Memorial Day Weekend Blog

May 25, 2009 - 4:34 PM

It was about time to go see my mom again. And, as you may already know, my mother is severely compromised by her experiences with mental and physical illnesses.

So this weekend, my dad, my boyfriend, and I took the trip to Long Beach, Washington, to see my mother who lives alone on the peninsula.

This time around, my mom seemed to be even worse than usual. She couldn't finish her sentences; she was exhausted and very forgetful. It was the usual symptoms, but they were a bit more serious than they had been in the past.

Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about this. She has an agency that takes care of her on a daily basis, and she is on all of the medications that she needs, which are also updated regularly to make sure that they are appropriate.

So, instead of bemoaning the circumstances, my dad, Collin, and I decided to make it an athletic weekend. We started it off with swimming and hot tubing, which wasn't as athletic, but I think it still counts.

Then the next morning, we all got up and played some tennis. We didn't keep score, but I noticed that I was hitting the ball way better than I have in the past. Then, after a quick lunch and a bit of homework, we hit the golf course for some holes. Again, I surprised myself with some good strokes. I wasn't phenomenal, but the ball went straighter than it has ever gone before, and my putting was also noteworthy.

Actually, I must mention that my mother, who won women's tournaments when she was in her 30s, hit par on one of the holes, which is ASTOUNDING because she can hardly walk around the living room without nearly falling, and she never gets any exercise-let alone shoot a great hole of golf.
Then we took the dog for a walk on the beach for the second time in one day because we felt bad that we had to leave him in the hotel while we golfed.

And then, we woke up again this morning to play a great rally of tennis. It was fantastic, and we were so inspired that when we got back to Portland, we picked up the neighbor's dog and went on a hike in the Hoyt Arboretum.

It felt so good to get a lot of exercise in this weekend, especially because it would be easy to let all of the other depressing factors affect the mood.