Everyday Feels Like Ground Hog Day

I feel like I am in the movie Groundhog Day. As in the movie, each morning that I wake up it is again Ground Hog Day. The same day continually repeats: the same events -big and small, the same conversations, the same problems and the same weather. That is how it is here in my life with Susan; each day we wake up only to repeat what happened the day before. Things may take a different twist from time to time, as there are slight variations in each day’s events. Unlike Bill Murray, who stars in the movie, it is not my alarm clock that wakes me each morning. Here, it is Susan that brings me out of my sleep and into my day; my day that will be much like yesterday, which was much like the day before and the day before that.

If Susan manages to rise before me, she ensures that I quickly follow her by making lots of loud familiar noises in the kitchen that draw me straight up in my bed and sleep no longer is an option. Usually it is the microwave that inevitably ends up on ‘fan’ instead of power. But the sound of the running fan tricks Susan into thinking that her water is being heated. Finally I hear the microwave open again and than slam back as Susan replaces her cold cup there and tries other buttons for power. Over and over this is done causing all sorts of buzzes and beeps until eventually (by chance) the right button is pushed and the water is heated for coffee. Than the usual slam- slam- slam as she again attempts to find the instant coffee that is always in the same familiar place; still she can’t seem to locate it. I feel my brain repeating the words as though mental telepathy will send them her way, “corner cupboard, Susan, corner cupboard. Get the clear jar or you will end up with lumpy coffee again.” Cupboards bang and I hear other things rattle and slam. With the vision of the dirty dishes I have seen being neatly tucked into the cupboards lately and the clean items I have found in the garbage, I feel compelled into fast motion now. I wonder as I hurry what food items Susan might attempt to prepare for her self. It is like she is the magnet and I am just a piece of scrap metal being drawn directly into the kitchen, usually before the sun is fully peeping through the windows.

Or on luckier days when I am up first, I tiptoe desperately around the kitchen as I cook the oatmeal and two separate pots of coffee (hers is decaf) along with toast or whatever else Susan and I might be having for breakfast that morning. I probably resemble a house mouse that doesn’t want to be discovered by the cat that is surely lurking nearby. No, I don’t want to be found out. Just a few more minutes of normalcy over one cup of coffee with no noise will directly determine how I can handle the rest of the morning. Each moment of peace gives me a few bolts of psychological power that boosts my ability to deal. So that is why I sneak about my own kitchen morning after morning desperately trying not to bang or pop or squeak a thing for fear that the noise of it will travel beyond the kitchen border and without fail will bring Susan scooting toward the kitchen. Nonetheless she comes right on cue.

Her daily “Good morning, Karen; Did you sleep good.” never fails to give me hope that today will be different, perhaps somewhat normal. But within a few minutes I inevitably realize that this is all just wishful thinking on my part. But I never fail to hope and wish. Breakfast is made and we eat by the window looking into the back yard. I always attempt to have a pleasant conversation, which usually starts with pointing out what a beautiful day it is outside, to which Susan agrees, but always adds, “But I am cold Karen. I am so cold that I had to get up to drink coffee to warm up my stomach.” I am sympathetic on cold days and skeptical on warm ones. I look at the layers she is wearing topped off at the neck by her silk scarf that falls haphazardly over her always-unmatched ensemble. It is cute in a way but it makes me sad, sad that this once stylish woman is now adorned with stylish things in unstylish ways. My heart grows softer when Susan’s vulnerabilities are more evident.

I know that I must be gentle and kind and protect her mostly from herself. So I linger at the table longer than I really want to because I know she wants to talk, to feel normal, like she is having breakfast with another person and having a normal conversation. Part of our conversation is normal: the weather, the food and how she feels. But the rest of it is so 'out there' that I am always tempted to get up and do something important, something real. But my heart tells me that this is important and very real in Susan’s mind. Her things are not missing, her children in other states are not about to arrive, her mother was not there last night and her husband is not fishing. Steering the conversation so that Susan is not constantly confronted with the deterioration of her memory is something I am becoming good at. Surely the thought of her own forgetfulness scares her and causes her to become more feisty and irritable, probably because she wants to fight it away.

Having a fighting spirit is not new to Susan. The sad thing is that this fighting upsets her and I worry that it threatens to worsen her condition with the stress it brings her way. She often insists on things that are not true and fights to make us believe them. When she realizes she has forgotten simple things she often screams that she is not crazy yet. She says it almost as though she feels insanity lurking but is desperately hanging on to the sanity. I don’t blame her. It must be such a scary and confusing thing that she is going through.

As the day proceeds I am bombarded with the same questions as yesterday and the same struggles as the day before. “Who is coming today? My things are missing. Someone is sneaking in when we are not home. When will Stefanie arrive? Can we pick up my car at the apartment? When will Jeff come to visit us? What are we going to eat? What are you cooking?” Déjà vu. It is Ground Hog Day again. Like Bill, I can’t seem to break through to the next day where things are not the same. I can picture myself mouthing, as Bill did, the lines that will be said next, because I know, because we’ve done this scene before. I am saying something like, “Susan isn’t really going into her room to sleep, she will be back in two minutes.” I watch my clock and she comes back into the hall right on cue as if we have rehearsed this scene over and over. “Now she is going to ask me if she took her medicine and I am going to say, ‘yes you did’.” Nothing is new. Nothing is really the same.