New chapter for my mom… in These Days:

So yesterday was my mom’s move. Fell asleep around 4 AM, woke up at 6:50 AM, got ready and waited outside to be picked up by my sister and her family. Took almost an hour to get to my mom’s, downed a large coffee from McDonald’s, and went to work packing and cleaning. We had a large U-Haul truck rented, and we probably had everything out by 11AM or so. Before noon, we were already huffing and puffing, sore, and drenched in our own sweat and grime.

Unloading the truck was awful. My sister’s family took the U-Haul back and left her and I to do the rest of the unpacking. My mom is in a wheelchair and couldn’t do much to help us, and it made me feel awful because I know it bothered her. She eventually mentioned it, I told her not to feel bad, but she’s the type to do it anyway (which I get it because I’d be the same way). I tried not to whine and moan out-loud but my back was truly killing me. My sister was the most positive of all, but I knew she was suffering, too.

Come 5:30 PM We left our mom’s new place to drive another hour back to her old one just to clean and get the remaining stuff. We got there around sunset, and didn’t finish until after 10 PM. Scrubbing the shower, the fridge, the sinks, and everything else in between to hopefully get her the deposit back. We took the pictures from the walls, replaced the faucet and shower head to their original pieces, polished the cabinets, detailed the stove… It looked great in the end, but it was actually a nightmare to start for disgusting reasons.

My mom was literally living with insects, everywhere. She lived in a community center for older/retired people, but kinda out in the country, and by a river… I don’t even know half of the different types of insects she had by sight alone that she had popping in from her floor. My mom is not dirty, and these were all outside bugs, like spiders and these bizarre worm-like things. Absolutely disgusting. She lived on the ground floor the past year (having spent almost a decade on the 2nd floor in the same place), and she told us it was a huge regret moving down. We had no idea she was going to be living with so many critters. So, the sweeping part of this evening…was probably worse than anything else any of us did today. So, so nasty.

My sister’s car is filled to the brim with the last of our mom’s belongings, and it looks like it will be that way until later today, as it’s now after 1 AM here. Our mom told us to just go home when we finished up and to get some sleep. I got less than three hours the prior day, and now I’m lying in bed unable to sleep because my neighbor upstairs has a dog that won’t stop barking…

I am exhausted.