finishing

My +Time blogs are never, or almost never but never is my intent, connected from day to day. But I find on going back and rereading yesterday's post, that I didn't finish my thought, and it doesn't at all say what I meant to say. What happened? Before I resume it and make my point to myself, because the blogposts are generally about me for me, what happened? A couple of things, or a few; not several, but more than one or two.

First, I had started the blog not yesterday but the day before, writing late in the morning because of something bothersome I'd noticed about myself and decided to muse on to see if I could work through it. But while thinking and writing, I realized that what I was really thinking about was our remarkable Festival of Lessons and Carols; so I stopped and went to that. So yesterday's blogpost was started day before yesterday but not finished before I released it. 

Second, I don't think I've said this to many people, but life is a unique double challenge these days: together with the post-hurricane stress that everyone in Bay County is feeling and having to evacuate our storm-damaged homes like so many folks, we are looking after daughter Malinda, who has had three brain surgeries, one in May to stop a ruptured aneurysm that nearly killed her, one in June to finish that repair, the final on October 9 the day before Hurricane Michael came ashore, to stop a second aneurysm before it also could burst. The evening of that third surgery, she suffered a stroke that we caught in process, but that has left her with short term memory loss that causes odd behavior. The neurosurgeon tells us that it was minor and any effect should completely clear away in 12 to 18 months, but cautions us that Malinda is extremely fragile at this time, that she needs calmness and consistency in life, that her confusion is exacerbated by the strangeness and constant change of life and daily living that we are experiencing after Hurricane Michael. Malinda's house in StAndrews was destroyed by the storm and a new house is being constructed at PanamaCityBeach; she cannot adjust to that fact and that we are temporarily living in a series of resort condos, current across the Phillips Inlet bridge in Walton County; so every day, even several times a day, she goes in her room, packs her things and heads out the door saying she's going home or "Next Door". She keeps asking for her car keys even though the ruptured brain aneurysm last May left her basically blind in her right eye, she's no longer driving, and has given her car to Ray. She forgets that. She is forty years a smoker but the condos we've stayed in are strictly No Smoking inside or grounds, and, unable to remember that, she becomes aggressive in looking for cigarettes and a match or lighter. Numerous other things, manifestations, like forgetting that we are "hurricane refugees" and insisting that this is not her home, that her home is Next Door, so going to the next condo and knocking or ringing the bell thinking that's her home. We keep chairs and tables piled in front of the door night and day, to block the exit so she cannot leave without making noise and alerting us, because she doesn't remember her way back and if she goes out one of us must lovingly go along. 

Many of these things are explainable, for example That for thirty years she lived in her house Next Door to our Old Place where the rest of our family lived. That she is used to being on her own, independent thought and action. That she smoked at will. That she always had a car and came and went on her own. All that's still there, only the short term memory is damaged. 

Why am I writing these things? Because it's all having to be dealt with, off and on through almost every day, different things happening, including interrupting whatever we are doing in our own lives at the moment to respond lovingly. The uncertainty and stress of combined hurrication and care-taking is unending. A beloved daughter, and we are attending lovingly night and day hoping for those 12 to 18 months that the neurosurgeon says this will likely take to work through. 

So that's what happened, "life as it is now" happened day before yesterday as I sat typing a blogpost that didn't get finished and that yesterday I simply picked up, added something to remember Pearl Harbor, and pressed Blogger's orange "Publish" button. Not a poor me whine, it started out as a bit of self analysis regarding my online browsing real estate for sale in the Maine village where my ancestor Andreas Wäller immigrated from Germany with his wife and children in the eighteenth century, thinking to move there, a place that appeals to my mind, instead of dealing with what Panama City and Bay County, in Hurricane Michael's three or four hour visit of unspeakable violence, were reduced to that cannot be undone in my lifetime, and never again what was in any event. Here's where I stopped, my blog writing was interrupted day before yesterday: "With a lifelong aversion to being where I’m not wanted, I leave, have left. Moved on. Never changed, simply moved on. This time I have other people to consider; how major or even decisive a factor is that?" 

Where was I going day before yesterday but didn't finish? I was figuring out why I am feeling so resistant to staying in a place I once loved, that in its devastation has become so hostile to me that the joy of it is gone. And I was coming to the conclusion that leaving the unpleasant, moving away from it, is part of my life history; but that having other people to consider will stop me this time. I'm sure as hell not moving to Maine by myself, so I need to stop browsing real estate ads. I did find one I like, though.

A little mid-nineteenth century New England cottage, three bedroom, two bath, currently being totally renovated and modernized inside, cash affordable, adorably cute. Across the street from the farmers' market, near the Medomak River, and a few blocks from a lobster cafe.  

T