A Week of Settling into Assisted Living

It’s been a week since moving day. And honestly, it’s not been an easy one. Remembering Mom’s move into our house, and her move into her new house, I knew in my heart this move was also going to be exhausting and that getting her settled would be a battle and a race that we could not win easily.

To someone sitting in a recliner watching and waiting while two people slave around her – is just not ever fast enough for what ever reason and she has no way apparently to understand patience and that we are going as fast as two retired people can. She just wants her Hallmark Family channel now, never mind being able to take a shower, sleep, or get her kitchen and furniture set up. This is exemplary of how the week has been.

We are pretty exhausted. Period. We had zero help in packing except for six items of clothes in one suitcase and make up bag. We had six weeks of notice to move in. We pretty much had to guess what to take. She told us a few things. But wouldn’t use the blue tape. I’m still tore up about the blue tape. It would have been so easy.

The daily Easter egg hunts continue for about 6 items per day. Yesterday it was a juice glass, batteries, two can openers (I could only find one), fragrance spray, ink pens, permanent markers, name tags, and I forget what else. At least the things are getting smaller. George put the huge quilt rack in her car and that is going to overwhelm her room I think but if it didn’t fit we will take the darn thing back to the house for the estate sale.

I never dreamed that getting account addresses changed and/or services stopped would be a primary reason for stress. But I’ve had a few grey hairs and some angry moments with that one. Even with Mom present, we have unsuccessfully been able to stop her AT&T internet account And have had to have the bank stop the draft payment and dispute the latest charge, costing Mom even more money. Mom could not remember the PIN number to AT&T but they finally “said” they cancelled it – but I think the guy just told us that to get us off the phone. He said there would be no more charges but yet yesterday there it was, another month of AT&T internet.

It was easy with Blue Cross Blue Shield of TN, but with the Social Security – we were on the phone with them for an hour and they were not able to help us. Mom could not remember zip codes from past addresses and they wouldn’t let me help her with it. I think they must have the wrong zip code for her last address because we gave them the correct one and they said it was wrong. I would write it really big and Mom would still get it wrong and – yeah, that was a big flub up so, I will try doing it on line but I imagine that we will have to go and make an appointment And then we probably won’t have documents and have to go back, but we’ll do the best we can. I mean thank goodness her SSA is direct deposited. Who knows where it would have gone, lol.

We did get her bank account address changed to mine when we called about the AT&T flub up.

We continue with 2-3 hours over at Mom’s new place and take dogs out and do another 3 hours over at the old house (finding whatever the items of the day are, packing china sets, and getting things ready for estate sale). Many areas have been gone through already, but I’m ready to go through the clothes starting tomorrow to see what else needs to go to Mom’s apartment. I need to go through her current bedroom drawers, her filing cabinet, and then I can start on the garage area.

My sister is coming today to and has offered to help go through things and see if there is anything she might want or use.

Today we will go get Mom and let her have one last chance to go through the house before the estate people come. I am a little worried about how it will go for Mom. The house is totally rearranged and things are not where she last had them. The kitchen items are mostly the same and her bedroom drawers and garage but that’s about it.

I’m asking myself that if she knew six weeks before the move and didn’t go through anything then, would she even feel like doing it today? Of course not, so…I imagine that it will not go well. Her recliners are not there and she has zero stamina to do anything so it’s likely to be frustrating for her, but we’ll take her home and go back when she is tired and today will be overwhelming for her and she’s likely to be snappy. I’m tired too and I can be snappy when I’m tired.

Knowing this dynamic that does not work when we are both stressed and each have our own agendas. I don’t take anything off of anyone and she doesn’t either, we are oil and water. When she starts, I shut down and leave because conflict makes me shaky and traumatized. I’ve been screamed and yelled at so much that my nervous system just cannot handle it. I was away from it since my early twenties and leaving home, to have to revisit those years all these years later in the last five years, has left me very unsettled and brings all the flood of memories back to me. And usually I leave so that I don’t get really honest and hurt her feelings and tell her how I really feel. But lately I have had no filter. And I’ve not been able to leave because we were moving her of all things and was I gonna leave her in a mess in her new apartment with boxes all around? No. So instead I told her exactly how I felt and insisted she develop some patience and quickly. I was unable to use my boundaries in that situation because I wasn’t going to leave her without the ability to shower, sleep, rest etc.

Now that she is set up, I can hold my boundaries and say “Ok if you are going to raise your voice at me then I’m leaving”. But I’ve been so tired that I’ve been raising my voice at her first. And while I did learn that from her as a child, I’d gotten out of the habit of that tone, for the most part, but when I’m tired and hungry (hangry) it comes marching back.

So knowing how explosive we can be over the smallest trivial of issues, I’ve asked George to be present at the house today. My sister is coming and my sister once did not speak to her for like 5+ years (maybe more) because of this explosive behavior so with her coming I hope it doesn’t happen again, b/c she will likely never see her again if there is repeat. And I am about full of what I can handle as we’ve been going strong every day out of the house for a very long time. I’ve been demanding to have Friday’s off for my sanity and everyone else’s. Still was bombarded by doctors calling and had to just put my phone on personal focus for the day to get away from the situation so I could get our grocery shopping done, get our personal business done, and our laundry and housecleaning done.

Well I need to go and have less than an hour to shower and get dressed and get on the road. But yeah, we are exhausted. But we are finally making progress in the house. I’m just worried about today and I’m thinking “what a shame to be doing this for someone and helping someone to this degree and yet to be worried about their behavior towards you while you do it”. It’s astounding.

Oh and after the problems we were having yesterday Mom said she was going to close her bank in Columbia and move it to one up here. I told her if she did that she would get NO more help from me in her financial matters that it would push me over the edge. We only had one problem with one company AT&T and that was not First Farmer’s fault. And if she changes banks she will have about 30 problems then that I told her she would be solving as I would jump ship if she did that to me. It would be hers to handle from there on out. I told her three times, if you do it – everything is yours to deal with in your financial matters: bills, selling the house…everything. Best not do that to yourself. Because that would create a nightmare for me and I would not be willing to untangle it. I’d be done at that point!

OK venting done but that is where we are today. I’m scared! But I’ve prayed. Lord keep your hand over my mouth and hers!