It's early, no one's awake, and I haven't talked to you in a while

Hey guys. I woke up early this morning and realized I wasn’t getting back to sleep, so I thought I’d catch up a bit with you. I’m tired, and I’m not going to edit this afterward, so I hope you’ll indulge any typos or mistakes. For those of you who don’t know, I recently moved to a small piece of land in a rural area and it turns out that even a few acres takes a lot of work and a lot of money to maintain. Especially when the previous owners have sort of let the place go to pot. I’ve blown through half my life savings trying to get the place to a tolerable baseline this summer, my hands, knees, back, neck, and feet hurt, and I’m learning a lot of lessons the hard way as I go. But to be honest, I love it. I love the fact that there is always something that needs to be done, not tomorrow, not next week, but now. It doesn’t matter if I’m tired, or in a bad mood, or if my fingers are tingling from shoveling gravel and mulch ten hours a day for a week, it’s simply got to be done, and I’m the one who’s got to do it. Until people have kids, daily life in a suburban/urban environment is often a low-stakes affair - in the sense that procrastination or even outright shirking will not lead to near-term disaster. True, if you procrastinate and shirk enough over time, your life will gradually decay and eventually collapse, but it will be hard to ever point to a single example of failure as the cause of it all. On any given day, people are pestered by a list a chores and demands that can be put off without immediate consequences, and this possibility introduces seeds of indecision and anxiety that simply don’t have the time to germinate in the mind of someone, for example, who takes care of a child or an elderly parent. The baby’s diaper is still going to be soiled when you’re done hating life and feeling sorry for yourself. Mom is still going to need a bath, and she can’t get herself out of bed and navigate the tub by herself anymore.

I know someone who took care of her grandmother during the last stretch of her life. She went up to her grandma’s house in a rural area to do it, so she was away from home, and isolated from other people most of the time. At first, she thought it would be a collective effort of the family, that she’d be relieved of duty after a few weeks, and then come take another turn after recharging her batteries. It didn’t turn out that way. People were too busy, had too many other responsibilities, and ultimately, just didn’t care enough, and after about six months my friend stopped hoping for a break and accepted that it was going to be her job, and hers alone, to care for and comfort her grandmother for as long as she lasted. It turned out to be fourteen months.

Once, I took some time off of work and gone up there for two weeks to help out and keep my friend company during one of her low points. I’d known the family since I was a kid, and grandma had been an energetic matriarch for most of the time I’d known her. It was a shock - no matter how many times you see it, it’s always a shock - to see someone you’ve always known as an anchor, as the one to whom everyone turned for answers and instructions, in a state of total helplessness and dependency. But I loved the old lady, and I loved my friend, so I came with a cheerful attitude to do whatever I could.

Really, I had the easy job. I got to float around, try to keep the ladies entertained, make runs to the store, and help out around the house. It was my friend, a 120-or-so pound female, who had to lift her grandma out in and out of the bathtub, place her on the toilet, wipe for her after she’d done her business, and deal with the messes when she soiled her clothes. Yet those two weeks provided lessons about patience, compassion, and responsibility I’ll never forget.

Some days were better than others, but Grandma’s mind was slipping with her body. Her memory often didn’t extend beyond the last thing she’d said, and whatever we’d said or done faded just as quickly. It’s challenging, to say the least, to communicate with someone who cannot remember the last thing either of you said. You’d leave her in her living room chair, and explain that you’ll be back in five minutes after you check on dinner, but before you’re halfway to the kitchen she’s calling for you because she’s already forgotten the conversation and doesn’t know if she’s alone in the house. And some day, no matter how many times it happens, it doesn’t get better, and you end up just letting her call out in increasing alarm and despair because the food is burning. And after all of that, it turns out that her medication has ruined her appetite and she doesn’t want to eat. She doesn’t remember that the medication ruined her appetite at lunch and breakfast, too, but you do, and she hasn’t had enough throughout the day, so you have to find a way to make her eat. After an exhausting day, you put her to bed, and your bedroom across the hall. She’s suffering - hungry, because she hasn’t eaten enough, in pain, because medication can only do so much, confused and afraid, because she can’t be sure she hasn’t woken up in a dark house, helpless, alone, and, for all she knows, abandoned for good. And so she calls out to you, first very faintly, because her voice is weak, but the volume and urgency rise in step with her fear and desperation. She doesn’t know that she’s already woken you up like this half a dozen times throughout the night, and the night before, and every night. For you it’s the seventh time tonight that you’ve been dragged out of bed by someone who can’t remember what she wanted by the time you get there, but for her it’s always the first time. You tell yourself that however hard this is for you, it’s much harder for her, and anyway, she used to change your diapers and drag herself out of bed when you were crying. But still. It wears on you, and sometimes you don’t go see what she wants right away, since you know it’s nothing, and maybe if you just shut your ears for a minute or two she’ll fall back to sleep. She never does. Who could fall back asleep when they suspect they might have woken up, unable to move, in an abandoned house? And as she calls out your name, again and again, you can hear a threshold crossed, from one callout to the next, when she begins to think maybe she really is alone, maybe no one is coming, and this is it. It’s a singular experience to hear that tone in an ancient lady’s voice, and no human being could hear it without getting out of bed to see what was the matter. But nothing was the matter, and she can’t remember why she called, or she doesn’t remember that she called and is clearly annoyed with you for waking her up. The next day, you’re exhausted, you’re lonely, maybe you’re sick or have a migraine headache, and an aunt or cousin who hasn’t visited in a month drops by and, like the parent of the Prodigal Son, grandma seems happier and more grateful to see them than she has seemed with you, who’ve been there the whole time… but it doesn’t matter. After impatiently checking their watch for an hour or two, they’ve put in their time and they leave, visibly pleased with themselves for doing their monthly good deed. It’s almost too much to bear, and you love your cousin but you feel like throwing a rock at her window as she drives off. But grandma is calling and you have to go. Because she needs you.

You tell yourself that it’s not possible to get frustrated with a crippled old lady who needs your help. But I assure you it is possible. More than once, I heard my friend drag herself out of bed for the eighth time that night, stomp down the hall to grandma’s room, and snarl “WHAT?”, and to hear her weeping from guilt for it after returning to her room. After just two weeks I was completely spent, and the accumulated stress and exhaustion made it feel like I was on the last plane evacuating a warzone. And I considered that my friend had been there for months - and at least I’d had the benefit of her company; she had been there alone - and would be there for as long her grandma hung on. Those fourteen months were the hardest of her life, and yet among the most cherished. Ever since then, I’ve always thought that elderly care and hospice work should be one of the most honored professions in a healthy society. Not everyone is cut out for it. It’s hard, low-prestige, thankless work that no one really wants - loving your grandma will not make wiping her privates after the toilet any less unpleasant - and the people who are good at it should be counted among the saints. We’re all going to be on the business end of old age someday, and what a blessing to have people ease us out with compassion.

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Anyway, that was supposed to just be a quick paragraph explaining why my output has slowed a bit recently. This move has turned out to be more than I bargained for, and so was the amount of work necessary to get this place up to snuff before winter (I am in a far northern region). The good news is, I see light at the end of the tunnel. The major projects are almost finished, and I’ll be in maintenance mode soon. The even better news, is that it gets cold and snowy up here, and it gets dark very early in the winter, so as the season turns I’m gonna be stuck inside with nothing to do but catch up on some reading and machine-gun new content into your inboxes.

I’m almost done with the next slavery essay - it’s about the Founding Fathers and the debates over slavery during the framing of the Constitution. It’s a big topic, and an important turning point in the story, so I want to get it right. In the near-term, though, here’s something to look forward to: