A Life After Death

This morning my grandmom decided to put the coffee on because I was taking my jolly good time to get out of bed. I had good reason since I'd gotten up at 5:30 the morning before trying to drag the two of us to the airport in an attempt to make our 8:30 flight home.

I rolled out of bed around the time the coffee was done brewing. I wasn't surprised she had put on 12 cups but after pouring her a cup of what looked like just slightly tinted water, I took the liberty to open the lid of the coffee pot and see that for those 12 cups of water she had only placed in maybe a scoop of coffee. I dumped it out and put on my own pot of coffee, very very strong coffee because it looked like it would already be a busy day.

My grandmom and I spent the last three days visiting her daughters in Atlantic City and Myrtle Beach, and every minute since then has been insanity. The trip has really thrown her off coming home (she was absolutely fine for the majority of the time she was there- well, fine for her).

Well, let me try to think of a couple of good tales from our vacation. One of my favorites is when we send her to bed at my Aunt Charlene's house in Myrtle Beach and we get her dressed in her pajama top and send her to the bathroom to do her business. We figure she's really going because we hadn't heard her stirring for a good fifteen minutes. Finally I decide to go see what she's been up to and I find her just sitting on the toilet seat, lid closed, just waiting for me to come tell her what to do- goodness knows, we were laughing about that one for awhile. But I thought that story was so funny until every minute since she's been home she isn't able to function without me telling her what to do. She won't shower unless I make her shower. She won't sit unless I make her sit. But going to bed last night was certainly the epidemy of hilariousness-

I basically walked her through brushing her teeth and using the toilet and forcing her to put her pajamas on- I just figured getting in to bed and putting covers on was something she would be able to do on her own. I was wrong. Very wrong.
I shut the door behind her as she walked in her room and go to rest back on the living room couch for a bit and watch TV. oh....twenty minutes later my brother Jeremiah comes down and asks where grandmom is. I told him she went to bed and he goes to say goodnight- but she's not in her bed. But he hears her talking to him and she find him in the closet... with the door closed... sitting on the shoe shelf.... in her pajamas! Honestly we couldn't stop laughing. But then I try to get her to bed and for some reason she thinks she needs to climb into it...like on her hands and knees..and needs to sleep that way- yikes!

So since beginning to write this she has fallen asleep four times at the kitchen table and even as I write is sleeping. She also thinks someone had a baby because she saw some egg shells cracked on the counter. Who even knows!

I'm wondering if today, April Fools Day, might be the beginning of the downhill spiral- the little transition from dementia to alzheimers....maybe...or maybe not. Maybe she's just thrown off from the vacation and it was a little too much for her.

We did fix her up with some nice new clothes and pedicure and manicure so she'd better keep her mind for a bit to appreciate them! Honestly!

She handled the plane ride well though- well, once we were sitting together. We were seperated by a few rows at first because they plopped her down in first class because she could barely walk onto the plane. I thought she would be fine seperated from me for only an hour. But literally the minute the plane starts moving around the airport she unbuckles and hops up yelling "where's my daughter?!" And I'm already unbuckling to run and sit her down when the flight attendants jump up and sit her down. They moved me up next to her the minute the plane was done ascending and was in the air- yikes! BUt after that it was all fine.

So on another note I am starting my Bible College classes online now and got all of the awesome books in the mail so I will update on that soon.

All right, I figure I should let you all in on some of the wierdest of wierd things lately.
So here's a list of some of the strange things she's done or said lately.

1. Her arthritis in her arm has been hurting lately and so we've been putting a heating pad on her arm. Last night I picked up the heating pad, and lo and behold, inside the case around it, is not just a heating pad, but a toothbrush, some "stool kits" (you know the ones) that we are supposed to do this week, her BJ's coupon book, a check, and MY eyeglass prescription (the little thief!). I think she was packing up to go home since I'd been out that afternoon. I've also learned that she is not a very good packer if that's what she thinks she is taking to survive her- yikes!

2. This one is awful odd- lately, she's been asking for her...um...her...wife!!!! I know, wierd? She'll ask me constantly, "is my wife coming home?" And we tried to ask her if she meant husband...but oh no...she meant wife. And at first, I was kind of nervous she meant me, because...sometimes she's awkward like that. But we asked her when her wife was born and she claimed, "March 3rd" which is her own birthday...so, does she mean herself?
Well who even knows!!!! honestly?
Is anyone disturbed yet?

I actually have to run because she's talking about "going home" but let me leave you with last night's latest exhibition of hers...

3. I'm in my room about to go to bed last night (about 12) and I hear her walker creak creak creaking out of her room, and I figured she just had to go to the bathroom (and i was thankful because she keeps wetting the bed), so I ignored it. But next thing I hear is the ring of the doorbell...
I am like, "what is going on" and looked for a weapon in case...well...in case some robber decided to ring the doorbell (haha...things make no sense at midnight).
But lo and behold, there's grandmom, her nightgown half unbottoned, eyes wide, barefoot, and using no walker coming in the door (she's quick when I don't want her to be).
"What in the world are you doing?" I ask. I should never have asked.
From there comes the tale of her adventure where she rescued my father who was out the window by climbing over the wall and pulling him up as she stood out in the water.
And I was certainly confused.
And so was she. I needed to go out and make sure there was no man outside that needed rescuing and actually needed to wake up my father out of bed to show her that he was okay and that all the kids were in bed and he needed to thank her for rescuing him.
We just went along with it because I was at my wit's end trying to get her back into bed.


She's been pretty really out of it lately and she's also been weazing (she has asthma and chronic bronchitis and pneomonia), so being the doctor that I am, I think she may be low on oxygen, which was what made her confused before...so we'll see what it is that is throwing her off...unless...unless she's actually reached that downhill spiral we all know and hate...
You see, for the last year everything was going on an insane upward slope of goodness and then she kind of flatlined and then slowly, very slowly, with some of those wavy slopes in the middle, has been going downhill.
But lately it's been almost a downhill plummit (is that a word???)

I'll update you if anything else exciting happens...which in this madhouse surely will
oh man
this just topped all on my "annoyance factor"
she just took my toothbrush out of the drawer in the bathroom I hide it in and used it.
She may deny it
but I know she did because it's wet and I haven't brushed my teeth yet because I can't find where she hid the toothpaste when she packed up last night... and her toothbrush is not wet.
i am now offended

We used to use this word to describe my little brother Jesse...trickster.

I've concluded my grandmom is faking this whole insanity thing. It's really scheme to just not have to cook and clean anymore for the rest of her life.
She just saw her unmade bed and was all like "oh- didn't you sleep in here? you didn't make your bed."
And I was like, "that's you bedroom."
"oh no, i slept down the bottom!" is her reply
yeah, what bottom she is talking about no one knows.
But she does not want to make her bed
honestly!

I just wanted to give you all a head's up on who is running next year (well...according to my grandmom)

Well...
the other day I went to sit down to update you all, when I looked out the window and Nanny was taking out the garbage. 78. caneless. hunched over. lugging a huge bag of trash. across our lawn (which really isn't small). annoying!

So I figured I should list, for posterity's sake, some of the latest crazy things she's done...
She's gotten more consistently crazy (as in...it's not as come and go- the ratio of sanity to insanity has become drastically more on the side of insanity)...so here we go:

Coupons: aye aye aye...don't even get me started. We must go shopping 24-7...i'm not kidding. when she sees a coupon we must immediately go to the store or else I won't hear the end of it. But that's not the craziness that involved coupons that I mean to speak of. It's what she does with her coupons.
1st, last week I opened the fridge and next to the milk and eggs were laying a pile of coupons...I found that odd.
What I found odder was when she started pressing buttons of the T.V. She was holding her coupons and typing in buttons that would make the food magically appear..well..at least in her world it would have worked. She quit after I asked her what in the world she was doing. I laughed.
The oddest was definitely when I caught her cooking them in the microwave- a pile of coupons...in the microwave...for five minutes...why didn't I think that that would cause the food to appear? honestly- how could i have been so näive to think that that doesn't work?

So yeah.
The other things is that she's begun...um...wandering.
The other week, I was in the kitchen broiling salmon. My dad was watching tv in the living room with my grandmom. I assumed she'd gone to clean her bedroom when I went out there and it was just my dad. Then I went to call her to dinner...and um...she wasn't there. Or upstairs. or downstairs...or in the yard...uh oh.

And so we all chose a neighbor and scoured the neighborhood. I found her. coming back "from cvs"...welll...actually, she hadn't made it to cvs...since it's like miles away...and wasn't even in the direction she was going (with her purse and jacket, walking in the rain in my neighbors back yard)...ugh! we should have figured it out when we saw cars driving slowly down the road.

So my dad put bolts up at the tops of our doors...but she noticed them and pulled up a stool to open them to take out the trash.

Well...that's all i can write on this late at night
on another note, the old woman i used to watch with alzheimers got put into a nursing home...sad...but I know how hard it is and her daughter had taken care of her for a long time...it's a rough job. I always wonder how long we'll be able to do it and how bad she'll get. She plans on living another 15 years you know...ugh

Today is my grandfather's 80th birthday.
Well...i mean, it would be today, if well, you know, he was still alive. But this post is not to be all "grandpop reflective;" it is instead a post about nothing much- just wanted to comment that my grandmom did not once mention that it was his birthday today. She has forgotten.

She wrote the date on her check at CVS.

She mentioned multitudes of times that tomorrow is my birthday (we've shared a birthday for well...the last 20 years) and even bought me a card and wrote out a check for me

She had mentioned for weeks before this that her husband's birthday was coming up...and yet today she has forgotten. I'm kind of sad and kind of glad she did...

I was a little nervous she'd catch on when the guy from Peruzzi's called and left a message on the answering machine "to be one of the first to wish you a happy birthday" for my grandpop, but instead, since Peruzzi man did not mention grandpop's name, she assumed he was calling to wish me a happy birthday.

Go figure...I've got Peruzzi men, whose car I don't even own, wishing me a happy birthday. Cool!
It's not that she didn't mention my g-pop today (she mentions him everyday), but it never clicked that today was his day.

Last year at this time I was in England.

I called my grandpop from the phone in the hallway. It probably cost me 5 pounds to call him the way that those phone cards ate my minutes and my money. I'm really glad. That was the last time I heard his voice. Weird. He hadn't realized it was his birthday when he woke up because he had thought it was only the 22nd. I know how it is to forget which day of the week it is...that's why I missed a Spanish assignment last week. My grandmom took the phone to talk to me and yabbered endlessly about how her garden this and dinner that and blah blah blah...but then my grandpop took the phone back with his usual "dear..." and "she probably has to get going- it's long distance" and then I wished him a happy birthday and he wished me a happy birthday and then I said I love you and he said I love you and I would see him in a few months...little did I know...little did I know.

But I knew. I knew. In the back of my head I had that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as I walked down the steps and sat on the leather couches in the living room of Flat 10. I knew. I knew my grandmom was going crazy...we'd seen it already the summer before when she started saying things like "is Jeremiah (my brother) Owen's (my father's) son?" (how funny it is that having to answer that question is so normal to me now, whereas, when she said that at this time last year, I felt sick to my stomach). I knew something was going to happen. But I kind of rubbed it off as you always feel that way when you go away...but something (some many many things) were going to happen.

And then I really knew...I really really knew something was wrong when I got my grandmom's birthday card in the mail. My grandmom always had beautiful cursive handwriting ( i mean, she's German- obviously it must be perfect). The chicken scratch I recieved in the mail was not her handwriting "Tiffie (below a scribbled out "Debbie")" and some ramblings about my call and coming home...it scared me...I remember clearly, being so excited to get mail, and then holding my card as I walked back into one of Ed Major's classes, shaking a little.

It's strange this was all a year ago. Life was different a year ago. There were marzipan cows and pigs and sheep on a blueberry cake a year ago. A carefree fall day in England...a year ago. Coffee with my friend English Hannah and a day of yarn shopping and getting a cute green top a year ago. A surprise party with all of my girlies a year ago. A magic apron...a year ago. And now...I don't know. I'm not sad or depressed that that isn't my life anymore. That was a season. This is a season. A time to laugh. A time to cry.

Tomorrow, I won't wish for things to be how they always were. I don't want them to be. I'm thankful for every single aspect of this last year. Even the horrible, scary, utterly painful parts of it. I'm thankful for who this year has made me to be...and who God has shown me He is. I wouldn't give it up for all of the yum yums or kinder buenos or marzipan animals York has to offer...

So...I better go figure out what to do with my last fifteen minutes of being a teenager...hmmmmmmmmmm...bye!

I'm going to write my persuasive speech in my speech class on why not to go to college...just kidding. But honestly...I am the worst student ever and wish someone would have talked me out of taking four online classes.

I can't even keep track of the days of the week, much less keep track of my classes...honestly. I have missed 3 spanish assignments, one because I didn't realize what day of the week it was and the other two-...welll...I can't figure out why I didn't see them. Story of my life.

Then I was going through my life thinking that the 22nd of September is Wednesday...and then the other day it hits me- OH NO! the 22nd is Monday which means I only have a few days to figure out this Guy Fawkes speech (what what represent England!)...it really stinks because I wish I had more time because this whole Gunpowder plot and history of it is really interesting and I'm trying how to figure out how to make it interesting for my audience too...I might just be a wierd person who thinks it's really cool that after 403 years the English are still burning a dummy of a guy who they caught before he blew up parliament (but the best part is that they hung him- they didn't even burn him!) and that they have a whole holiday commemorating...I mean...I have to explain why they "remember remember the fifth of November"!!!

Math is absolutely my favorite class because there's no stress- math is math. 2+2= 4 all the time!!!!

Ugh...I should have just got an evening job at Starbucks so that I would have health benefits instead of this whole college business- whose idea was this anyway?

All right...I mean, I'm spoiled to live in a country where I can get an education and everything so I shouldn't be complaining...I'm just getting used to this whole "back to school" thing after a year of "carefreeness"- if you could call it that.

Speaking of Nanny (which is the "carefreeness" i was referring to), ugh...that's the hardest part of these online classes- I'm always in the middle of trying to finally grasp some Psych concept when she starts freaking out that we don't have moisterizer or what are we going to make for dinner on Thursday three weeks from now- because obviously there's nothing in the freezer to choose from (well...other than the whole chicken, five pork roasts, 3 pork chops, chuck roast, split chicken breast, or stewing meat!!!!! honestly!!!!) and we have to know right now when I have a effective speaking quiz due in 5 minutes!!!)-

besides all this- the Germans came back yesterday after thier time in myrtle beach- so i had to clean everything up again- goodness- but they crack us up so it was all good (wow...i sound as ghetto as my brother)- and we really enjoyed thier company, but it's nice to have my room back finally be able to settle down and try to get organized.

So...I really should actually be doing my speech right now so...um...bye (which is not the way you end a speech....i think i've learned that from experience though- story of my life!)

Literally, any minute now (wait! did I hear them?...no, just the neighbor's friend speeding down the road in his jeep) my grandmom's brother (Heinz- 70ish) and his sons (Thomas- pronounced toe-mas and Harold) are coming to visit.

The only problem is...um...my grandmom thinks her brother Heinz died...aye aye aye...i know. So we're all a little nervous and we've been cleaning nonstop for like weeks and our house has never been so clean. We don't have people stay with us. Ever. And so this is something new and wierd. My grandmom and I are moving upstairs to my family's part of the house and my uncle will stay in my room and his sons in my grandmom's. My mom hasn't seen her cousins in 40 years. Crazy, huh?

So hopefully when my grandmom sees her brother it will click that he's alive and well. And hopefully tomorrow we will survive touring philadelphia and new york.
It'll be fun...i think.

So Aufwiedersehn for now
(Oh, is that them? no...just the mail lady...)

I think I must be a really big nerd. I'm the kind of kid who absolutely hated and thought research papers were unfair in highschool (who knows what I thought was unfair about them!). But I am also the kind of kid who would always think of something and think what a neat research paper that would be. Maybe I just hate being limited. The confines of an unassignment suppress my creative juices. Or maybe I'm just a rebel at heart.
Maybe I would actually like college when I finally go there. Picking a major. Getting to study something I actually like. Who knows what that is going to end up being!

Lately I've thought about some of my grandmom's personality quirks that give me huge knots in the back or my neck. We're just about polar opposites ineverything. She is a perfectionist. I am the furthest thing from a perfectionist. She survives by cleaning incessantly. Now don't get me wrong, I am ALL about clean, but I will never ever be the kind of person who can spend an entire day cleaning, because with her, it's never clean enough. She is a bit on the miserly side, whereas money burns in my pocket and I've never had more than a 1000 dollars in my bank account at a time, and when there was that much, it didn't really exist because I was going to be writing a check out with it for some missions trip I was going on.

And I look at my grandmom's life. And I just wonder why she's gotten meaner in her old age. I notice that with a lot of old people. Is it because of thier aches and pains (i mean, I know I am pretty crabby when I'm not tip-top)? Is it because they've lost so many people they love? Is it because they know that they only have so many years left? Because if I knew I only had so many years left that I imagine that I would want to show everyone around me how much I loved them instead of complaining about them all the time.

Grumbling and Complaining. If I were writing a research paper on old people there would be a an entire Roman Numeral on this. Now I know why God's will is for us to not grumble and complain, because it's very unattractive- i know, i am very good at it. I don't know how my dad takes the complaining from her about him. I mean, she's his mother in law and he would stay up at the hospital basically having to lie on top of her so that she wouldn't run away until 3 in the morning for weeks and then get up for work at 6, and she has the nerve to complain about him to whoever she talks on the phone to. I guess some things in life are just unexplainable.

The funny thing is my grandmom's being pretty back to normal lately. And we realized that when she started complaining about everyone. When she was sick she was "happy nanny." We had this very strange week when she first got home from the hospital when she was happy and nice and generous all the time.

Another thing I would like to research is generosity and happiness in old people. I know that the elderly of this generation lived through a lot of hard times- depression, war, recessions, inflation, stagflation... and so you see a lot of miserly amongst the old people, and I have to wonder why the words "miserly" and "miserable" look a lot alike. My grandmom has money, and I don't need or want her money, but you do feel more loved when your grandmom gives you money for your birthday and then doesn't whine and complain on the phone to relatives about giving it to you- I mean, it's not like she has to, you know?

Now my other grandmom, she and my grandpop are very generous. They also live in a dirty trailor. But I know always know that she loves me and begs my dad to come over before I go on a missions trip so she can give me twenty bucks or something. Sometimes the twenty she gives out of her little means so much more than the fifty my other grandmom gives out of her increase- you know? I guess the story of the widow's mites is an example of that.

And so I guess I have reached the point in the grieving process where I begin to have "flashbacks."
Grieving is just so wierd. Death is just so wierd. I realize more and more how we just weren't meant for it. period. There's no way to process it in our heads. There's no way that seems right to handle death. Knowing that I will see my pop-pop again is such a happy thing while missing him and thinking about him now being here is such a horribly sad thing.

But in the grieving process you go through the initial "shock" where it takes you a little while to register that this is actually reality because you at first can't believe it because death seems so unreal. Death happens to everyone else, not me, right?
Then you are numb, but go through "waves" of understanding when it hits you that "he really is dead."
Then you go into preparing for the funeral mode. Just keep moving. You all of a sudden just handle it. I looked through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pictures putting together my grandpop's video and was somehow able to disconnect myself from it. I guess that's the word for this stage..."disconnecting."
Then comes the actual funeral where you hurry up and make yourself look nice, kind of feel guilty for enjoying being dressed up for a change because, i mean, come on, it's your grandpop's funeral and you are worried about putting your eye liner on, then you hurry because you are going to be late for the recieving line since there will no one for anyone to say they're "sorry" to if you aren't actually there with the widow and family. Then you feel really awkward as people tell you they are sorry, and what are you supposed to say "i forgive you"? You don't cry much because you are still in "disconnected mode" but certain relatives or friends of the family might make you well up thinking about how they had known your grandpop and they were grieving too. You listen to the service and eulogy but a lot doesn't register because everything is still to close which is why in a few weeks or months you may watch the video or listen to the cd of the funeral service.
Then you go back to the house for coffee and food and are too hungry to feel guilty for enjoying food at your grandpop's funeral because you skipped breakfast in the rush of the day and, well, it's catered. My grandpop would understand. He enjoyed food just as much as I did. You spend this time getting compliments on your decor of your home from people who had not been there prior and laughing with family and trying to make sure no one notices the room that is overflowing with pictures from the video you had just finished at 9:55 this morning after being up until 2 the night before and just hadn't had time to clean up since the funeral was at 10.
Then comes the empty house. Everyone left, family from out of town went home, the flowers estop coming to the door every few minutes, and things slow down. Then comes the stage of "depression." There is just something so depressing about the day after a funeral. It was like everything had been so climactic and then...just dropped. Now reality of him never coming home had not hit yet, but the reality that you just go to the hospital and see him has. That we have all this extra time in our hands that we don't know what to do with begins to hit. And you are just basically sad.
Then comes the next few weeks. For the first few days you are kind of sad when you think of the house without him there. Then you begin to become almost more detached because life does not revolve around the funeral or around the hospital. You don't "forget," but you kind of just don't think about him as much and begin enjoying family and friends and life again. You almost feel guilty, but know that you don't need to. Sitting around crying about him won't bring him back, and grandpop always enjoyed life. You begin to clean out his stuff, realizing this man's wardrobe was 10x the size of your own and that he had always bought himself anything he ever wanted. And none of it could go with him when he died.

Then comes the flashback stage.
That is the stage I have hit.
The kids are back to school. My parents are back to work. It's just me and grandmom again.
And the other day I was working in the yard and starting to dig up her flowerbeds and rake them, when it hit me that this was what my grandpop would be doing for her if he was here and I got really sad.
It suddenly was final to me. He wasn't coming back. This is our new life. Without pop-pop. He isn't going to open the pool this year. He isn't going to roter till the garden. He isn't going to mow the lawn. He isn't going to eat cream puff cake out by the pool. He isn't going to drive his car. He isn't going to go on the trip he was planning to Florida. We aren't going to rent a moter home and travel across country. He isn't going to celebrate my 20th and his 80th birthday. He'll never be at my wedding. He'll never hold my children. He'll never see Jeremiah graduate highschool (if he ever does!). He'll never take a prom picture with Hailey. He'll never meet our stupid new dog.
It was this wierd finalizing revelation.

And so I sit in his old office. We moved his desk out. We took his stupid Looney Toon pictures off the wall. We cleared his sport jackets out of the closet. We ripped off the wall paper. And I painted the room yellow.

Yes, I'm moving down with my grandmom. Not that I haven't lived down here for the past three months, but now it is final. We're turning the office into my room. No more sharing the bed with Nanie. And I kind of started getting depressed. Not that I was sad I would no longer be sharing a bed with a 78 year old woman, but because moving down here meant he really wasn't coming home. I had thought for so long that this would be temporary, only till Poppy gets home. Then it turned to probably taking care of both of them, but still, when Poppy gets home. But now, Poppy is not coming home. He's never coming home.

Grieving. The strangest thing I've experienced yet. I hope I never have to get used to it.

Fecal- derived from the latin "faeces" meaning "dregs" definied as "the most undesirable part"...we get the word "feces" from it...
Immunochemical- Describing the chemistry of antigens, antibodies, and their relation to each other.
Kit-A set of articles or implements used for a specific purpose.
___________________________________________________________________

Fecal Immunochemical Kit- fancy name for A little envelope containing a child's blue paintbrush, little waste bags, a "test card," and a return envelope...in which I am supposed to supply a sample of my grandmom's poo poo. Yes. My job for this week is to rub the brush across my grandmom's poop and wipe it on a little card, throw it in an envelope, stamp it, and mail it to some doctor for testing. Poor mail carrier who doesn't know what I am putting into thier hands.

I do this because I love my grandmom. This is my new life. Three months ago I was tromping around England, drinking tea, and being a regular old college student. Now, I spend my days trying to convince my grandmother that my father is her son-in-law, and not the president, and my mother, her daughter, is not "the boss's wife" (sometimes our house is Pizza Hut...confusing, I know).

It really isn't that bad, and for the most part entertaining. My days can be exciting, filled with physical therapists who sell me girl scout cookies, to driving my grandmother around the block at night so that we can trick her into thinking we took her "home" (she's lived in the house for fifty years and thinks that we are tricking her by taking everything from her house and putting it in this other house- I know, we are sly, aren't we?)

After four months of Bible College in England, I knew that I was supposed to come home and serve my family, applying everything I had learned. My family had already been dealing with not only the deterioration of my grandmother's mind (she has dementia and a low sodium condition for which she was hospitalized for two months- but that is a whole nother story), but with her husband, my grandfather, being hospitalized since November after a heart attack, triple bypass surgery, and then a mulititude of complications that left him on a breathing tube and sedated until January. He is only now beginning to recover. So I know that my place for now is at home, showing the love of Jesus there, which isn't always easy, but it's been a learning and growing experience already, so we'll see if by the end of this season of my life I am a mature adult, or if I end up being driven crazy and living in a mad house...right now the latter is more probable, but we'll see!