name. Then eventually not remember him at all. To forget you loved and were loved.

I, frankly, will probably never have this problem. Please excuse the bitterness - I struggle with it a lot - but spending the last 15+ years never having a man be interested in you leaves one a little pessimistic about one's chances for the rest of her life. This is what bugs me most about being single - never having the opportunity to not be, the whole "completely undesirable" thing, feeling like my name is a joke. There are only a couple of other aspects that are a bit depressing about singleness. Otherwise, it's not a big deal. I cope.

But not very well, huh? My struggle is this: to go ahead and forget love. Forget being loved. And at the same time pouring my own love out to everyone, regardless of whether they want it or not. (Please tell me it's possible to be so full of love that it doesn't matter if you receive any back. G-d, how I want this!) To move past what I want and do life without wishing I was someone else. To get out of the SSDD-ness of living in my head and stop letting life slide by. No more blur. Every moment matters.

I'm hoping that by writing these things out here I will be released of them. I hope someday we both know an Amanda that is free from the burden of herself. Because then I can carry yours, and truly be your friend. Then I will stop loving myself so much that I'm afraid to love you, too.