Last night I was reading an old novella by Theodore Sturgeon. In it, one of the characters realizes that he is faced with two imperatives which are mutually exclusive. It immediately occurred to me that I'm in a similar situation. Two wholly self-made imperatives control my life: the requirement I feel to stay with my wife until she no longer knows who I am, my name, or anything about the life we had together, and the basic built-in desire to self-actuaize--to create a new life with real meaning that inspires and excites me during the last years of my life. I do not view this issue as a problem, because it has no solution. I feel compelled to do both things. If I do one but not the other, I will feel unfathomable remorse (that, I can guarantee)--so it must perforce be a tension, which implies not a solution, but a constant battle and balancing act. I feel the manifestation of this battle daily, and it is, most likely, the root cause of my current dis-ease and anxiety. There is no winning, here. There is only choice, and the choice is only mine. A classic approach/approach conflict.

A few others with whom I've discussed the matter see the choice as clear. I have done all that I can do here, now, and should (and in fact MUST) move on. But I see not so clearly, and therefore refuse to make the choice, which depresses me even to the point of leading me back to the edge of the abyss. No. It's not the shadow of the black dog. It is a consuming disappointment in myself and my inability to make this choice.

I see people daily living their lives without such emotionally laden contests, and I marvel at their luck or their ignorance. Perhaps I even envy them.

Mary has needed my help three times today, and I am glad that I was here to help. But I'm still a little afraid of asking her what my name is. I think she remembers. I do think she remembers. She MUST remember.

I've not had the experience, but I imagine that what I'm facing to the continued care for my wife (ex) as she continues to decline must be something like picking up body parts after an explosion. If the person was a stranger,it's just a terrible, but impersonal job. If it was a friend, the horror must go up a considerable amount, since memories of the person will be more direct and personal. Picking up pieces of a loved one, though.... I can just barely imagine the horror. I probably not need to explain why.

For the past couple of weeks I've once again been giving serious thought to moving, for two reasons. One is that ti is so hard and exhausting to be with her so much of the day, which is typically filled with brief and almost always failed attempts to communicate, as well as to note the rapid decline of her memory. I wonder when she will no longer remember who we were. I remember the day my mother could no longer remember me, and I don't want to go through that again. So I think about leaving, and even about leaving Tucson, severing all ties so that some day I would wonder (alright: every day) how things were going. But i'd have no part of them. Problem is that I don't have enough money now. I could have done it a couple of years ago, probably, but not now.

Perhaps I'm already (or still) one of Mary's body parts, but don't know any longer where I fit or what I'm supposed to do.

Sleep issues have returned with a vengeance, and the psychiatrist is stumped. My whole metabolism seems to change wildly over a period of a few days: weight gain followed by loss. 20 mg of diazepam having no effect one night, then 10 mg making me stumble the next. I've given up. so I just sleep when I can and work or think when I can't. I try to keep busy doing something so that I don't think too much... like a friend who believes that if he were to quit working so hard, he'd die.

Mary can no longer remember which button to push to change the TV from regular programming to watching movies. So yesterday I made a large label and stuck it by the button. I hope it helps.

Mary watches DVD's. She has a VERY large collection, including season after season of some TV shows. She has a few favorites, such as the movie "Babe" (about the little pig that could). But her favorites seem to evolve over time. Most recently, she has been watching "Charlotte Gray" a lot. I bought her the complete series of "The Gilmore Girls," which she watched, disc after disc, for almost a week. She also loves "McLeod's Daughters," which is a series popular down under. It is also a hit with Mary. She's watched the first few seasons several times, and I have a standing order with Amazon to send me new ones as they are released. So today, after she finally got up and dressed around noon, I got the fireplace all set for tonight's unneeded blaze (but which she loves and has come to expect) I turned on the TV (had to replace the 10,000-hour lamp a couple of months ago) and told her to pick out a DVD. Time passed. She couldn't decide. Or couldn't remember them. Or couldn't remember what she had set out to do. So I suggested that she watch the two years we have of the great 80's TV series "Northern Exposure." Certain that there were more than two seasons available now, I logged on to Amazon and ordered seasons 3-7. Thinking it would cheer her, I walked into the living room and told her that I'd ordered them. She shook her head and said "No!" I asked her why and she said something unintelligible and then waved her hands in dismissal, apparently both of me and the idea of getting more seasons. I don't know. I try. I try so hard. And it is not getting any easier. And it never will. Welcome to Mary's flavor of dementia ,or Alzheimer's, or whatever it is. More of the woman I love evaporates daily.

The other day I was talking to Mary about what I was going to get at the grocery store. I said I'd be getting some things that she might not like and made special reference to lasagna, which I had heard her say she didn't like at one time not long ago. She looked at me straight in the eyes and said, "What is lasagna?" I told her. Then I took an anti-anxiety pill.