(no subject)
Ugh. This is why I don't write about myself. But here's that little mini assignment. :D
7am doesn't seem very early in the country. As though operating in a different time zone, houses surrounded by wheatfields and hardy smelling trees were infused with invigoration. Even though I woke up in the frantic rush of town, threw some clothes in a bag, and strapped my bed to my back, I found my energy stirred by the breeze that shifted through the branches and blew single strands of my hair loose from my bun and across the edges of my face.
Energy that was immediately put to good use mopping floors, scrubbing the bathtub, and dusting on top of impossible to reach places. Realtors were on their way to look at the house and land, and subsequently the little apartment above the garage that my girls rented. My girls, two mentally disabled twenty-somethings, and me, their caregiver.
Mornings were often spent in a mad rush. Showers, breakfast, clothes, teethbrushing, all the normal things people take for granted can be savage war tales when you're working with someone who can't do it for themselves. But that morning in particular seemed especially filled with battles because we had to be gone from the house, nothing more than faint memories by 9am.
"I'm calling my mom."
"It's too early to call your mom."
"SHE'S AWAKE!"
"How do you know; can you see her? It's 7:30 in the morning, she's asleep."
Tina wandered off, seemingly defeated. 5 minutes later.
"Tamara's overflowing the bathtub!"
It was true; I could see water seeping ominously out from the other side of the door. A miniature tidal wave broke against the carpet as I entered to find Tamara scrunched down nose deep in the water blowing bubbles through her nostrils like a hippopatamus.
8 towels and a load of laundry was what it took to sop up the mess. I didn't choose to use the load of laundry, but it had been on the floor awaiting its turn in the washer at the time, becoming an unwilling party to the great flood of 2005.
When I returned to the kitchen, Tina was on the phone apologizing to her mother for waking her up.
The afternoon moved tranquilized snail slow. Outside, inside, outside, inside, with Tina gone for the day with her parents, Tamara was restless. I spent my time running up and down the many stairs trying to keep abreast of Tamara's ever-changing location. Not even My Big Dog settled her, not the pictures, not the voices, not the short theatrical productions of the action sequences. I was hopelessly chained to the princess and the pea trying to find a comfortable place to sit in a pea salad.
By 5pm I gave up and settled into making dinner. The sharpness of italian dressing stung by nose as I stirred chopped potatoes into its tangy coating. Baking them would be a snap and I could get straight to slicing the chicken. But such an easeful dinner preparation was not in the cards for me that day. After all of the shadowing, the hours spent outside playing mother hen, Tamara had an episode the 15 minutes I wasn't there to help her. Her mohter found her seizing in the grass as I was on my way down to check on her. The seizure was small, and the woman assured me that I had done nothing wrong. Still, I couldn't help but detect a note of concern whether real or imagined. Is she responsible? Should I have left my innocent daughter in her care? I feared these are the thoughts she had about me. She took Tamara into the main house and I went back to the apartment.
As I finished dinner, I found myself crying stupidly. A small just-getting-started life crisis struck me in the middle of heating carrots. There I was on 3 quarters of a million dollars worth of land and mansion, playing lady in waiting. I hadn't spent over $100,000 on a college education to be bossed around, canoodled, and otherwise exploited by a bunch of retards. Apparently, I was a horrible person to boot because only horrible people used the word retard. Retard, retard, retard.
I stood in the kitchen, searching and searching for some sense of pride or satisfaction in my life, but I couldn't see through the self-pity, it being such a murky gray-colored substance. I was sinking right through the floor, farther and farther, feeling more and more suffocated by the idea that I had no other job prospects and no other life to fantasize about in my future. I finished dinner and sat down to breathe.
Later that evening, Tamara had no desire to eat. No matter how much I had expected that, I couldn't quell the rising of rejection in my stomach. She went to bed without further incident. I finished her dinner and my own in a secretive, piggish feast, swallowing as hard as I could, trying to push the hopelessness down with the chicken. No lights shone in the kitchen, and I stood in my pajamas, washing up the dishes, feeling disgusting.
But the bed was soft, the day had been long, and I fell into a restful sleep. Tomorrow was a new start, afterall, and 7am didn't seem so early in the country.
7am doesn't seem very early in the country. As though operating in a different time zone, houses surrounded by wheatfields and hardy smelling trees were infused with invigoration. Even though I woke up in the frantic rush of town, threw some clothes in a bag, and strapped my bed to my back, I found my energy stirred by the breeze that shifted through the branches and blew single strands of my hair loose from my bun and across the edges of my face.
Energy that was immediately put to good use mopping floors, scrubbing the bathtub, and dusting on top of impossible to reach places. Realtors were on their way to look at the house and land, and subsequently the little apartment above the garage that my girls rented. My girls, two mentally disabled twenty-somethings, and me, their caregiver.
Mornings were often spent in a mad rush. Showers, breakfast, clothes, teethbrushing, all the normal things people take for granted can be savage war tales when you're working with someone who can't do it for themselves. But that morning in particular seemed especially filled with battles because we had to be gone from the house, nothing more than faint memories by 9am.
"I'm calling my mom."
"It's too early to call your mom."
"SHE'S AWAKE!"
"How do you know; can you see her? It's 7:30 in the morning, she's asleep."
Tina wandered off, seemingly defeated. 5 minutes later.
"Tamara's overflowing the bathtub!"
It was true; I could see water seeping ominously out from the other side of the door. A miniature tidal wave broke against the carpet as I entered to find Tamara scrunched down nose deep in the water blowing bubbles through her nostrils like a hippopatamus.
8 towels and a load of laundry was what it took to sop up the mess. I didn't choose to use the load of laundry, but it had been on the floor awaiting its turn in the washer at the time, becoming an unwilling party to the great flood of 2005.
When I returned to the kitchen, Tina was on the phone apologizing to her mother for waking her up.
The afternoon moved tranquilized snail slow. Outside, inside, outside, inside, with Tina gone for the day with her parents, Tamara was restless. I spent my time running up and down the many stairs trying to keep abreast of Tamara's ever-changing location. Not even My Big Dog settled her, not the pictures, not the voices, not the short theatrical productions of the action sequences. I was hopelessly chained to the princess and the pea trying to find a comfortable place to sit in a pea salad.
By 5pm I gave up and settled into making dinner. The sharpness of italian dressing stung by nose as I stirred chopped potatoes into its tangy coating. Baking them would be a snap and I could get straight to slicing the chicken. But such an easeful dinner preparation was not in the cards for me that day. After all of the shadowing, the hours spent outside playing mother hen, Tamara had an episode the 15 minutes I wasn't there to help her. Her mohter found her seizing in the grass as I was on my way down to check on her. The seizure was small, and the woman assured me that I had done nothing wrong. Still, I couldn't help but detect a note of concern whether real or imagined. Is she responsible? Should I have left my innocent daughter in her care? I feared these are the thoughts she had about me. She took Tamara into the main house and I went back to the apartment.
As I finished dinner, I found myself crying stupidly. A small just-getting-started life crisis struck me in the middle of heating carrots. There I was on 3 quarters of a million dollars worth of land and mansion, playing lady in waiting. I hadn't spent over $100,000 on a college education to be bossed around, canoodled, and otherwise exploited by a bunch of retards. Apparently, I was a horrible person to boot because only horrible people used the word retard. Retard, retard, retard.
I stood in the kitchen, searching and searching for some sense of pride or satisfaction in my life, but I couldn't see through the self-pity, it being such a murky gray-colored substance. I was sinking right through the floor, farther and farther, feeling more and more suffocated by the idea that I had no other job prospects and no other life to fantasize about in my future. I finished dinner and sat down to breathe.
Later that evening, Tamara had no desire to eat. No matter how much I had expected that, I couldn't quell the rising of rejection in my stomach. She went to bed without further incident. I finished her dinner and my own in a secretive, piggish feast, swallowing as hard as I could, trying to push the hopelessness down with the chicken. No lights shone in the kitchen, and I stood in my pajamas, washing up the dishes, feeling disgusting.
But the bed was soft, the day had been long, and I fell into a restful sleep. Tomorrow was a new start, afterall, and 7am didn't seem so early in the country.