A Room Without a View

Living in a studio with my mother…I have no privacy. From the beginning 4 years ago I have taken refuge, talked on the phone and occasionally wrote with my laptop sitting on the medical shower chair I placed in front of Milo’s mat, next to the toilet. I added a “boyfriend pillow” (the irony is not lost on me). Notice the kitty litter box (used) and the glass of wine on the tub edge (half gone).  How many crying/laughing/whispered phone conversations have I had with friends while buried in between the shower curtain as I sat on the edge of the tub? I kept encouraging myself with thoughts like some poor people in the world have a family of 10 in a home the size of my bathroom.  For a few moments I looked around at my “office”, and felt like it was actually rather enterprising and creative.  Now, 4  years later it has become a stale joke.  How many times have I  poked my head out of the bathroom to ask if my mother or Milo needed to come in.  Sometimes I would sit on the toilet, head in hands, and tried to figure out my life or what happened to it.  I’ve spent the better part of a week buying 5 different raised attached toilet seats from medical home supply stores..I had to explain to my mother several times that the landlord, Mr. Kaplan, didn’t provide medical home equipment. New York landlords do not provide high toilets.  My mother is a saint….my mother is a saint…repeat 100 times…I must be more patient. This is the mother who took care of her grandmother, depressed mother, my father who had cancer for 10 years, a step-father who had Alzheimer’s for 10 yrs…it was her turn now. Tag, I’m it. It’s my karmic opportunity to repay her in some way for Everything she has done for me. Never let me down. When my father was dying when I was 10, he was 40, she hand made my annual original Halloween costume, a roaring 20s flapper that year.  I always had  birthday parties; ice skating, roller skating, picnics, movie matinees etc. The years she visited me in New York, it was orchestra seats for a Broadway show and dinner someplace fun. Friends were often included. My birthday was May 4th. She promised she would go out – she said dinner and a movie…that was a stretch I thought. Good thing I had back up as my mother just decided she didn’t feel like going out. Of course I argued, but mainly because I was angry she had gotten older and no longer had the umph, even for my birthday.