I'd like door number 2 please!

CStrope

I said this to a friend the other day......wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy!  I've really been struggling with accepting this new "normal" that I've been thrown into since DH was diagnosed 8 months ago.  Some days seem okay, but others are a constant battle over every little thing.  How did we get here!  Can we just take a time out, or change our choice to door number 2!!!

M1

There is both monotony and a Groundhog Day feel to it, isn't there?  I think there's a TS Eliot poem about measuring life in teaspoons, I seem to measure the passage of each day by how many pills I've handed out.  Sad that it comes to that.  Someone will find the TS Eliot quote, I'm sure.  We seem to be on a literary bent this week, with Jane Austen, Dostoevski, etc. etc......

Tdrinker46

Am with you and door 2.  When first received diagnosis of DH it was a relief that what I thought and saw happening was Alz/Dementia.  Fairly soon the reality of the diagnosis hit.  Get confused because some days he’s at 50% okay, others 25%.  Guess I should be grateful for the good days.  Miss having someone to share day to day conversations with, discuss what is happening, etc.  Thinking positive thoughts your way.

Stuck in the middle

M1, my college English lit prof said "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" contained some of the saddest lines in English literature.   The man had measured out his life in coffee spoons, which are smaller than teaspoons.  I think I'll get out a hanky and read it again.

M1

Thank you Stuck.  I knew someone would know.

Stuck in the middle

There is a door #2.  It is marked "Exit" and we can use it if we want.

Years ago, when we were raising a disabled child, a social worker told us that most children like ours are raised by single mothers.  Apparently, most fathers won't stay in a highly stressful marriage, in a home where you go to work to relax instead of the reverse.  

Crushed

Stuck in the middle wrote:

M1, my college English lit prof said "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" contained some of the saddest lines in English literature.   The man had measured out his life in coffee spoons, which are smaller than teaspoons.  I think I'll get out a hanky and read it again.

:

The line is

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

(so its not  the size of spoon its the NUMBER of them )

I'm writing a paper on measurement right now.

Stuck in the middle

The size of the spoon is significant because measuring something with a very small spoon is being very careful and deliberate, and having no fun at all.  Always jam tomorrow and never jam today.  Kind of like being the one functioning adult in a household, and having to weigh every decision in light of its effect on a child or PWD.

"I think I'll go out for a drink.  No, I don't have a sitter."

Prufrock is sad because he chose to live that way.

June45

CStrope,  That first year after the diagnosis, I remember struggling emotionally to accept what our new normal as a couple would be. Now it is no longer an emotional struggle but a physical one because of all that I have do for DH physically. I have found it necessary to close off my feelings just to get through each day.  Now when I cry at night, it is because I am physically exhausted.

Stuck, I like your analysis of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."  I bet you got an A in your college lit class.

Stuck in the middle

Thanks, June.  I actually made most of my living as a wordsmith.  

I used to write poems and give them to girls.  I'll bet somewhere some old lady is finding one of those and thinking "What did I ever see in him?" 

A. Marie

Thanks to all of the commenters on this thread. My DH had a mug from Barnes & Noble with the T. S. Eliot quote about coffee spoons on it--and in recent months, I've seen him turning the mug around and around in his hands and doing his damndest to figure the quote out. (And he has a PhD in English literature.) I had to check him into a skilled nursing facility last week, and this discussion has resonated with me on multiple levels.

M1

Game shows, poetry:  this are the things that help us get through.  I love all the literary references.  Quoted Gunga Din to Jeff last week--but Kipling seems so dated now, and racist, would fall under the cancel culture rubric.  Keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you--that sounds like dementia caregivers though, doesn't it?!?

Dubber

Feeling the same way about this. Good day’s and bad. Love the day when all goes well.

Stuck in the middle

Kipling is still relevant, just not fashionable.  "Shooting the Elephant" is a classic tale of a man yielding to crowd pressure instead of doing what he knew to be right.

English Lit is a refreshing break from our usual classes in health and home economics, is it not?

Jeff86

DW and I used to have a little routine.  When one of us would say, “Let’s go,” the other would say, “Let us go, then, you and I, when the evening is spread against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table...”.  Opening lines of ‘The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock.’

(We met in a poetry seminar 44 years ago this fall in College Park, MD.)

1962ART

"Kipling is still relevant, just not fashionable."

Dear Stuck in the Middle:

No wish to challenge your assessment of Kipling.  If, for you, Kipling is still relevant, that's just fine.  His work has faded in scholastic English classes for over 50 years--at least in my years of teaching.  "Rikki Tikki Tavi" was included in some anthologies in the early 1970's.

However, my mother remembered his work from her school days in the 1920's and had us read the following at my dad's service:

When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted

1892

L'Envoi To "The Seven Seas"When Earth's last picture is painted  and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it --lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew. And those that were good shall be happy;  they shall sit in a golden chair;They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair. They shall find real saints to draw from -- Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; They shall work for an age at a  sitting and never be tired at all!And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame; Andd no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!

M1

Thank you all, I really needed the poetry today.....

David J

Yes, thank you!  Poetry isn’t one of my interests, but I enjoyed reading the discussion this morning!