Response to MFASRF:
    "Damn, that's depressing. When you say 'not to have to do this,' what do you mean by 'this?' Caring for your mother? Or is it something different or something more? Is it life?"
    I don't know. I've been confusing a lot of this lately because I happened across a couple, life partners, who does in home care of someone, here in the park. It's never occurred to me to consider that some of my great and increasing difficulty with this caring for my mother is because I am doing it alone. Even the distraction of children, a bad marriage, an outside job, helps to alleviate the weight of the insularity of what I do. The difficulty of being the only one fighting for myself when my energy reserves are low is also taxing. And, I see that "life partners" (there are some marital, and marital-like relationships that I would hesitate to call "life partnerships") often automatically make a lot of this easier, regardless of the state of any bumps or huge obstacles that exist in their own "life partnership".
    Despite my blip a year and a half ago regarding my list for the perfect love-interest in my situation and my determination to look, I have always been wary of the wisdom of me in a life-partnership. I do see that there are a variety of life partnership options that are highly serviceable. I have always been pragmatic about pursuing emotional relationships. I have an experience-based view in regards to myself: Sounds nice, looks good, but if you think that I should have seriously considered any of my emotional-romantic relationships as fodder for life partnerships, you must be crazy (you, of course, being the universal you, present company excepted)!

"...depression causes inattentiveness..."
    Tell me about it. I have to admit, it is nice to read this confirmation from you of something I've been experiencing.

Related News: I did some research, because of something I'd read years ago about Primo Levi that continued to bother me. Most now question or downright discredit the assertion that Primo Levi's death was a suicide or had anything to do with his depression, which was being treated with psycho-pharmaceuticals. The belief is that, considering the construction of the stairwell into which he fell, the chances of him landing as he did and sustaining the injury that killed him were so low as to be a matter of luck. It would have been a highly ineffective way of committing suicide. Primo Levi had much more effective means at his hands. As well, his mother was being handled by a live-in nurse, his wife was supportive, and he had, much to the criticism of his colleagues, managed to ward off the attitude common (and cherished) in many Holocaust survivors that precluded suicide. He wrestled with the dilemma consciously and publicly and appeared to have resolved it for himself, against suicide.

Business News:    Overall, I'm a little shaky but doing good. I have to tell you, funny that you mention the problem you're having with your insurance. My mother "became" (because I happened to notice that, if she renewed her military ID, she would) eligible for TriCare for Life, a military program which has wonderful supplemental Medicare coverage, includes extraordinary rates for all prescriptions and free drugs when cared for in a military hospital, and, overall, is much, much less expensive that her $2,000+ policy per year, which did not include prescription coverage, except during hospitalization. Anyway, I decided to cancel it the 3rd quarter of this year. I did it in my head several times. I informed all her doctors that the commercial policy was canceled and gave them all the TriCare information. Well, I guess a year or so ago, I vaguely remember it, I paid them electronically out of our checking account. They decided to continue my coverage by making this "complimentary" gesture. It was then I realized I had canceled only in my reality, not in the reality in which our checking account lives. So, I'm wrangling with them, now. I guess they will cancel here and send us back some of the money. But I am still so suspicious of and inadept with the business community that my first instinct, in dealing with anyone on any business level, is to want to spit bile at their feet. I'm sure you would agree, this doesn't promote crystal clear business relationships!
- posted by gail rae @ 05:31  0 comments   email...this post