How to Take Life

I don't know what you the reader thinks we have as far as life goes. I always thought life meant being born, growing up and then getting a career. I tried to get a career but didn't work. Society was still pretty male-oriented yet when I took up my career. I wanted to do accounting. No such luck. I was told society wasn't ready for that. I had to settle for the second-best career. I got to be a secretary and that wasn't what I wanted. My father wanted me to become a truck driver like him. I guess I could have but I was a little too girlie yet at that age. Mom told me to become a nurse that there would always be a need for them. It wasn't even something I wanted to do. But being the daughter I am, I took up nursing. I felt like I was a caregiver anyway as mom was always sick and I was around to take care of her.

I got sick and had to have surgery halfway through nursing school and never finished. I had to find a job to pay my bills so I took a correspondence school course in writing. That I use but I don't get rich at it. I took a job as a housekeeper in a motel. I have done that on and off for around 28 years. I can clean someplace with my eyes closed. My body is older now and I don't move as well as I used to but still work as a housekeeper. Even when I was working if I looked for a better job mom would tell me that she and dad needed me to make sure they were okay at night as they were getting older. This soon cut my job to staying at home and playing the caregiver. I cooked, cleaned and did the laundry. I had to get their meds and other things are done too until Mom died of a heart attack one day. I thought my days of being a caregiver were over that I could escape the weight. No such luck again. My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and the doctor told me I had to stay living with Dad.

I did find a part-time job so I could have some time alone but sometimes Dad would follow me to work. It was lucky I had told my employer what was going on. She would ask him in as I was a caregiver to a lady in her home. I cooked her supper, fed her horses and cleaned the house and got her ready for bed. I wasn't getting much sleep so it began to take its toll on me, Soon Dad fell and was in the hospital. I was working at the time and dad had a stroke. I told my boss I was needed at the hospital immediately. She didn't understand. I tried to explain but told her I was leaving. Dad's Alzheimer's went into overdrive and I was needed more than ever and I still tried to work. I was for the first time on my own to make decisions and I was lost. No one had prepared me ever for this.

I had to get Dad's guardianship, conservatorship, get moved, and know how to live by myself for the first time. I didn't have a clue what to do with any of Dad's stuff. I still had Mom's stuff and she had been gone a year. I found a low rent apartment and had to figure out how to move a three-bedroom trailer house into a one-bedroom apartment. I didn't have any friends until a wonderful woman, who I knew, stepped up and we got Dad signed up for Medicaid. We got me packed with plenty of garbage. She went through my clothes and told me I wasn't Grandma Moses and didn't need to wear clothes like it. We went shopping for me and Dad because he was in a nursing home. We did well it the respect of clothes.

I told you my life because I believe that we need to prepare our children for life before guess what? Here is life deal with it. I managed to adjust and even now am married. I wouldn't be where I am without a friend who stepped out of the shadows and helped.