Mortality Rates are High

There has only been one time in my life where I've cried so hard that I sobbed uncontrollably. It was in high school, when my Grandma had a heart attack.

At first I kept my cool. She had a quadruple-bypass surgery, and my aunt said she was doing well. I wasn't worried. My Mom went to stay with her for the week, and I was going to take care of her for the weekend.

Mom warned me that Grandma was going to be different. My normally upbeat, nice, polite, well-mannered, lovable Grandma had been changed by the experience. I wasn't worried, my Grandma was strong.

Grandma sighed. A lot. And the long scar shocked me more than I realized. Suddenly it hit me that Grandma was mortal. I could tell that she was depressed; she didn't ever want anyone to baby her or see her weak. It bugged her that anyone had to take care of her. She and I are alike that way.

Fast forward to my wedding, right after I finished college. Right up until the last minute, we didn't know if Grandma was going to make it there. I tried to not care if she came or not, but really I desperately wanted her to be there. She decided to get on the plane, and came she did. I was so happy that she was there. And she was back to my old Grandma again. She laughed, she joked, she walked around as if she never had any pain in her life. She sat on a stranger's lap and joked at the hotel, she was the best.

Last year I decided to go to my favorite city for my birthday, with friends. Every morning before we headed into the city, we visited with my Grandma for an hour or so. She was sad again, and we hadn't seen each other in a long time. But she was still gregarious to my friends, and forever asking if I was hungry and trying to give me things. I didn't get away without two coats of hers.

She told me that my aunt was trying to get her to move into an assisted living facility, but she didn't want to leave her home. I told her I'd never give up the house; I felt like I'd grown up there, and she seemed to be doing fine. I hugged and kissed her goodbye, and went back home and lived my life.

A few months later my aunt wore her down and got her to move into an apartment. After just a few weeks there, she started showing up in other people's rooms, losing her hearing aids, and eventually beating up on my aunt's boyfriend. I loved her for that last one.

She has dementia, and is living in a home now. A few weeks ago we went to see her, and it was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever had to do. She was unresponsive and obviously not my Grandma anymore. She had lost so much weight that I probably wouldn't have picked her out of a crowd.

A year ago she begged my Mom to kill her, she was so unhappy with living. She never wanted to lose her mind before she could just end it all. She would've hated that so many people saw her in a home like this. My mom and sister tried to engage her in conversation, telling her that her hair looked nice, and asking her what she ate for breakfast. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to take a walk. She just wanted to stare straight ahead.

A part of me understands. When I went through depression, that's all I wanted to do. Stare straight ahead and not interact, because I felt like my depression showed I wasn't strong, that I couldn't take care of myself.

She never wanted me to see her like that. She never wanted anyone to see her like that. It broke my heart that my strong, amazing Grandmother wasn't getting what she wanted.

It struck me then that I had the determination of my father in my DNA, along with her desire to not let anyone see her weak. I wasn't going to let it end the way my Grandmother didn't want it to.

When my time comes, I'm going be in control of when I leave this existence. And I won't ask help from anyone.

Does Attempted Suicide Count? (I kid!)

"What's the most dangerous thing you've ever done?" ~Jamie

Depends on what you mean by dangerous. If you mean physically, I'm not very adventurous. I suppose that it could be when I rock-climbed...but that actually felt pretty safe. I think that's because it was indoors. Ooh, I went skydiving; also indoors. I'm just not an outdoor girl.

The only thing I've done that I've felt dangerous doing was when I walked out of a job. It was a temp job, and I told the temp agency how bad it was there, and if my immediate supervisor there was escorted off the job that day that I'd be right behind her. I did it, my heart pounding in my chest the whole time. I even took the stairs because I was afraid I'd run into the security guards coming back up. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but this company had been doing the wrong thing to it's employees since the day I got there. Someone needed to show them. Of course, the Temp Agency 'fired' me, even though I let them know what was going down before hand. I just met my immediate supervisor across the street for margaritas. We were joined by another employee soon after.

I know, I don't take chances that much. I always seem to play by the rules, even though I always say what you should do is break all of them and see what happens.

Dear Rod: Why do questions always come in threes?

1. How much of my hard earned money would it take to get you to run naked through a crowded mall?

Funny, I had a dream about that the other night...Although I wasn't running, I was more cowering and needing badly to pee. More on that later.

Okay, not really. There is no amount of money that could get me to re-live my nightmares.

2. How can I increase my bad-assedness quotient?

There are a few easy steps, such as wearing more black and buying a motorcycle. But in order to really be a bad ass, you have to believe in you. This always works with women experiencing PMS. :-)

3. What makes the women swoon?

When a man shows that he thought about something. Women want desperately to feel like their man pays attention like they pay attention; with immense detail. Women remember what kind of dog food the dog digs the most, because she actually feeds the dog and measures the amount of time in which it is eating.

So just pay attention, and when you get her a "lemon lip gloss" and mention that you had remembered she said she needed some, and you saw it and thought of her, she'll swoon.

At least on the inside. :-)

Procrastiation

I know I said I'd blog, but I'm going out of town for a week. Please check back then, until then see the post below and ask me anything!

A New Start

Welcome to Textually Promiscuous! D@H was getting me WAY to much porn in my inbox, and it was getting old. I read the phrase "textually promiscuous" in a book the other day, and it struck me. I loved it so much I highlighted it in my book. It's the only time I've ever done that in a book that wasn't for school.

I thought we could start off with a round of "Ask Two Drink Girl Anything," So here are the guidelines:

• You can ask me anything, ranging from advice on how to apply makeup, to why hookers smell the way they do (That's for you Andy!), and I will do my best to answer truthfully or as entertaining as possible.
• You can ask me my opinion on anything, such as what I think of the writer's strike, if you should dump your boyfriend, etc.
• You CANNOT ask me about politics. Not many people reading this blog even care. In fact I think I could narrow it down to one person who cares. And even though I love her, I just get to worked up about it, and I never have all the information.
• You CANNOT ask me about my own personal sex life. As soon as I blog about something like that, then someone in my family always finds my site and that makes dinner with the in-laws really embarrassing. So I just won't do it. Ask me about any position in general, or sex in general, is fine.

Leave me a comment and ask me anything. They will be answered in the order they were asked, starting with Haloscan comments first. This post will stay at the top of the blog until the second week of January, so look below this post for new entries.