Amy F. Quincy Author/Freelance Writer

September 12, 2022

I’ve spent the past few weeks nesting. Though, I guess that’s not an accurate word, since that usually refers to the maternal thing expectant mothers do to ready the house for a new baby. I am getting ready for a new cat, but that doesn’t involve much more than a litter box and a food bowl. (And yes, I’ve already planned where these things will go.)

Most of my friends are past the nesting phase of life and are now becoming “empty-nesters.” The whole bird analogy really only applies to me if there were some kind of selfish bird that built and beautified her nest simply for her own enjoyment. (As opposed to making an actual home for baby birds.) In fact, in my analogy, my lone bird finds the calls of other birds preferable to the pitter-patter of hungry chirps, forever demanding and open-mouthed. Happy in mid-life, my bird also just flies away during old age to die alone. So there’s that. This kind of bird is rare though, and not naturally occurring in the wild, so there’s not even a term for what I’ve been doing. Maybe empty-nesting.

I’ve been happily spending at online retailers like Overstock and Wayfair, while a real-life trip to Target is enough to send me over the edge with excitement. You wouldn’t think a person could actually get giddy perusing bathmats and toothbrush holders, but I can. Actually, I’ve determined toothbrush holders are a rip-off in the same way expensive cat toys are when your cat just spends hours batting around a Q-tip. So, the lesson on toothbrush holders? Use a cute mug.

Yes, the unpacking and decorating phase has been quite enjoyable. The actual moving part of the process, however, not so much. The problems all started when I hired that popular moving company who to me, will forever be known as Two Children and a Truck. The kids, who barely looked old enough to drink yet seemed to be sporting hangovers, showed up with their dollies and looked over the mountain of boxes that made up my personal belongings. Then the head kid holding the clipboard said, “Oh ma’am, we’re just here to move these 11 items,” motioning to his paperwork. “If you want everything moved, you’ll have to reschedule.”

Hell yes, I want everything moved! I’m moving! I don’t think I actually said these words. It’s more likely I was getting so upset, I was having trouble forming any coherent sentences at all. My assistant, Gia, took over all communications at that point, knowing full well that my already garbled speaking voice gets even harder to understand when I get excited.

The snafu had apparently occurred back when I called for the estimate. I had assumed the woman taking the call was asking for a list of the bigger, heavy items for her estimate. She had assumed (though I still don’t see how) that this was all I wanted to be moved. Who just moves 11 things? Or when someone calls to confirm the move and that person says, ”So, you’re moving from a one-bedroom at ‘X’ location to a one-bedroom at ‘Y’, right?” But they really mean you’re moving these 11 specific items? Who says that? Wouldn’t they have confirmed by saying, “We have you down to move 1. a sofa, 2. a bed,” and so on? Word to the wise when dealing with someone who has their speech affected by a disability – don’t just pretend you understand the words coming out of her mouth. Ask a very vital question – what? Or if you’re really worried about seeming polite, try this one – excuse me, can you repeat that?

Long story short, we got moved by the kids. Not the same two. One actually quit and walked off the job (my job) and was replaced by a slightly older supervisor, who Gia overheard speculating that the entire “miscommunication” might have been that the kids just didn’t want to work. Another word to the wise – always book movers first thing in the morning, not the afternoon, when children tend to get tired, hungry, and cranky.

Children are also less likely to own up to their mistakes. Like when you only find a couple of broken, antique bottles instead of the box full you were expecting. Like any good murderers, they had disposed of the bodies. No bodies, no crime. And I, of course, had neglected to take pictures of the two broken bottles I did have. I just threw them out. No evidence, no conviction.

Nightmare-moving experience aside, Frankie and I are settling in nicely. There are some things about this apartment I obviously had a selective memory of. For example, I have no recollection that it’s as far away from the elevator as you can geographically get and still be in the same apartment complex. Or maybe, the long treks to let Frankie out are just more noticeable to my aging body. The flip side to that is my apartment is very private. My balcony is on the very outside of the complex so I don’t watch kids playing in the pool, hear partiers down by the river or even face any other balconies. I look west down Riverside Avenue. I do hear the traffic when the balcony door is open, but I don’t mind that. It makes me feel very urban-chic. Frankie seems to like it too. In fact, we’ve been known to spend too much time aimlessly watching the activity below. Vehicles making the daily commute or people taking their dogs to the park. Yesterday, I watched construction workers pour concrete for a new bus stop. There’s a meditative quality to it. Zen and the Art of Traffic Watching.

I also don’t recall getting in the shower being such a source of mental anxiety. I thought it would be easy, what with the grab bars being exactly where I’d left them. But one look in the bathroom just left me wondering, how the heck did I do this? Again, maybe it’s age. What a difference 1,825 days make. I’m having more safety bars installed. It’s like shower prison. And when did washing my feet become a death-defying feat with risk akin to that of bungee jumping? Another one of my empty-nesting purchases was one of those suction cup, feet scrubbing mats that attach to the floor of the tub so you don’t have to bend down. I highly recommend them for anyone on the downside of 50, disabled or not. I have most of you beat on these “assistive” type products because I’ve been receiving those types of catalogs for the past 15 years.

Don’t get me wrong, even with its challenges, my new bathroom still trumps the old one. It’s twice as big. And my next bathroom will be twice as big as this one. I’m just kidding. I don’t like to say never, but I’ll take the chance of being wrong. I’m never moving again. My girlfriend laughed as she scratched through and added yet another new address for me. She said she was going to mark my words. “Okay,” I agreed. “Mark my words. I’m never moving again.” And why would I? It’s the perfect nest.

August 6, 2022

Frankie and I are moving again. For the sixth time in seven years. What can I say? We like to keep things interesting.

Seriously, I think it’s safe to say I’ve spent most of the last seven years (ever since I moved to Riverside), if not in full-blown crisis mode, than at least in temporary limbo land. If my life was a book, these last seven years would be a titled chapter “Dealing with an Aging Parent and Other Life Sacrifices.”

Not to sound ungrateful. The very fact that I have life at all is a testament to my mother’s own sacrifice. Really. What is motherhood, if not an exercise in selflessness, of putting someone’s own wants and dreams ahead of your own? I am indebted.

Which is why I originally moved from the one-bedroom apartment I loved and once foolishly dubbed “my forever home,” to live with her in a three-bedroom apartment after her first fall in 2017. We made it more than a year before her doctor stepped in and stated the obvious – it was a bigger task than I could take on myself. She moved to an assisted living facility in January of 2019. And I moved on to two more one-bedroom apartments in Riverside, but always slightly uneasy, never settled. I never felt I could safely land or “get back to me.” Until now.

But guilt has made its’ home with me. Maybe it’s just part of the process. Part of watching a parent get older. Well, she’s 80 now. Let’s just say it. Watching a parent get old. I remember when she was 72 and so offended that some writer in a book she was reading used the word ‘elderly’ to refer to someone her own age. She’d be less offended now. 80 qualifies.

I feel guilty for not being able to take care of her from my wheelchair. “It’s not my fault!” I lamented to a friend one day. “That’s right, it’s not,” she said. “It’s not your fault,” she repeated, her eyes full of compassion. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered again. And right on cue, the tears welled up in my eyes, like we were on the set of Good Will Hunting and she was Robin Williams. Where was this emotion coming from? She had good-will-hunting’d me.

So I feel guilty, yes. And simultaneously relieved that my disability has gotten me off the hook. In the same way, I’m secretly (or not so secretly) glad to have found a way out of working nine to five. It’s another perk. If I were able-bodied, then surely I’d be taking care of her. And the seven-year chapter where my life is paused would be a whole lot longer. I think about Grey Gardens, the documentary, and then the movie. We are Big and Little Edie, but in my movie, Little Edie is in a wheelchair, so she escapes the falling-down mansion and taking care of her mother, and can live her own life. I dodged a bullet. But being relieved is just one more thing to feel guilty about.

For a while I looked at apartments out at the beach, just to be close to her. As usual, I had romanticized our entire mother-daughter relationship. I imagined myself living close enough to ride my power chair over to her place whenever I wanted. We could eat lunch out on the facility’s screened porch and watch movies together. I even looked at a community that bordered the same lake (retention pond) and pictured myself waving to her across the water. How ridiculous. The reality is my mom watches game shows now, instead of movies, and couldn’t make it out to the lake without assistance, much less see me waving.

The truth is, she’s declining. She fancies herself above it all when it comes to typical “old people activities,” like arts and crafts or bingo. She’s always been a little “too cool for school” and there’s only so much happy encouragement (she calls it nagging) I’m willing to do. After all, you can lead a mom to activities, but you can’t make her take part. My mom has always been strong-willed and a little difficult, but I give her a free pass. When I was growing up, she made it through single motherhood with a teenager, battled multiple addictions, and sought plenty of therapy for her own traumatic childhood. She holds a get-out-of-purgatory-free card as far as I’m concerned.

At one point, the ladies who clean for me proposed that my mom and I share another three-bedroom with a live-in to care for us both. I recoiled in horror at this suggestion. It seemed like the set-up for a bad sitcom. Golden Girls gone wrong. I didn’t want to be Dorothy to my mom’s Sophia. I wanted to star in my own show! But their suggestion just illuminates the cultural difference. The cleaning crew is from Mexico, a country that reveres its aging population. Families take care of their own. It’s commonplace there for multiple generations to live under one roof. In contrast to America, where I was told from an early age that dreams really do come true, all I needed to do was spread my wings and fly (parent-speak for go to college, move out, and pay my own bills).

So feeling a little lost and on a whim, I stopped by my old apartment complex in Riverside to see what they had available. They did have an apartment. And not just any apartment. The exact same apartment I’d had to leave back in 2017. My old “forever home,” complete with the wood floors and handicap bars I’d already paid to install.

Now granted, I am the kind of person who’s likely to look for meaning everywhere, but this seems like a pretty happy coincidence, no? The woman living there had given her notice months ago, but due to some technical glitch, the apartment wasn’t showing up on their website as available to rent. I’d like to think it was waiting for me. In hiding until I showed up.

Kismet aside, the rent was a bit high. So, trying to curb my impulsiveness, I decided to wait and watch the website, the glitch having been corrected since my interest. Moved by a slightly cooling housing market, the price then dropped by a few hundred dollars. I pounced and made it mine.

So this Friday, things will come full circle. Five years ago, I opened the door to my newly hired assistant, Gia, who would help me pack up and leave my forever home. I was in the midst of a personal crisis, I remember telling her, my mom still in the hospital. Who would guess that almost to the day, five years later, I would be opening the door to that same assistant, so she could help me move back. I’m shaking off as much guilt as I can and spreading my wings to fly again. And now I have a comfortable landing spot. Here’s wishing you all the same luck and good destiny. Remember sometimes when you’re lost, keep looking for meaning. Sometimes, it just may be that the universe really is conspiring to help you find your way. Behind the scenes. With a mysterious glitch. At least that’s what I’d like to think.