Swimming holes, Covidity! The Musical's 4th Act, and other nonesuch nonsense.

Last week, my friend S and I took the boychild out Little Baddow way for a swim. He's been staying close, my little love and I know he can feel my uncertainty and sadness. He snuggles close and I know I should carry him back to his bed but I don't. I let him hold my hand, my heart constrict.

It's Sunday and I am supposed to be on a third date. Instead, I have just woken from a nap, had a snack, and am wincing at the receding auras of a migraine. The date and I just finished a chat on the phone, firming up rescheduled plans.

A third date is...exciting, thrilling? The gentleman in question is good company and dishy. I am enjoying the pace of getting to know him. I don't know that he is my b'shert, because I'm not sure I ready for that discovery yet. But I do feel I'm making legitimate progress towards construction of my post-divorce sex wall construction and missteps of 2020. All experience teaches us something (or things), I am learning to remind myself.

The date's shifted to Wednesday instead, because that's just how things shake out. Which is a blessing because I made poor choices to have a few glasses of wine, knowing full well I would end up very ill and most likely with a migraine.  I sat with myself last night and this morning, asking what I was trying to avoid.  I was trying to avoid being angry and frustrated, why I don't know, because the things I am angry and frustrated are valid and the anger is part of the journey. My father is willing himself to die.

In all honesty, he gave up on May 7, 2015, seven days before my mother died.   Or maybe in 2003, when he had the 4th heart attack and the surgery that was only supposed to give him 10 years. He's now at 18 years.  His scars can vote. We make so many such decisions, reinforcing the lines we draw in the sand. He is making his intractable.

This is one of my favourite photos of Peggy & Jim, probably from 2012/2013.  Daddy didn't always allow a beard outside of the 1980s or during the unfortunate events of 1991/1992, so I'm guessing it was that few days growth.

I haven't seen him laugh like this since before my mother died 14 May, 2015, maybe at a wedding in Texas Hill country in 2014.  I wonder that he'll ever smile like that again. More and more, it feels unlikely. 

On Thursday, my dear friend C drove over to check in on him for me after an emergency reach out from the young lady helping out - essentially doula-ing the folk at Frontenac Drive through this experience they are going through.  He was on the floor, having fallen and hurt his back, refusing to get up, refusing to go to the Doctor. 

The situation is problematic. My father is lucid and very much in his mind, so it isn't like one could force medical treatment.  But his people live well into their late 80s or 90s, as his mother - now doo-lally with Dementia, reminds me.  They also get ornery and mean. 

'I think's it's that Type I diabetes they were tellin' me I'd get,' he said on Wednesday when we spoke.

'So, I'll fly over and we'll go to the Dr to find out what is going on. Insulin and a diet change?'

'Goddamnit, Rachel, don't be trying to mother hen me. I don't need a goddamn doctor.'

'Says the man whose been on the floor since Monday.'

So, now, what? Where is the line? And when did I have to become the parent of my parent?