martyr me

About a year ago I "volunteered" to help my friends J2 & A2*, a married couple I met at the dance. He's blind and had brain leukemia (unrelated) and they were going to be in Houston for a couple of months. My job was to spend three days a week there, getting J2 to appointments, getting him meals, taking care of him while A2 came back to Austin for business. This was all while he was in recovery from the bone marrow transplant to take care of the leukemia. It was a relatively simple job for me (and it was a job of sorts because they insisted on paying me), though stressful because of the time commitment, and because of the constant mortality reminder all around.

Since then, I've taken on a smaller role back at home, organizing J2's myriad of medicines into baggies for breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime "servings." A2 is pretty high strung a lot of the time, and she knew that having to take care of this would drive her crazy, so she asked me to do it. I should have known it would be an ongoing project. And I really don't mind it, though sometimes I feel a little put upon by the amount they expect me to remember ("How many bags are left?" A2 asked me in an email, when I was here and she was there with the pills -- mostly it's a juggling game of ordering prescriptions, getting doctors' permissions for refills, picking up other over-the-counter supplements like calcium, Co-Q 10, vitamins, etc., which A2 seems to lose track of, even though I leave her very detailed notes on the progress of the process).

My thought last night when I went over at the end of the day was how to act around these people. I've been feeling depressed lately, but my life in comparison is pretty easy. J2 is trying to get back to his life and is realizing that he isn't as sharp as he once was; he's more aware of these things because of his handicap. I feel close to these people, but I wasn't sure how I would respond to the question, "How are you?" Of course, they could handle me saying I'm depressed. But I didn't feel like I wanted to tackle the next possible (obvious) question: "Why?" And I didn't want A2 to feel the need (like I think she would) to mother me and try to come up with some solution. Really, I wasn't in the mood for any well meaning advice. (I also think about how much she has on her plate, what with J2 and her business and J2's guide dog who has cancer and only a few months to live!)

I didn't know how I would respond. Didn't know if I would allow myself to be cared for. As it turned out, I turned on a cheery face and said I was "Okay," and mentioned to J2 that I had been "in hiding," but I didn't say much more than that. Even though it feels annoyingly like the way my mother deals with life, in this instance, I think it was the right choice.

And speaking of my mother, I'm going to spend the night with her tonight. Her birthday is next week and I'm taking her and J3 to dinner at Olive Garden ("We love that place"). The opportunity came about because S1's and my friend A3 is coming to Texas to give a talk on Diversity to a health care advocacy group (I think that's what it is), and I'm gonna go get her and bring her back to Austin for a visit. She's also having S1 edit some tapes of her talks to help her get more gigs (and to help him pay his bills for the next month), and she got me a paying gig videotaping the other woman who's speaking at the event. I was already planning on taping her part so that S1 could use it -- and was hoping but not expecting that I would get paid enough to at least pay for my gas to and from Houston, twice -- so this worked out nicely.

A3 is going through a divorce, and she is dealing with depression, too, and she and I laugh a lot when we're together, so it'll be good to be around her.