Spring Cleaning

I was hoping to find something happy to post about...unfortunately, I didn't. Maybe next time.

My Nanny is moving to a nursing home tomorrow. No one has told her. But she doesn't have the mental capacity to take care of herself. She tried to eat hand lotion...three times. Directly after my mother reminded her it was lotion. She can't be left alone.

I have a music audition this Saturday. I am not ready. I already knew that, but I just played my pieces for my Great Aunt Rita, who happens to be visiting. I was lucky to finish the second piece. It was absolutely awful. You would think after 10 months with the same two pages I'd have more of a handle on it than I do. I don't know my minor scales. My goal is to not burst into tears during the audition. It's only 15 minutes. I can make it, right? And it'll be good experience. Totally worth the terror and humiliation. Right?

I cleaned my room this weekend (my mom made me). We had company coming (great aunt and uncle). People have been in and out of my house the past two weeks, and I feel like I've gotten nothing done. I haven't practiced piano nearly as much as I meant to. I didn't touch it at all yesterday. I was sick last weekend. I'm behind in my art history class (horribly behind...). And on top of all my spring cleaning, I've been doing a little last minute emotional and mental cleaning. And here is the result of that:

I have to amend my statements from an earlier post. (see Extended Metaphor (kinda))

So what? So what if you want to use me or manipulate me or play with me? So what if you bait me and toy with me and lie to me? What else am I here for? I don't understand why you would treat me that way, but I don't always treat my friends well either. So whatever. Have at it. I'm not going to change. I'm not going to stand in your way.

Because I cannot function if I can't believe that the people I love and care about have good intentions. I cannot comprehend that. And I can't find a middle ground. If there are people who aren't sincere and kind, then nobody is sincere and kind. I so desperately need to believe that people are good. I tried to see the middle ground, and I lost my balance. I broke down completely, an emotional vertigo. The world was full of strangers. I didn't even recognize myself.

So do what you want. I do not care. I'll probably forgive you again, and again, and again. It will be my gift, my sacrifice. This is what I offer the world: my persistently high opinion, just to spite reality. You cannot break me. I don't play the way you do, with twisted words and hidden agendas. You think you're getting away with it. You think you've won this game, and you might have, but it's not the one that matters. You think I'm a fool, and I wouldn't disagree with you. But here's a secret for you to mull over while you fill the gas tank of your get-away car:

I win.

Golly Moses

Well, a lot has happened since my last post.

My great-grandmother is in a rehabilitation center. I think by now I've mentioned it to most of you loyal readers (all five of you!) But Nanny had a stroke last week. My grandad found her unable to talk, unable to write, to communicate at all.

We've been visiting her a lot. She's improved. She can murmur "I love you. God bless..." and she can repeat almost anything you say. My mommy made a scrapbook for her with pictures of all our family. She can read the names, but when she comes to words like 'on' or 'at' or 'the' she gets stuck. She keeps randomly counting. "One, two, three, four, five..." My grandma bought her a teddy bear and a donut on Valentine's Day.

I know strokes are serious, and it's sad to see her so helpless, but honestly, I think I might be glad this happened. It sounds horrible. But if nothing had changed, she would have lived the rest of her life alone and bitter in her cold and empty house. Now, she is surrounded by people who love her.

We've always loved her. Of course we have. But she never received it well. My mother quit buying her real presents because she would always find something wrong with it and return it. It was a chore to visit her, but it was our duty. We would stay for a half hour, no more, and listen to her pessimism.

Her doctor said the stroke took the meanness out of her.

She kept stroking the purple pajamas my grandma bought for her and muttering 'whoowee!" She keeps giving everyone hugs, over and over and over, and telling us she loves us. She smiled when my grandma caught her sneaking dessert before she'd eaten her beans. I've never seen her smile like that before. She's like a child in so many ways. She poured over the scrapbook my mama gave her, read it twice. She was waiting for me by the front door when I came yesterday. Some days I hardly recognize her, she's so pleasant.

I don't know how much she will recover. I don't know if she'll be able to live on her own. I don't know if she will turn bitter again. I hope that part is never recovered. But if it is, at least she was able to show my grandma for once that she appreciates all she does. At least my mom will have given her one gift she truly loved. At least we will have legitimately enjoyed her company for a little while. At least we will have these memories of her.

It's not ideal. But I'm thankful God let us meet this side of her.

A Rough Translation

"Hi, it's nice to meet you."
So you're the one she's been talking about.

"I'm Big Sister."
You answer to me.

"Yeah, so I just wanted to come say hey."
I've got my eye on you, boy.

"Anyway, you guys have fun!"
Treat her right.

"Drive safely!"
Behave.

--------

"He seems like a nice guy."
If he hurts her, he's dead.

Linger Longer

So, Mateo requested that I hurry up and post something happy cos every time he checked my blog, he'd run into the last post, and shudder. (I'm not that scary in person, I promise.)

I think I'm going to get on my soapbox again today. I don't have any recent fun stories to tell, so I'm going to harp back on one of my favorite topics of discussion: dreams. I have some of the craziest, detailed dreams. It's not necessarily a happy topic, but it's fun! So I'm going to recap a few of my favorites. :)

I once had a dream that Bill Nye the Science Guy was filming a show in my kitchen. He asked for a volunteer from the live audience crowded around my living room (which had conveniently sunk so the kitchen was more of a stage). I was so enthusiastic that I immediately caught his eye and he picked me as his volunteer. I was told to stand on a stool and gaze down the sink. Suddenly, and to my immense dismay, he flicked the disposal on and shoved my head toward it. I scrambled off the stool, ducked out from under his hold, and stomped on his foot. Being 8 or so, I was just big enough to knock him off balance. He fell down the sink and swirled away in the water, screaming "NOOO!!!" I dove off the stage into the safety of my mother's arms. (It was all very dramatic).

When I was younger, I used to have recurring dreams that one of my teeth would suddenly be loose. I would wiggle it around and play with it and all my teeth would fall out and start pouring into my hands. Not a pleasant sensation. Until a couple years ago, I believed everyone always had this dream. Apparently, I was wrong. It's not nearly as common as I thought. I also used to have recurring dreams that I would be stuck in a moving car without an adult and have to steer it all on my own. And multiple times I dreamed that a giant tidal wave would sweep over our backyard while my sister and I were playing in it.

I had a dream once that my youth group and I met this famous runner named Marshall (completely fictional guy, by the way). He was one of the fastest track runners in history, but he couldn't run straight. So we all ran with him in the middle of the desert, as awkward and uncoordinated as we could be.

Any time I ever dreamed about flying, I would be stuck inside, typically in my living room, flapping my arms as hard as I could. I had to keep flapping them or I would fall, but I couldn't go any higher because the ceiling was in the way.

I attempted to keep a dream log once. Rather than type out all of them, I made some notes and assumed they'd trigger memories and I could journal about them later. Well, they didn't trigger memories. But here are some of the notes for your enjoyment:

Evil Oops, German movies, Ms. Holman’s room, Kevin and cookies. House on fire, evil witch, dead goldfish. Mom cheats with Kenny Chesney. Blind sand surfers. Italian family, plot to kill grandkids, sister injured, my deformed toe, Gregory cutting up shower curtains. Musical hippies, Lola. Hell-swamp, four kids. Daddy Czar.

If you can make sense of any of that...then you're one step ahead of me.