Stream of consciousness

Just a post to say that everything's okay, or as okay as it seems to be lately. I'm out at my Mom's as much as I can be, doing shopping for her, taking care of her business. I'm spending a lot of time paying bills and going through Dad's paperwork, and working with a financial planner to try to be a good steward of my folks' assets.

And we're trying to figure out how to handle getting the folks' house cleaned out, cleaned up, and sold, and it's such a huge undertaking that it's basically overwhelming.

I keep thinking that it's hard enough running your own life, let alone running someone else's.

My house is a disaster. When we were preparing for Dad's funeral, I hadn't planned on doing anything with photos, but Mom wanted them, so I went over to the old house and brought home all of the photo albums -- ALL of them, which was, I don't know, maybe twenty of them. I went through them and selected photos for the funeral and made a display, and now I've got all of those albums here. I don't really want to put them in the basement, because we have a water/humidity problem down there and I don't want to ruin them, but I don't have room for them upstairs so they're sitting in the hall.

And that's something else that's keeping me from working at the old house -- of course there are things there that I would like to have, but I have NO room here, and I think my sisters and brother are probably in the same situation. So we're going to end up selling or giving away everything. And my Mom thinks she might like to have some of the things from the house, but she can't remember what, and there's no way that we can get her over there to the basement.

Anyway, like I've said before, it's just life. This stage of life -- where we end up taking care of our parents -- isn't a whole lot of fun. I want Mom to everything that she needs and/or wants but I still have to be sure that it's the right thing for her, and the right thing to do. She would like to have a rocking chair at her apartment, and there is one at home, but I don't think they'll let her have it there because it's a safety risk, but I need to find out about it.

Now I'm overwhelming myself again and feeling upset. It will all get resolved and figured out, but sometimes it feels like a lot to handle.

Just a stream-of-consciousness update. More later.