I grew up on a quiet shady middle class street lined with a mishmash of old farmsteads and ranch-style houses in the armpit of northeast Portland, the largest city in the state of Oregon, which is one of the states in the Pacific Northwest area of the United States of America, which is on the . . . where are we, again? I am trying to orient myself in time and space in order to determine if I have dementia.
Moving to assisted living would be a traumatic experience at any age, but especially if you have dementia. Dotty and George moved last week into a place just down the street from the retirement home where my mother used to live before we moved her to the care home. When I heard the news about Dotty and George, I thought, oh, that's sad, but now they will get the care they need. Well, the news today was when Dotty got home from the store, George had taken the car and disappeared. Some time later, the sheriffs found him at a Bimart in Damascus, which is south on the freeway from Portland some twenty miles. George got lost and couldn't find his way home.
I get it. I bet he was wondering, where's home? What is home now? Not my shabby chic ranch house on the modest street where I lived for so many years with all my wonderful neighbors and friends. No, now it's some weird cottage with people coming and going at all hours, regimented meal times, and food that comes out of an industrial-size can. Home? No thanks, not for me.
If I had been George, I would have kept on driving.
I worry about getting dementia. For quite a while, I pictured my dementia response as a stroll into the desert with a shovel. Wrapped in a fashionable linen coat-shroud ensemble, I would pick a spot with a view and soft sand, dig myself a narrow trench, and recline comfortably in it as the sun went down. A few shots of tequila and a handful of pills and I'd be sailing into the sunset. That seemed like a plan, if I could find some U of A student to sell me some fentanyl. Then I read some blogs about car camping and van life and learned about a concept known as pack-it-in-pack-it-out. Oh, man.
Apparently wet things don't compost in the desert! Argh. I'm a Willamette Valley girl, where people's skin grows moss and mold if they stop moving. I had no idea that when you leave organic litter behind in a desert campground, it doesn't compost. It desiccates. That means the moisture evaporates but the orange peels, French fries, apple cores, and bread crusts never disappear. The parched ground does not harbor the insects needed to turn organic waste into nice loamy compost. That means my dead body will linger on forever, like King Tut, until someone stumbles upon my peaceful overlook and discovers a gross mummy half-buried in sand clutching an empty bottle of tequila. Ick, you say? I agree. I would not want to leave that for someone to find.
Hearing about George's story has resurrected some memories of my mother as she declined further into dementia. It's been over a year, but I don't think I'm over it yet. I wonder sometimes if I should seek professional help. Some of my friends are worried about me. I can imagine sitting across from some therapist in a Zoom room, trying to describe the past couple years. I can hear the young therapist saying, well, Carol, sounds like you have suffered some losses, but welcome to the club. You are not the only one suffering. Like, would that be helpful to hear? I don't think so. I say that to myself every day and it hasn't seemed to have improved my mental outlook. On the other hand, what if the therapist said, wow, Carol, you have really suffered some significant losses, it's amazing you are still able to function. If she said that, I would probably disintegrate into separate parts and completely cease to exist. I can't handle empathy, any more than I can handle gifts and hugs. I know. So self-centered.
I am starting to realize that life after sixty-five for me looks like a process of coming to terms with my mortality and the mortality of others. For me, I don't weep. As my body betrays me, I muddle along from day to day with my usual grouchiness. However, I weep for other creatures near and far. I can't find the philosophical balance, that neutral spot where I can see suffering and not be devastated by it. I can't look at injustice and say, well, dictators will be dictators, let's all pray for their sorry-ass souls and keep on trucking. I can't accept that half the people in the U.S.A. would like the other half to die. Now I see that I was born and raised in a special place and time, in an oasis of peace and good health, insulated from reality.
Getting in the car and driving until you get back home seems like a completely logical response. But if home no longer exists, where do you go?
