I need to share these emotions before I break down. I need to rationalize. I need to breathe. 

I fell asleep last night(tonight) at 9p after reading by a warm fire outside while watching the sunset, and doing homework on the cam with my amazing and sweet girlfriend and watching Despicable Me, of course. At midnight my Great Gma gets up to go to her “doctor’s appt,” I clarify that it is midnight and that it’s not til in the morning. She replies, “Oh he wouldn’t be here this early.” nope, he wouldn’t be here this early, late, whatever! Next at 3a it’s the same story. She’s searching around for clothes making all kinds of noise to get ready for this appt. So I tell her it’s 3a. “Is it really??” Yes, yes it is. Throughout the 3 o’clock hour she continued to get up to find her shoes, I put her back to bed. Her slippers, I put her back to bed. Her coat, to bed. Finally, (at this point) she was trying to move this bar chair and vacuum we had in the middle of the hall to barricade her in. I once again put her to bed, even though she told me that she was just going to sit in the kitchen til it was time to leave. At 4:30a. She is now currently in bed, mumbling about something…

My grandmother has to go through this just about every night. Since she has not been feeling well, and not handling the stress of her mother get up at all hours of the night, potentially to hurt herself, I have been trying to take on the duty of relieving my grandmother. 

I want to cry. That this is not fair, and resent my grandmother for not being able to handle this, and pull herself together and except that her mother is suffering from dementia and deal with it. I’m 22 years old and shouldn’t have this responsibility of sacrificing my nights and majority of my days to taking care of this 98 year old woman, let alone anyone. 

But I’m not. I’m trying to continue to be patient with her and understanding of her mindset at this stage in her life. I don’t yell at her. Tell her that I just told her what time it was just 2 minutes ago. That I am her great granddaughter and not her nurse, mother, or attendant. I try and sooth her psychologically. Tell her that she doesn’t have to worry about missing her appointment with the doctor tomorrow (I hope you’ve caught on that there is not doctor’s appointment tomorrow) because I will get her up in plenty of time to have breakfast, get ready and leave for it. 

How long will I be able to do this? Will I eventually be like my  Grandmother and yell and scream and not handle the situation rationally? When will I tell myself that it is ok to just focus on ME? 

Currently, I am thinking that this will be the last semester and summer of living here, and doing this. That after that point I am going to leave this house and all the responsibilities along with it and do what I think is best for me. I don’t want to let myself be guilt-ed into staying and doing this for the family again. I want to move on with my life.

This is going to benefit me, as well as Great Grandma. I will be able to devote time to my studies and pottery, and she will be able to sit there and have every questioned answered without fighting about it or getting yelled at. Oh and I guess this is benefiting Grandmother because she doesn’t have to sit with GGma and lose her patience with all her repetitive questions, essentially not stressing her heart and getting less spells. 

It’ll all be ok one day. 

As for now, I just need to enjoy my warm fires and sunsets.