The Lit Path

Visiting my grandmother (my mom’s mother) in her nursing home always freaks me out. It shouldn’t by now, she’s been there for over a year and I go to sit with her quite often, but still, each time I enter her building my thoughts start racing and I panic.

It’s a combination of a lot of different things, I suppose. The never-ending bells ringing out over the intercom system, signaling that a resident is in distress and needs a nurse to help them in their room. Rows of wheelchairs always parked in front of a huge TV, while the residents sit with their heads lolling to the side, their mouths hanging open while they stare glassy-eyed at whatever show happens to be blaring on the screen, drowning out the steady rhythms of the oxygen machines that keep them breathing, because they are sitting in the "Living Room" after all.

The building is full of these kinds of reassuring labels that try to project a quaint atmosphere to counter the odious reality. Wooden plaques with names like “Sweet Meadows” hang above hallways where residents are either hollering out from their rooms or are wandering aimlessly through the corridors, looking lost and not knowing where they are as they walk in slow motion through a strange dream that never ends. A woman hobbles along with her walker, looking for her newborn baby. One man is yelling at a wall. My grandmother thinks she has spent the morning at a farm in Minnesota.

She is confused a lot. She can never decide what she thinks of me. Her opinion wavers greatly. Some days she tells me that I’m a lovely girl. Some days she tells me that I am no longer allowed to look at her face. I don’t take it personally, of course. She can’t think clearly these days. But sometimes, she does have brief moments of clarity:

“I don’t know what the hell God is doing,” she told me once. “This isn’t a life. This is just a bad joke.”

She is blunt and sharp at the same time.

It's a Sunday evening and we are walking through halls lined with soft paintings of aspen tree groves, bridges over calm rivers, sail boats safe in their harbors. But not even these paintings cast in their soft, comforting light can alleviate my panic as my pulse starts that old familiar racing. We are on our way to the dining room.

I hate the dining room.

The residents wearing their bibs; the overwhelming smell of gravy coating the air; nurses shoveling food into the Alzheimer patients’ mouths; workers moving from table to table with clipboards, carefully scrutinizing the trays left behind as they record how much each person has eaten.

I hate the dining room.

While my grandma eats, I study the week’s menu. Every single entrée has some sort of meat, vegetables soaked in butter, canned fruit in heavy syrup, and greasy biscuits. This is when I really start to panic, when my mind starts to worry about what I am going to do when I’m 80 years old and I'll have to eat whatever they put in front of me. My grandmother is saying something to me, but I can’t hear her because my mind is so far away, paralyzed with worry over what I’m going to have to eat for dinner 53years from now.

After we say goodbye to my grandmother and I am safe in the car with my mom, finally driving away from the nursing home, I am suddenly struck with just how ridiculous my worries are. This is what it is like to have an eating disorder. You will fearfully plan out your meals decades in advance. It is an absurd, sad way to live.

At times like these, I think about a passage I once read in a book by Melody Beattie. She writes:

“Sometimes the way is foggy and slippery, and we have no hope. All we can feel is fear. All we can see is the dark. I was driving one night in weather like this. I don't like driving, and I particularly don't like driving in bad weather. I was stiff and frightened at the wheel. I could barely see; the headlights were only illuminating a few feet of the road. I was almost blind. I started to panic. Anything could happen! Then, a calming thought entered my mind. The path was only lit for a few feet, but each time I progressed those few feet, a new section was lit. It didn't matter that I couldn't see far ahead. If I relaxed, I could see as far as I needed for the moment. The situation wasn't ideal, but I could get through it if I stayed calm and worked with what was available. You can get through dark situations, too. You can take care of yourself and trust yourself. Go as far as you can see, and by the time you get there, you'll be able to see farther."

I always try to look too far ahead into the future, too far down the path, and of course all I can see is darkness because I am trying to see into the unknown. It’s a pointless thing to do. All it does is paralyze me with fear. And when I’m straining to see what lies far ahead in the distance, I completely overlook the lit section of path right in front of my feet, telling me where to plant my next step.

As I was driving away from the nursing home with my mom, I thought of this passage and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. We made our way through a winding road that cuts through a park. The sun was setting and the tree branches overhead were fading into wispy silhouettes against the sky. And then, as we drove beside a small pond, our headlight beams fell upon a single crane floating over the water’s rippling surface that was glowing pink as it reflected the sunset above us.

And I thought to myself, life can be like this sometimes. It doesn’t have to be filled with constant panic and fear. It can be soft like this.

As difficult as it is to do, I’m trying to rip my focus from the distant horizon and redirect it to the lit path beneath me. Because it’s exhausting trying to always guess what is lurking ahead in the darkness.

I want to see what’s in the light.