Someone Else's Life

I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience for most moments of my life right now. There are three main tracks in my life and they seem to be running parallel to one another in non-complementary ways.

Track 1 is the house. We're set to close next week and I'm excited in kind of a muted way.  I mean, way to decimate our savings account, you know? I remember talking to our photographer right before our wedding and he said something about how it is be hard to picture yourselves in wedding photos before your own wedding and it seems unreal, like it only happens to other people, but afterwards it will be crazy to imagine your life without those wedding memories and I kind of feel like that is how this house thing is. I mean, it's a beautiful house and that should happen to people who aren't me. But once we move in and settle in, it will feel like that's how things are meant to be, right?  Anyway, when we are at home, this is heavy on my mind.

Track 2 is my mother-in-law. We're there a lot by her bedside, watching daytime television and watching her sleep. It's emotionally and physically excruciating.  There's something about the fact that Dr. BB and I, a couple of the few non-medical types in the family, are the ones that are there the most frequently that makes me a bit nervous. A prolonged death is terrible, for the the dying and the living.

Track 3 is my family. We were supposed to go on vacation with them this week, a vacation that's been on the calendar for over a year. Instead I'm getting crappy cell phone camera photos from them at the end of each night and a guilt-trip from my mother. 

So none of these actually work together. If I'm at home, dealing with stuff that needs to be dealt with (calling maintenance pople for help on the house, pricing dishwashers, calling the banker, getting an oil change, getting quotes from movers) I feel terrible that I'm not with my mother-in-law. When I'm just sitting there watching her sleep, I feel like shit that I'm not with my own family doing something fun and making memories with people I so rarely see. And when I'm lying in bed at night, I puzzle over how it seems like this is someone else's life I'm watching from overhead.  I feel pity for that person whose life I'm watching.

But.

I also know that all of this is temporary. Dr. BB and I are healthy, we are lucky to have time to spend with my mother-in-law, and we are going to get through this.

Until then, enjoy this photo of the lake in town, taken at dusk. I'll be enjoying it every chance I get for the next few weeks.