Getting my legs back
I’m in the Big Apple. It’s 3 P.M.
Which means it’s noon back in California, back where my parents are. They should be awake, and if all is normal, my dad should be sitting on his usual couch—doing nothing, just sitting there, like normal.
But I don’t know if things are ‘normal,’ at least not for sure.
I pull out my phone and open an app that lets me view the two security cameras I installed inside my parents’ house; one that views the kitchen, and one for the living room. I bought the cameras thinking that if I could check in and see with my own eyes, that my parents are okay, then that would free me to be wherever I wanted to be in the world.
In a sense, that’s what I’m in New York for, to answer the question: “Could I live away from my parents?”
The view loads, the one of the living room. My dad is there, sitting on the couch, legs propped up on the coffee table.
And then I swap cameras to see the kitchen.
And in that instant, I get the answer I’m looking for.
At the end of most of my recent days, the feeling I’ve been left with is paralysis.
It’s a sort of depression, a numbness, to not know what to do about anything or how I feel about anything.
I know this is environmentally induced; I spend nearly almost my entire day ignoring my own agency and thinking about somebody else. I build my schedule around my mom’s inability to drive. I only cook things that my parents will eat, which doesn’t always align with what I’d like to cook. I have to walk around the house with headphones on because my dad insists on watching news on the TV for five hours a day.
It’s his way of feeling connected to the world; who am I to take that from him?
I used to argue about it in the beginning, I used to ask him to turn the volume down. But after a while I just got tired of doing it, and the myriad of other small adjustments I had to always make. And I was the one who always had to make those adjustments.
Because the truth is, the one with Alzheimer’s has all the power.
But if this is environmentally induced, then that solution is to change the environment, right? Can’t I just move out and have my own place to go home to?
That’s sort of the problem with feeling numb; it’s really hard to get out of. I don’t know where to move to, I don’t know what’s the right choice.
I like visiting New York, but will I like living there? Will my parents be okay without me? Will I be okay, without being within driving distance of my parents? What about my brother and his family? Could I do San Francisco instead?
I’ll spare you the other two dozen questions that swirled in my head.
Thank god, that I have some experience in this situation, and some former friends who once gave me sound advice during that time: Stop overthinking things; if you don’t know what to do, go get information.
When you don’t know what to do, move—figuratively and literally.
So I did. I came to New York. If I want to know if I’ll like living in New York, if my parents will be okay without me, there’s nothing better than testing that out for three weeks.
It’s funny how very quickly you start developing your muscles again once you start actually using them. That’s a weird, seemingly contradictory point, isn’t it? You don’t wait for your muscles to be strong to use them; you use them while they’re weak in order for them to become strong. You just do it gently, carefully, adding on resistance over time.
So that’s what I’ve been doing. I pretend that I live out here in New York. I buy my own food, build my own day, go to the gym when I want to, see the people I want to see, when I want to see them.
And, as answers always do, they come hunting for you, and not the other way around.
It’s a random New York afternoon. I’m not ready to make any decisions, I’m just going about my own life, when I suddenly start wondering about my parents. And when I do, I open that security cam app. I see my dad. And then I swap cameras to the kitchen.
It’s empty for a moment.
And then I see my mom. She walks into the kitchen wearing her blue polo shirt, the one she always wears outdoors, the one that says ’Jesus loves you’ in a mix of simplified and traditional Chinese characters which bothers me every time I see it. She’s wearing her white outdoors pants. Maybe she’s about to go for a walk, or coming home from one.
It feels surreal. Almost like I’m viewing a video log of my memories. I want to speak to her. To say hi. But I’d know that she wouldn’t hear me. I can’t interact with her anymore.
And then I snap out of it. Of course I can talk to her. I could literally just, speak. The camera has that function. I could also just pick up the phone and call. I could jump on a plane back and fly to say ‘hi.’
And in that moment, it hits me. I tell myself I’m ready for a world where she’s not here, but I’m really not. I don’t know if I can move out here to New York. I started looking up jobs, places to live, hobbies and social organizations I could get into. It all makes sense. I like this place. I like it a lot. I want to move here. I love the energy. I feel alive; there’s so much to do and see and to explore, and the fact that New York is a place that you can never fully know actually excites me, not terrifies me. It is a land where there will always be something new.
But maybe now isn’t the right time. Maybe it will never be the right time.
And if we carve out what our lives will look like based on the kind of people we simply want to be, then my choice is honestly rather simple.
I want to live my own life again, but I want my parents, and my brother’s family, to be some part of that life. That means foregoing New York—for now—and staying in the Bay Area.
I still have to move out, that much is certain. I’ll probably pick up a full-time job again. I’ll make some new friends, keep seeing my old ones. I’ll pick up a few new hobbies and discover what the rest of San Francisco and the Bay Area has to offer.
I can do that. I can do all of that. It seems so obvious now, but I was so unsure of it months, even weeks ago.
It’s funny how quickly you can spot where steps five, six and seven are, once you’re willing to take steps one and two. Once you’re willing to put yourself in environments where you can feel again, where you can trust yourself again.
It seems weird to fly out to New York, to spend three weeks there, just to decide to stay in the Bay Area. It was a weird feeling, watching my mom appear on my phone and have that moment reveal to me my immediate next steps. But I think, in my heart, my gut, I knew. I knew the answer. I’ve always known.
I just never let myself feel it.