Where the Mind Can Land

I woke at 2am and lay in bed trying to solve the future.

How to move my dad into our home.

What the attorney will say.

How it will work.

What he is going through.

My mind became wide awake.

I went downstairs to journal and put his new shirts in the laundry. He has only been wearing soft polos lately. The button-downs he used to love now seem to bother him.

I’m noticing his awareness of time has shifted.

The rye grass they planted when they built his backyard patio is now long — he would have never let it get that way last year.

He wears the same clothes until I let him know it’s time to change them. Last year he never went longer than two or three days.

My brain keeps circling the conversation we had yesterday morning.

I’m not quite ready to fully land on it yet.

Yesterday he woke up and couldn’t tell if it was his house. He searched everywhere for familiarity. It was missing — until he saw Roscoe.

“That’s my dog.”

Then things started to become familiar.

Later he told me the wrought iron fence was throwing him off because he could suddenly see it went all the way around the yard and he didn’t remember it that way.

We talked about how unsettling it is when perception changes without warning.

My logic tries to tell me his spatial memory is improving.

But the dissonance comes because nothing else looks familiar - except the dog.

All I can picture is a brain constantly searching and grabbing any information it can land on.

He gets so tired, now.

At the same time my own mind circles.

I can’t land either.

He has clarity and conviction. His eyes sparkle. He is confident in what he knows. Yet the information is completely different from my remembrance of time and space.

I meet him there.

Everything in me pauses.

All I can think is how it must feel to live in a world like that.

He said it helps him stabilize when he tells himself his brain isn’t working right and that’s why everything looks unfamiliar.

He didn’t what would happen- if he stayed in that unfamiliarity - and couldn’t come back.

We talked about how exhausting that is.

How loud noises overwhelm him.

How sitting helps.

How knowing I am there feels safe.

He knows that I am steady.

I made him eggs and did his dishes while he sat at the counter. I made sandwiches for later and filled his pill cups for tomorrow.

Even the notebook is more simple now.

People overwhelm him.

Later we deleted texts and talked about how little we can control.

We talked about how much better it will feel when he lives with me.

I made popcorn.

We laughed about the time he tried to make it in the air fryer and it caught on fire. It isn’t funny.

But laughing helps us.

He enjoyed his popcorn. Roscoe waited for every piece he tossed and my dad laughed — so happy.

“My god Roscoe, when did you become so crazy about popcorn?”

I put Heartland on and watched him settle. Life made sense again.

That morning he had texted,

“I hope I see you today. I miss you.”

I’m there three hours most days.

Yesterday was no different.

But the twenty-four hours in between visits feels like a lifetime when the world is this unpredictable.

I went over early.

We re-oriented time and space.

He had eggs and popcorn.

It’s ironic that I have to wait to move him in until the lawyer confirms I’m not misappropriating his funds to give him the best care possible.

To help him, I have to delay helping him.

My mind circles.

But it cannot land.