I'm not going to lose anything.
I always think I'm going to lose everything, I kind of expect it.
But in the last two months I have taken on a dementia mom, and zoom kindergarten, both with none not even ONE of the skills I needed to accomplish even a TINY portion of these things successfully.
I took them on faith.
I thought well. Well I can try.
The mom needed loving, tending, listening, touch, reassurance. She needed someone outside to keep things safe, and to remember where things were. So she could relax and try and change slowly and quietly back into clouds. While I watch and try not to disintegrate from the immensity of watching your mom change into this horrible sweet and terrible new thing involving so much loss. All made of loss. Loss and I are not friends. We are at opposite sides of the gym. We are rivals. More I am the rival and it is oblivious and cares not one bit how I feel.
I took on this.
Then I got the job with a class I didn't know in a school I didn't know using a technology I don't know while watching a mom I don't know. At the same time.
I said yes.
It's been 31 days not counting weekends.
It is unfolding. It is refolding every day. It is wrinkled. There are some of the same songs everyday. Music is teaching us. I am learning that learning is curiosity and that's all. Not answers. Not at all getting it right or doing anything perfectly.
It's curiosity that is the whole path.
I have let this mom relationship morph into whatever it is. I have some rules and some frustration but there is a whole new relationship here that is mostly baffling, comforting, vulnerable, heartbreaking, full. It is love without words, with all the wrong words because of dementia. It is wordless, labeled wrong. That is good for me, the one who has all the words right all the time, I have the bags of words, I know everything and say it better funnier smarter lovinger than anyone.
I don't know anything. I know less everyday. I learn from 5 year olds that I see on a zoom class while I teach in boxers without a bra in my living room with the dog at my feet.
I learn from my mom who can't function cerebrally, but who is still teaching me that love is all there is. Love, touch, connection, family.
Say yes even when it seems impossible. Allow loss. Lose everything.
You won't break.
