Wednesday, May 20

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

A good phone conversation with Mom. She seemed a little brighter and more "with it" today.

A good "extra" lesson on River today. There is a VERY good trainer that comes to the barn sometimes to give lessons, and if you do a lesson with her, it kind of boosts your regular lessons by giving a new perspective on some nagging issues that aren't improving. My regular lessons are good, but I know that she's only got so many tools, and this other trainer rides at a higher level.

She did help me figure out one or two things I need to change with my hands and posture, and she gave me some insight into why River doesn't bend well to the left (we know it's his weaker side, but that also means he likely has more trouble collecting on that side, and if he isn't fully collected, he can't bring his hind leg under well enough to stay balanced and bend correctly). I have lots to work on. I was happy that she thought we had made progress since I last had a lesson with her over two months ago.

I talked to my trainwreck sister, and she says Mom is going to tentatively go home, with lots of support. What concerns me, is that trainwreck sister is going to "move in" with Mom for awhile. Part of me agrees that this is good, but I have a lot of concerns. This sister is an alcoholic, big time, and I don't know if that makes her a good person to be living with Mom. As we all know, alcoholism is a lot more than just drinking too much. In my sister, it often is a total lack of personal responsibility. If she says she's going to do something, and she fails to do it, there's always some reason why it didn't happen besides the truth which can be "I didn't feel like it any more" or "I got distracted" or "I was drunk". she gets a lot of really big ideas and never follows through on them. She gets cats, and then remembers that she can't be bothered to buy food and litter or get them fixed, and gets angry at them for being on the counters or even bugging her for attention. So she just "lets them go". She can't even be bothered to re-home them properly, she just opens the door and kicks them outside.

Is this a person who can be responsible for Mom? Is this a person who should have access to Mom's painkillers? Will she be sober when she drives Mom to an appointment? Will she be bumming money off of Mom (she does this anyhow)? Will she freak out and have giant crying jags in front of Mom?

This sister is in a very precarious financial situation, and she literally might not have a place to live by this winter. If she gets a foot in the door at Mom's, will she try to guilt Mom into letting her live there, saying to the rest of us that Mom needs her help, or if Mom ends up in the hospital again will she just live in Mom's house, and sort of take it over?

I need to talk to the members of my family that are power of attorney. Here's the thing, they're too busy to be the ones to come stay with Mom. I don't even know if they're aware of trainwreck sister's plan to live with Mom.

You know what sucks, is that I love my family, but I don't really trust them. I don't mean necessarily that I think they are criminals, but I have found them to be negligent people often enough that I don't trust them to do the best thing, to follow through on their promises, to be ready to help others, or to protect themselves from obvious bad choices. They've also been inconsistently there for me as an adult, and that hurts. Trainwreck sister is a person who can be kind, funny, and caring, but not in a consistent, reliable way. She has done a lot to help Mom, but I don't know if I feel that she can really do this on a 24 hour basis as her main caregiver. I don't trust her not to ask for money, or to "borrow" things.

I could see her starting to slip into smoking in Mom's house if she's going to be there at night. She smokes all day long, and all night long. Is she really going to go outside at night to smoke, when normally she smokes in bed?

I think it would make more sense to have Mom have Homecare come to her house every day, to get Meals on Wheels, and to let my much more responsible and trustworthy niece be the person who checks in on her (she will be doing so anyhow, but my trainwreck sister being there most of the day concerns me).

I am grateful that I could come home today and just take a nap. Maybe I should have been out working in the garden, but I've been putting in an hour or two a day in that garden for the last week or two, and I'm burnt out. I decided that it's okay just to not do hard work for one day.