{"id":728,"date":"2013-11-28T09:52:56","date_gmt":"2013-11-28T09:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=728"},"modified":"2013-11-28T09:52:56","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T09:52:56","slug":"careworn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=728","title":{"rendered":"Careworn."},"content":{"rendered":"

I shouldn\u2019t be writing a blog, I should be upstairs packing, I\u2019m off to my mother\u2019s again to meet someone from the memory team.  They rang on Monday and spoke to my son and didn\u2019t seem happy I had been in the shower washing my hair.<\/font><\/p>\n

Once all the officials, medical experts and others know  you are the responsible adult, your time is no longer your own.  If you don\u2019t contact them sufficiently often with questions, they\u2019ll contact you.  From their end the frequency may not look all that often; from your end no sooner have you sorted out a financial tangle than the doctor is on the line, swiftly followed by the patient, asking when you are coming for Christmas \u2013 next month, when it is \u2013 and then the social services, then a family friend worried, then the friends you are putting off for Christmas because a day spent entertaining is too much for the patient, then the patient again, then a doctor, then bed and then get up the next day and go there.  In between you try to fit in things like going to the toilet, making meals for the family and cleaning the windows.  (I didn\u2019t, I just got as far as taking the cleaning materials up to the landing.  Then someone rang.)<\/font><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to do any of this.  I want to get on with the doll I am dressing for an order, the the next order  and, after I\u2019ve made the cards (60) the thing I really want to do at the moment is do a sculpt for a full size paper relief picture I want to try in a gallery in the town.  That\u2019s the thing I go to sleep thinking of, I am bursting to do the relief picture big and detailed.  I am sculpting it in my sleep.  I feel like the character Jimson in The Horse\u2019s Mouth by Joyce Carey, a novel from the 40s that I read in the 60s, if I don\u2019t get my hands on a canvas soon I\u2019m going to start painting it on the walls.<\/font><\/p>\n

Unlike Jimson my art cannot obsess me.  It wouldn\u2019t be a very thrilling novel either, a woman driven to sculpt but forced to look after everyone else instead.  This could well be why great artists of the past were men, you just couldn\u2019t imagine Rembrandt tearing himself away from his latest self portrait to put the kettle on, by the looks of most of the results, he didn\u2019t even stop to wash his clothes.<\/font><\/p>\n

Nevertheless what I want is not important.  It doesn\u2019t count at all.  Currently everyone keeps asking me what I\u2019ve arranged for them for Christmas.  What I\u2019ve arranged is for the carers to have the day off, with their families.  The other half and I will do the holiday for my mother, the S&H will spend time with his girlfriend and when we\u2019ve done it there we three will come back here and I\u2019ll cook a second turkey for us, well them, I\u2019m a vegetarian.<\/font><\/p>\n

I remember long ago I used to have a Christmas after Christmas.  My parents could look after themselves, my father-in-law had remarried and my husband and son had gone back to school and work after the holidays.  I had entire days to myself.  I wrote a novel, invented dolls, spent days pouring porcelain and many happy hours at the QVC sales, spending my Christmas money.  I even had a nearly proper job writing for a magazine and got paid after Christmas, in the traditional manner, so I had money I had earned for me for the sales.<\/font><\/p>\n

Happy days!  I don\u2019t even get to write a quick blog now, I\u2019ve just been told to top up the screen wash, so we can head off into the wild blue yonder to do the chat to the expert, the care for my mother, the try on of the new clothes I\u2019m taking, the return of the ones that are no good coupled with the fifty yard dash through town for the next lot of money for the agency.<\/font><\/p>\n

The art of living is hard when you are careworn.  The art of art will have to wait, even though I can feel the pressure of it building inside me like a dam.<\/font><\/p>\n

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JaneLaverick.com \u2013 itchy fingers.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I shouldn\u2019t be writing a blog, I should be upstairs packing, I\u2019m off to my mother\u2019s again to meet someone from the memory team.  They rang on Monday and spoke to my son and didn\u2019t seem happy I had been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[569],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dementia-diaries","tag-carers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t