I think tree roots look like dinosaur toes. ©voyager, all rights reserved

Boy, am I ever glad to see the end of this week. It’s been a week full of frustration and a bit of embarrassment. I’ve been tackling the list of things that need to be done when a parent or any other person dies, only it hasn’t been going as well as I’d hope. To begin with, I completely forgot about an appointment at the bank on Monday. Then, the very next day, I managed to completely forget about an appointment with my dentist. I called both places as soon as I remembered, and they were gracious about rescheduling, but I hate to inconvenience other people. It makes me feel stupid and appear scatterbrained, neither of which is generally true.

It’s because I’ve not really recovered from caring for mom before she died, and my fibromyalgia has been acting up. In the days before mom died, I knew I was burning out. I’d had 2 months worth of 8 – 10 hour days trying to keep mom calm and quiet, which didn’t really happen until the last few days of her life, so it felt a lot like bailing out a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean. The need was constant and you couldn’t relax. Even when I came home, I could still hear her calling for help. It disturbed my sleep at night. I lost my appetite and it’s only thanks to regular meals provided by friends that I didn’t completely stop eating. I put so many of my own things off until later, that when mom did finally die I had a long list of to-do’s that suddenly needed to be done plus a list of extra things to do for the estate. I’m generally pretty chill, but I’ve been feeling rattled, and I’ve been having more pain. Then there’s the brain thing, that I struggle to describe. When I was Case Managing, I carried a large and complex caseload in a sizeable territory, and every day was full of multi-tasking and constant reprioritization, so I know that my brain used to be capable of these things. I used to read 2 – 4 books a week when I was working and a book a day when on vacation. I always found learning new things easy. Now, I struggle to read. I don’t remember characters, and I lose pieces of the plot. I’m lucky to read one book a week and it feels like work. Learning new things has become time-consuming, difficult and taxing for all the same reasons. My brain is a sieve and things just fall through. I don’t know how to describe this to people except to say that I have a terrible memory or that my brain feels sluggish – neither of which is exactly right. I feel like Algernon near the end of the book Flowers for Algernon, as things are being lost. It’s all very frustrating and when I’m tired or stressed it’s at its worst. That’s the sort of week I’ve had. Next week, I have new appointments with the estate manager at the bank and with the dentist. I hope to redeem myself and apologize to both, on time and in person. I also have a shiny, new to-do list, and I think it’s well organized to start. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. My mom left me executor of her will, and I will find the way – just maybe not the express route.