Just now I slipped into morbidity and thought, maybe my eulogy or my headstone, might say ” She got too mentally involved with shit that didn’t relate to her actual life, and missed out on a shit ton that was awesome.”

I promptly went outside, pulled weeds and watched the sunset… Who the hell does Future Mandie appoint as their sponsored voice in something like a eulogy or a head stone?   Hopefully, they are more poignant than my reckless imagination.

I have been thinking and talking about death quite a bit in the last couple of weeks.  It brings my attention to the ways I avoid administrative type tasks in my adulthood.  The shit no one wants to deal with.

A couple of weeks ago, my uncle forgot to tell me that he would be late coming over in the morning.  He basically has consistent “AM Grandma (or in his case MOM) duty.”  He is single, without kids, and structured, but creative.  He understands I stay up late, to capture some hours with out responsibility.  It works out well.

Anyway, he forgets to tell me he will be late, and at 9:30 am, I walk out into a dark hallway, and hear my grandma’s dog scratching on her door.  I get the dog out to pee, and open the curtains, and immediately ponder why the hell my Uncle isn’t here yet.

He is anal retentive about making sure if one of us has “schedule changes”, that the other one is up to date on what the what is.  So… THE FIRST THING that comes to my mind is ; “How long do you wait to do a welfare check on someone who you see everyday, but lives alone, so far as you know single and basically shares little to nothing about their personal life?”

I mean… “He seems healthy, but what the fuck do I know?”

I tried calling.  I send a couple of text messages.  I got grandma up, and made breakfast… He finally got a hold of me around 11:30, saying he was “on his way.”  I didn’t bring it up.  He didn’t offer to explain.  But, since then, I have been going through some adult administrative mental anxiety starting with that question… how long do you wait to call for welfare checks?

Would one of his friend/bandmates do it before me?

How exactly does he structure his time to commitments?  Who relies on his reliability?  (He is really reliable, but sometimes unexpected.)

Who are his Emergency Contacts?  Should I at least be acquainted to them?

What do I do about……..?

He holds the vault for my grandma both financially and medically…  I buy the groceries, but I am not on the bank account.  I make sure my grandma takes her PM pills, but I don’t know what they are all for.. though I know I could google it easily.  He attends her appointments, and fills prescriptions that don’t arrive by mail.

What if?  What if one day, my Uncle is driving to band practice down the road from Cheyenne, into Colorado, on the highway, and he is in a fatal accident?  Worst-fucking-case-scenario; am I able to step up or in, or do I have to just pass administration over to the last surviving son, who only shows up once a week and never seems to bring anything helpful to the table, when it actually comes to CARE?

Then I think about HAVING to force communication with a person who has no respect for me as a human, and has done just about everything possible in their power to treat me like I don’t exist; all while training his family to act in accordance…. and I damn near shit my pants.

That’s it.  That’s all.

I need to have some serious and uncomfortable conversations with people who avoid conversations like this, at all costs.  Fuck.