WHERE I AM NOW

yup... that's the view in my front yard, the caloosahatchee river, right around 8pm of a summer's eve.

looks pretty idyllic, doesn't it ?

let's see how quickly i can sum up the past year or so.

DRAMA ENSUED!

i can replay the decisions that took me down this road, and eventually to this point, and darned if i can see how i could have morally done anything different. and i am not a particularly noble person. i generally figure its my job to think of myself first, as there is no one else in my life who will do so, but this time i got trumped by a power greater than myself. less than a year after i relocated down here, and after some unfortunate experience with an apartment share that turned out to be less than legitimate, costing me the majority of my barely prudent cash reserve, i had just gotten comfortably settled into a pleasant, non-dramatic apartment share with a very sweet and hospitable lady who was the antithesis of my last experience, when my dear old mum perversely decided that NOW she was ready to return to florida for the weather and to be near me. i won't even go into the frustrating years of maybe i will/maybe i won't that preceded that decision, nor how much easier it would have been for us to relocate simultaneously (oy).

so, despite counsel to the contrary, i lept into the breech, found a very pleasant, affordable 2/2 elder housing unit to share with her until i was certain she could navigate on her own. combining expenses would be a thrifty bonus.

here's where the drama REALLY kicks in. my mother, a durable 82, it turns out isn't simply negative and obdurate, she has some form of dementia. this had not been as obvious in the tight little routine in which she had been living up north, but was greatly exacerbated by the upset of moving and the change of venue.

as difficult as an elderly parent with alzheimer's, as it turned out she had, is for anyone, it was far worse for me subsisting on social security and without a car. i haven't the time or stamina to rehash the next 6 months, but it was harrowing to say the least. and not easily comprehended by those nearest and dearest to me. friendships were strained to the breaking point, but all i could do is put one foot in front of the other and just try to hold on, forgiving myself for what i was unable to accomplish, and reminding myself of how much i was accomplishing.

by the end of last year, i had my mother in an independent living (very cocooned, thankfully) apartment, the old shared apartment closed up, and myself moved into one of the nicest locations of my life, and only a mile upriver from my mother's posh digs. there proved, as is always the case, to be some flies in the ointment, but the serenity of the dock and the river proved to be balm over the year that followed...

cont'd