2000-01-03

got home. s'colder here in sf than it was in deecee. what the fuck.

this morning at 430 in the morning, my mom and i finally had a talk. she started crying and telling me that she's been really depressed lately, hasn't been feeling well...

"i'm really scared. i don't know what would happen if i had a stroke or something. go into a home, i suppose."

i was amazed she said it. the subject has only been obstrusely broached before. she's 69 and quite capable, but i do note, upon every visit, how she gets just a little more tired, just a little slower.

what do you say? what do i say? "it's okay mom. i will drop my life, when you need me, and come take care of you."

i tell myself that is exactly what i would do. but dropping my life for the sake of another isn't exactly something i proved myself to be good at this past year.

in a weird way, its the same thing. what's your life, as it is right at this moment, really worth to you? what would you do if there were an event that could change it all, totally and irreversibly, in ways that you couldn't really cognate? how attached are you to the routine you probably despise a certain percentage of the time? what would you miss, suddenly, if you were faced with the prospect of it all changing?

and what if you had the choice to turn that change away?

let's say my mother had a stroke tomorrow (slam on all the timber in the world). would i let her go to a home? would i go out to dc for a while and then come back to my little drunk/drug/skaterboy/pre-ipo life? would i? or would i move? would i take care of the women who took care of me?

what if taking care of her lasted for years? would i still do it?

or would i leave her alone? would i let other people take care of her?

god. it sounds hard and weird and awful. but i really don't know what i would do.