HOME

 

 

I’ve done some odd things the last few years:  put the bills in the icebox, then headed to the mailbox with a carton of milk; gone to change a light bulb, only to put the burned out bulb right back into the socket; sprayed oven cleaner on the windows right after I sprayed Windex in the oven; paid the same bill twice in the same week!   You get the picture.  But today may well have topped them all. 

The temperature had dropped into the 20’s, so I sat down on the sofa to put on a nice, warm pair of socks before I headed out to the pool.  My bikini was lying on top of my workout bag.  Methodically, I lifted my left leg thinking I was putting on my left sock, but instead, stuck my left foot into the left side of the bikini bottom.  Then just as  methodically stuck my right leg into the other side and pulled up my bikini snug over my sweat pants.  I stood there a moment wondering why my feet were still so cold…………yeah.

Forgetfulness is apparently in the cards for my future.  For now, I just laugh at myself.  If I had Alzheimer’s, of course, I would forget how to laugh altogether.  So, each day that I do something stupid—and it is most days—I always remind myself to LAUGH.  That way, hopefully, folks won’t think I have dementia and need to go into a home. 

A close friend called today to let me know that three of his buddies went into Alzheimer’s homes in the last year and all three died within months of moving into them.  “I don’t understand it,” he said, “they were all lovely places but my friends—one of them really healthy— just suddenly up and died.” 

 I understand.  It is hard enough losing one’s mind without losing all sense of one’s place in the world.  A home is a touchstone.  The longer one has lived in it, the deeper its hold on the psyche.  And no amount of granite counter tops or new wall to wall carpet can compensate.  T. S. Eliot once said, “Home is where one starts from.”  I figure it’s also where I want to end up.  Besides, I sure don’t want some stranger seeing me walk around with my bikini on over my clothes.