Not meaning to be depressing, but mortality has been on my mind a lot lately. My mom has serious kidney disease, I am hoping she has some more good years to heal some from what her life had become. I think that's a reasonable hope. I think she wants to live as long as it doesn't mean extensive medical intervention. I'm with her on that. Neither Bruce nor I am in good health and I find myself wondering who among us will go first. I'm hoping for my mom. Not because I want her to die, but because I'm starting to think the purpose of MY life might be to get her out of hers in the best way possible. Not the purpose I would have chosen, but it's looking like it may be that. Bruce coughs like the long term smoker he is. And has heart problems, so he's in the running. And I throw up every night, rather horribly, unless I take kidney damaging pills. Right now I am not taking the pills. Yesterday, Bruce mentioned how much gray is in my hair now and how fast that happened. I practically could feel it happening in the nightmare that was California. But yes, I am feeling old. And while I am so happy that the house is getting needed renovation, and that I hope it will be the very pleasant spot I envision pretty soon, I smile to myself wondering how long we will get to enjoy it. I hope for some time. But I am feeling extremely mortal. And while I am happy to sink money into the house, even if I am NOT around long I would not be happy to see medical expenses suck money away. I figure, for myself (and everyone else here seems to have made the same decision) that we won't be fighting hard, at least financially, to preserve our lives.

I usually am up by 5:30 at the latest to take Toby out and check my mom's blood sugar and bring her some juice and water. (Then I go back to bed. I do not sleep well and try to get as much sleep as I can) This morning I didn't wake up till almost 8 am! I was in the midst of an epic dream concerning the greatest pain in my life. As I've said before, it's not resolveable, but apparently I'm going to work on it all my life. Last night's version was different in that I was my own advocate. Usually in this conflict I am looking for how I was at fault. In this version I was seeing the extraordinary measures I took to preserve the relationship and the honesty I had in confronting what was happening, even though it devastated my worldview and I truly never have recovered. But in this version I was kinder to myself. I was glad.