Recessive Jean

"For nearing its desired end, out intellect sinks into an abyss so deep that memory fails to follow it."

Dante, Divine Comedy

DOB fell. The nursing facility called. I told them I don’t care. I asked them to take me off their call list. They won’t. This is to déjà vu what being tapped on the shoulder is to being hit by a train.

Then DOS called to tell me DOB fell. Oh dear I exclaimed. Drama ensued as the details were related. Details included another move to another room precipitated by another fight between demented other roommates that apparently disrupt the more subdued residents. More time passed. It turned out she was not only fine, but by dinner had no recollection she had fallen at lunch. I think this may have happened before, but to say I no longer have the fucks to remember is like saying I have elevated cholesterol. Last time I bothered to check the overall number was >300.

To say I have zero fucks to give on this matter is to understate the degree to which this latest downfall depressed me. The German word I just made up for this post is unterfockingstadmunt. We’re into negative numbers trying to compute the fucks I give about DOB. Talking to people with these recessive genes on the phone is like entering a denser Higgs field where the drag on every particle of my body increases.

I mean it depressed me. I read an article this morning by somebody who suffers from depression schooling well-meaning people who say the wrong thing to them. It apparently didn’t occur to the author who listed the symptoms of the disease called depression by way of distinguishing it from say, a bad mood, that she missed one. Depressed people believe non-depressed people don’t get them. In her case she mistook my lack of fucks to give for lack of understanding.

I get it. You’re sick. Like cancer. It hurts. Like cancer. It even kills. Like… If I said I feel sorry for you, you’d be pissed. If I said I’d pray for you you certainly should be pissed. If I said I hope you feel better... If I said pretty much anything you’d be pissed. Why? Because you’re fucking depressed. So, since you’re going to blame me for making things worse by trying to make things better, I’ll just say I don’t care. Which is ok by the way, because I’m pissed about being depressed too. So I can use those words and merely sad people can’t.

But look on the bright side. Here’s some cold comfort. I don’t care about DOB slightly more than I don’t care for misunderstood depressives. I care slightly more that a person with depression might be pissed at me for not caring than I care about the depressing fact that while that my link to my dysfunctional in-laws is gone… They. Are. Still. Here.

Apparently, they don’t get me. How depressing.