If I Disappear...

 ...don't necessarily fear the worst, although I will say that lately it seems as if the world is spinning off its axis like an imbalanced, out of control top. So why should my life remain immune to the chaos?

    This is the first post I've ever written, in nearly 18 years of blogging, on an Android. It's sucking up huge amounts of data, I'm sure, but, since this morning, it's been my only link to the outside world.

     That's because when I got up today, I immediately discovered my internet connection was gone. It's now 8:15 pm EST and it's still gone. After investigating what I could on my end, the only consistent explanation I've read is that my DSL signal got lost and I don't know how to get it back. I just called my ISP's help desk and was told, after wasting 15 minutes on their electronic menu, that their offices were closed (tip: you might want to lead with that next time).

     This all happened less than half a day after I got banned on Facebook for using the word "bullet".  Add to this madness Boris Johnson being forced out of #10 (but not really) and former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe getting assassinated last night.

     None of those things have anything to do with us in Casa de Pottersville and yet the suspicion that all this is interconnected can't or won't leave. I feel as my life as I know it is coming to some catastrophic end.

     Yesterday was Mrs. JP's birthday. A dear friend of ours came over from Waltham to take us to historic Concord. But we had to cut the trip short when my better half's medical issues were getting conspicuous.

     And unless you've lived with and cared for someone with dementia, you'll never know the daily tragedy awaiting me. It's as if some celestial artist is erasing her line by line until there's nothing now left of her but a faint outline of the woman she used to be. Or having your soulmate of 13 years asking you what your name is.

     This has been my life for the last several years and, as per dementia of any kind, it gets worse. You hold out and wait for the good days until you finally have to confront the reality that all good days are a thing of the past and that your future consists entirely of just bad days and worse days.

     Yesterday was supposed to be a good day for her became it was her birthday. It wasn't. She dragged herself up the stairs and immediately went to bed. And I woke up this morning to discover, through no fault of our own, that we're even more isolated from the world than dementia had already made us. And, as with the dementia, I'm powerless to either mitigate or reverse it.

     So, if I go for days then weeks without posting, it's not necessarily because things are bad. Just know that things are never good any more, either.