I came to the library to write my work log in my notebook. I will transcribe it when I go back home.
Yesterday I had virtual drinks with two of my best friends, who are a couple. They pleaded with me to spend some time with them in Cancún when I go back to Mexico. I was afraid of being lethargic, boring, burned out. I noticed myself unengaged with them, though I love them and I miss them. I am depressed.
There is no surprise here, two months of stress will do this to you. I am lost in thought, in this miserable situation. My emotional state transitions between hopelessness and despair. There are occasional glimpses of a more beautiful world that my heart knows is possible, but I only experience it in brief raptures such as yesterday, when I stripped myself and enjoyed the spring sun.
When I'm out I notice the world has kindness. It is a world where I am not constantly berated for things which are not my fault. It is strange because I know very well the maltreatment arises from dementia, it is neither myself nor my grandmother, but the consistency drags you down.
My grandmother uses her caregivers to keep her ego afloat. Berating and mistreating other people makes her feel in control, powerful. She likes to tell people exactly how to do things. This behavior was probably a difficult thing to manage when she was sound of mind, but now that she has dementia it is a very sour thing to witness, much more to experience.
I honestly don't know what to do anymore, I keep afloat as best as I can. Even on days that go perfectly well, she will seek fault because this gives a sense of importance, as if being a snob would confer status. I try not to over interpret her behavior, but as is evident from what I write, I'm not very successful at it.
In this struggle to climb on top of me, it's probably my responsibility to get her off my back, to push her away, to let her thrash on the water on her own. But then I know I won't allow her to drown, that I will have to carry her again because nobody will replace me, but I must accept this condition because I offered myself to do it.
I came to the library expecting to write a very different kind of work log. I intended to borrow either a novel or a piece of non-fiction which would have something to do with Montreal. I ended up picking a collection of interviews with Leonard Cohen, a Montreal native. The truth is that I know nothing about him, I don't even like his music, but I've come across some quotes and they've resounded with me. Perhaps we are kindred souls.
Even then, I find myself with so little time for myself that I'm afraid I wont be able to read a book while saving myself and another person from drowning, but there is a chance that this book acts as a buoy for the spirit to hold on to. I've just been through a couple of pages, this caught my attention:
If someone offered a new building to design now, I'd take it up. If someone offered me a small country to govern, I'd take it.
[Interviewer] Would you feel bad that maybe the building you designed would fall down, or the country you were trying to govern would fall into chaos?
[...] Things are really more substantial than we think. And I think my building would probably last. It would either last or fall down depending on the needs of the people inside it. Some people may want a building to collapse over them at a specific time.
Perhaps I am a raft that is meant to sink, then things would fall into place.