Choices

My mom is so cute.  She gets very excited when she goes out in the car by herself.  This morning, she went to a friend's house.  Yesterday, she took back a few things to the grocery store.  She's self-sufficient again and loves it.  She still has to go very slow when she gets in and out of the car, but she uses her walker and gets around quite well.  I'm really proud of her.  She didn't just sit around getting worse - she didn't just give up.


My dad, on the other hand, gave up a long time ago.  It makes me sad to watch him, a figure who looks nothing like he did when he was younger.  He sits in his chair all day, watching the news or the military channel or the channel about animals.  This is his escape from the reality that he will die one day.  He either sits in his chair watching tv or sits in his office at his computer.  I tried to get him into the pool when it was warmer, but for some reason, he wouldn't budge.  He never goes anywhere and doesn't even sit on the screened in porch, where he would at least get some fresh air.  I ask them to open up the doors in the morning to bring in some kind of breeze, otherwise it's stuffy and sad in here.  There's something about fresh air that gives life to what is dull.  My father, I determined, is just sitting there, waiting to die.  Not consciously, I think, but because he does nothing, he mindlessly watches the world go by via the tv and computer, even though every now and then he calls my brother to change one of his stocks.  My kids are not coming down to get me after all.  I'm disappointed about that, because my parents would both have enjoyed Ashanti and it would have given my dad a change in his day.


I'll be flying home this week and instead of sitting here writing, I should be packing.  I'm being very lazy about this for some reason.  I'm not sure what I should take and what I should leave here.  Because I'm flying, I can't take it all like I was planning.  I really don't have that much stuff, so it's not a big deal, but I've never been good at making choices.  If you give me a menu with a hundred things on it, I calmly freak out because I don't know what to choose.  If I have to clean up a big mess, again, I can't figure out where to start.  Big grocery stores are troublesome for me, as there is too much to look at, at one time.  It's sensory overload, just like carnivals or circuses.  Well, scratch that - I hate circuses, so I would never go there.  But whenever there are a lot of choices or decisions or things to look at, I sometimes have a hard time distinguishing what is what.  I decided that this is from adult ADD, but then it may not be that at all.  It could be that I'm just weird.  That's probably the best explanation.


So, I'll be moving home and won't be living with old people after this week.  So it seems a good time to complete my blog.  But I really don't want to.  I mean, it can't go on forever and ever, so it has to end at some point, and this is the most logical point.  Maybe I'll start another blog on an entirely different topic.  I really don't know what to do, but I'm not done yet.  I still have four days left living with old people, and I have no doubt my parents will give me something more yet to write about.