I was talking in yesterday’s post about my writing. I would dearly love to be able to write fiction again, but it’s a struggle. The words still come fairly easily, but they are not catching fire like they used to. I have mentioned before how if my writing is going well, then there’s a sparkle to the words. A lightness that I can tangibly feel–and see. when it’s not going well, the words are flat and lifeless. Sometimes, I can find ways to spice it up, but oftentimes, I just have to trash it and start over.
I don’t know what to do with my writing, honestly. I know what I want to write. I know what I feel compelled to write. These are not the same thing, though I might be able to meld the two together.
I have to say that it’s time to sort my family shit out. It’s a bit crude to point out that my parents are in the last stage of their life/lives, but it’s true. And it’s wrought/fraught because of my father’s dementia. But, that’s not the only reason. There’s also the fact that my parents are broken people. They have been my whole life, and they’ve only gotten worse as the years have gone by.
I clearly remember having an argument with my mother about social justice issues. This was since my medical crisis. We’ve had plenty of arguments about all the ‘isms’ beforehand, but this was after, I think. My mother said she was a traditional/old-fashioned person and tried to justify it by saying she had been born in 1942.
This argument drives me batshit insane. It’s always given as an excuse for attitudes/beliefs that are frankly horrible. In addition, though, it’s the laziest, most contemptible excuse one can give. Yes, she was born over eighty years ago. But you know what? She was not cryogenically sealed for the ensuing eighty years, only to be defrosted in the last three years. She lived in America during the Civil Rights years. She saw the ERA movement in America, and got to witness marriage equality in both Taiwan and America. Well, she wasn’t here (America)when it happened, but she got to see it happen. She got to experience Taiwan elect its first female president (something America hasn’t managhed to do), and many more progressive things in her eighty years on this earth.
She has chosen consciously or subconsciously not to keep up with the times. It’s not like she hasn’t had plenty of opportunities for it. I know it’s not easy to change, but she hasn’t even tried. Or rather, she doesn’t think those are things that she needs to change. She is a rigid gender essentialist, and there’s nothing I can do about that.
I’ve worked my way through it, but I’m not completely over it. And in the last part of her life, it’s gotten harder to dissociate when I’m talking to her. Yes, that’s what I do. It’s the only way to deal with her. I don’t mean dissociate as in detaching from myself, but dissociate as in not thinking of her as my mother.
I have written about this before, but I get too tripped up emotionally if I think of her as my mother. Why? Because then I get bogged down in how I ‘should’ feel about her given the onslaught of antiquated notions of motherhood that flow through both my cultures. Ironically, both cultures give much lip service to the sacredness of motherhood while doing nothing to actually support women. I can say that for sure in American culture and I can surmise it from what I see in my mother for the Taiwanese society.
I have made my peace with never being the person my mother wants me to be, but there’s a lingering…not sadness, exactly, but rawness for being a continual disappointment to her. That’s why I have to dissociate from her in her role as my mother. Otherwise, I will just feel crushing sorrow mixed with a streak of white-hot anger.
If I don’t think of her as my mother and my father as my father, I am able to have compassion for them as old people who are failing in health/dementia deepening (him) and caretaking (her), which is not something anyone should have to go through. Dementia is horrible, and I can see/heaer it in my father every time we talk. Even though he’s able to hold it together for the most part while talking to me, his voice is so frail.
A few months ago, he asked if I would recognize him if I saw him on the street. I immediately said of course I would, but I was lying. I would not. He does not look like he did even three years ago (when they were here for my medical crisis). My mother looks pretty much the same except her hair is all white. She’s eighty-two, but could pass for twenty years younger. My father, on the other hand, looks older than his age. And there’s a vacant look in his eyes that tells me he’s not all there.
My mother pours out all her woes whenever we talk, and one of the biggest is that no one comes to visit my father. He is someone who thrives on attention. He can’t stand being by himself, and my mother is not enough for his flagging ego. My mother complains that no one in his family will visit him, and after he’s done so much for them! She makes sure to tell them that, too, which I’m sure makes them eager to visit.
Guilt is her weapon, and she wields it with a heavy hand. This is her form of narcissism–she thinks that anything she wants/needs is the most important thing in the world. It does not matter what other things people have in their lives–my father should be the most important thing to them. Because he is to her. She has fashioned her whole life around him, and she’s doubled down on that strat now that his dementia is getting worse.
On the one hand, I get it. Dementia sucks. And it takes everything you can can give it–and so much more. My father needs to be around her every second of the day, apparently, which is frustrating the hell out of her. But it’s what she’s wrought. She has cultivated this dynamic from day one, and now, it’s become the albatross around her neck.
More on this tomorrow. I’m done for tonight. I’m tired and want to try to drag my sleep schedule back to something resembling not-batshitcrazy.