This antibiotics' side effects aren't as acute as other kinds but I felt so out of it, similar to but less drowsy than strong hay fever or cold meds. Which is why on the day I was prescribed this, I took it before I went to bed. The instructions only said once a day, so I thought it'd work. But force of habit is a strange thing; we take supplements in the morning so I went that way for the rest of the time. Silly, really.
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Mom keeps sabotaging our art-on-Skype; she insists she wants to talk about weaving, but whenever we do, what needs saying fit inside five minutes. She says she wants advice on colors, for e.g., but I called her bluff; in the eight years we talked colors on Skype, I've watched her eyes glaze over, while I think of all sorts of way to make, usually a warp, interesting and unexpected for her. The number of times she's gone ahead with my suggestions is exactly zero.
As well, if we do stuff on Skype we do stuff, and we even make interesting observations sometimes; otherwise we revisit the same old topics every week: the weather, health, crimes; how she misses nature by living in an apartment; how her three friends never have ideas about where to go on their next monthly trip, (not true,) or how she needs to do all the organizing, (possibly true.) For two to three hours. I can't see how this can be remotely healthy.
I don't want to push her too much, because she's never uncomfortable trying new things with me; I also want to lead her away from being stuck in the same unproductive thoughts and have the chance to talk about new things. And it's not as if we don't talk about the "normal" things at the start before we get into "art".
87 is a difficult age. As is 59. I'm thinking of getting John Leland's "Happiness is a Choice you Make" after revisiting his Fresh Air interview many, many times. One thing he said have stayed with me, and of course I'm paraphrasing; he said something like, "appreciate when oldies show up, because we have no idea how much work it took for them to show up." Good lesson, isn't it?
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Yes, every age is difficult. I cope by trying to find the silver linings in any situation. To stay in gratitude. It doesn't always work in the short term, but I think it helps in the long term. Glad you are done the anti-biotics and feeling better.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Laura. I hope five days of it (over six days) is going to do the job. My mom and I have always been such different people so that makes it harder, and we are both changing as we get older. It is a blind person looking for a black ball of yarn on a moonless night in a stash room with no windows. A big stash room. :-D
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