me + Uncle Vanya + snowblowing, or: I knew this play was bugging me for a reason

I left London in January, 2020, feeling optimistic. Though I have never liked the end of Vanya.

***

It had been clear to me at the end of 2019, when I decided to go to London and we had a huge scuffle to find a way for me to leave, that HL was at the limit of his capacity to take care of dad. So there wasn’t going to be any kind of future in which he took care of a regular portion of dad’s care. He didn’t object to anything I did to arrange the situation, but the figuring it out and the resulting emotional labor was going to be all mine, as would the absorption of dad’s dissatisfaction with the situation (which was insane in the case of the London trip — I was crying off and on for two days).

London cleared my head. I had decided, in London, that we would finally clear the upstairs bedroom (where I’d been sleeping since the stroke, and which had started to accumulate all the stuff that I had to hide or shield from dad) and my downstairs bedroom both (where I was sleeping pre-stroke, and dad piled full of stuff after his stroke). The goal was to be able to have one of the senior helpers be able to stay overnight, and for me to have one weekend off per month. It would be hellaciously expensive but it would be the only way I could keep going.

Then a series of things happened. The pandemic severely limited our choice of senior helpers. The senior helper who I’d had most in mind to stay over on weekends lost her vehicle when her head gasket blew, and we found out something else about her that meant HL would never accept her as a full-time caregiver, even if only for three days. Two of dad’s three scheduled extended “times away” were canceled (the May fishing trip and deer camp). My workload increased drastically due to putting all my classes on line overnight, which on top of the stress angered dad even more because the students’ needs sometimes had to come before his. Pandemic-related unemployment in the fall, which in combination with the sale of the building in which my office was located and the closing of all the places where one can plausibly linger, meant that I spent huge amounts of time at home.

The geriatric consultant sketched the parameters of the problem pretty clearly this summer, but at the same time: pandemic.

The result was that the total “time off” I have had this year (time where I am completely away from dad for 24 hours and someone else is responsible for feeding, medicating and making sure he doesn’t do something dangerous) amounted to fourteen days. My income remains precarious. Dad could pay me what he’s paying the senior helpers, but then I would not even have the two daytimes off anymore that I now use for chores and errands. There are other factors I can’t talk about relating to dad’s situation. And of course we had that election this fall, which is turning into the election that never ends.

November / December were another long list of problems (this was one) with no relief. I fell apart repeatedly to both HL and the dementia coach and the geriatric consultant in the second week of December.

***

Today, I read this (didn’t have time to listen, although I will sooner or later:

The play I saw in January really obscured this reading, in that Vanya was generally much more comic than tragic. He exaggerated everything before, so his breakdown in the final third of the play also read as exaggerated. And then Chekhov essentially has a teenager tell us all that we should put our noses back to the grindstones because it will be worth it. Insanely dissatisfying ending.

I wonder how this play will seem after this year. Or in its new incarnation.

***

The real snow has held off for a surprisingly long time in 2020 — the only thing that did. By this time last year we’d already had twenty inches. We finally got a “gonna stick” snowfall yesterday — probably about three inches.

In principle, dad is not supposed to be plowing snow; that is now HL’s job. However, HL can’t always get over here on dad’s timetable which means dad will go out and plow even though he has agreed not to. I can blow snow if it’s not serious, but a real snowfall defeats the snowblower and I really don’t want to plow.  HL suggested that we finally hire someone to take care of the snow this year. I found someone — husband of the younger sister of a school friend of mine, who runs a “services” business that does jobs like this — and signed an agreement. But of course that is no guarantee of what dad will do. As he would have refused to agree to hire this job out, the dementia coach told me to just sign us up and ask pardon rather than permission.

So last night I had to tell him, as we went to bed, that when we got up today, the driveway would be plowed. Happily for him, the plower came around midnight so dad was already asleep and didn’t have the opportunity to go out and complain, but unhappily for me, dad had been stewing for an hour about it by the time I got up.

There’s a crushing quality to listening to his repeated remarks about how I’m pissing away his money.

There is also a weird irony to saying in one breath “I am not an invalid, I can plow my own driveway with the tractor!” and in the next, “Would you go out and get the newspaper? I don’t want to go out in the cold.”

It’s not that I mind getting the paper, and it’s not that cold out yet. As dad’s cause and effect thinking is essentially broken (and has been for a while), he doesn’t see either the immediate issue (how can you plow snow if you think 30 degrees Fahrenheit is too cold to be outside?) or the larger one (I have to be safe in the house, too). This whole “Serv lives here too and has rights” problem has been a key axis of the difficulties this fall.

***

The problem hasn’t changed, but my capacity to accept it without more help or at least (if not appreciation, then) daily autonomy has dropped drastically in the last six weeks. I think that if the crisis that may be coming now materializes, I will know what to do.

~ by Servetus on December 29, 2020.