Walking around these days feeling half asleep. Been like this for about a week. I wonder if there is some health issue, or if it's something else. I think it's something else. I have a bit of congestion in my chest, but I don't think that's it. I reckon it's because of mum. I think the uncertainty at her prognosis and the ongoing discussion about all manner of things related to it is draining me. It's a kind of emotional exhaustion.
I really don't know what will happen, whether the moment comes next month or in six. It's a fact of life, but it means my mind is left open, exposed and unguarded not knowing what to believe and unwilling to commit to one scenario over another. It's a truth that for us watching and waiting and unable to do anything that some kind of mental adjustment is required. Ideally you can put those things in a box that can be put to one side as you go about your normal life. The uncertainty makes that impossible. The box is open and in the middle of the floor getting in your way.
Connected to that is the morbid talk that my mum seems to relish. She's a curious person my mother. She's quite insecure and needs to to be needed, needs attention and to feel that she is important. She has got in the habit of making demands on us to feed that need. There is little requirement of that now. She is dying and there is no need to embellish that: she is the centre of our attention.
It seems odd, but it seems at times as if she has separated herself from what is happening to her. She knows what's going to happen, no question of that, but at the same time as she makes arrangements it's as if she is planning for an event she is putting on for the rest of us. It may be her death, but it needs arranging.
I'm probably being a little churlish: these things need to be done. It's not so much that, it's the fervour to which she attends to these things that I find slightly disturbing. It's as if she enjoys it, though perhaps it's her way of coping.
For me I accept I need to contribute and so I listen and give my input and advice as she talks about her 'celebration' of her life event, and more so her funeral, how it will happen, who will talk, what they will say, what is said in her eulogy - which she was going to write. I was asked to read a passage from the bible, but declined. I'm an atheist, and while it would be hypocritical to read something I don't believe the worse sin would be insincerity at a time like this.
I feel churlish and I apologise for that. I should be more generous: these things need to be attended to. Attending to them though robs you of some vitality I think. I live my life, I go out, I laugh and play, much of life continues apace - but also part of me is elsewhere, left permanently on, leaking energy so that I am left like this, weary and wan.
