resetting the clocks, and resetting my heart

our power had gone off and on again.
just enough to mess up the clocks.
if i had been thinking, i woulda realized her clocks were messed up too.
but it’s one of those things i take for granted……reset the clock and keep goin’.

so when she hobbled around from the back corner of my house
as i was loading up stuff in my car, i wasn’t expecting her at all.
she has a way of slipping up on me.
and while not that old, there’s something ancient and other world looking
about her.
she startled me.
i screamed.
she jumped.
we both laughed.

and then i silently thanked god i didn’t just kill her with all that craziness.

i walked her home as she explained she needed help.
the clocks.

of course.
i reset her clocks.

but no, nothing’s that easy.

i could feel myself tense up as i walked in and she started asking me
questions that weren’t going to be able to be answered in any way that
worked for her.

i fidgeted while she explained to me some of her paranoid thoughts.
i evaded answering as my answers seem to make her anger surge.

i tried to recall the helpful tidbits i had just read about when dealing
with people with alzheimer’s and i felt very lucky that this was one
of her better moments and while not smooth, it wasn’t gonna be awful.

we sat and talked a bit.
i worked hard at keeping it light.

but i swear, every single time i interact, there’s such a heaviness inside.

she has provided tremendous food for thought for me.
and been the source of many tears,
even as i tell myself we’ve only just begun -
and the hard part is yet to come.

while having coffee with my girlfriends this morning,
we talked of how important it was to ponder what we wanted out of life,
to live so that we wouldn’t regret.

as i walked back home, i thought of that conversation.
and i thought about the once so fiercely independent woman i had just
left who could barely function, who hobbles now instead of walks and who
has no clue how to reset a clock anymore – and no way to ever reset her life.

it’s the start of a weekend.
there will be family time for me.
time alone with the man i love.
and time alone with myself.
all chances to be love with all i can be.

i want to be the woman who fiercely loved.
who fiercely lived.
i’m reminded how quickly it goes right now.
and i’m gonna enter my weekend with all i got.