Resolutions and Solutions

Preparations

The new year is a few days away, and I’m getting ready. Not for parties or fireworks, but for two long evenings of work.

You should always feel challenged by your job, and I do. Most of the time. But there’s something depressing about working in a nursing home. Especially when the residents are just in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or dementia. You know, the point in the disease where it has started consuming their memories, but not enough so that they are blissfully unaware. It scares me.

I guess it’s my own fault, because I signed up for the shifts, even agreeing to take a third (I also worked there Christmas eve) when asked by my boss.

That’s an odd working relationship right there. I’ve only met my bosses once, though I speak to them at least once a week over the phone- either directly or through a convoluted sort of phone tag. I have more than one boss, and they all work in a little office in the middle of the City. From this office they coordinate available shifts and available students via internet. The system is a well oiled machine.

 I went for the Christmas gathering, where they were offering cakes, mulled wine, and a gift for every employee. They knew me right away, as they recieved a photo with my CV. That, and my accent surely gave me away when I spoke at the doorphone. It was odd to be surrounded by people who knew me- or at least recognized me- and I couldn’t even recognize the voices I had spoken to so often.

It struck me only later that this is what it must be like for people with Alzheimer’s. All of these smiling faces that greet you as an old friend, a welcome addition to a group, and yet not one is familiar. It’s a very disconcerting feeling. Celebrities are also prone to this feeling, I would imagine.

So in preparation of the New Year, I am not planning which dress to wear or which shoes are most convenient for the dash from subway to party. I have no jewelery picked out, and no make-up packed in a purse to be brought along for touch ups. Instead I am preparing to introduce myself to the same people many times over the course of my 8 hour shift, knowing that not a single one of them will remember my name by the time I return the next evening. I am getting ready to smile as I hear the same stories told again and again by the same man, unaware that he finishes only to begin anew.

I don’t know why I keep taking these shifts. One might argue that the staff of the nursing home is kind and easy to work with, and that the pay is good. But none of this really fills the hollow ache that follows me home after each visit. Maybe it’s because I didn’t get to spend the time I wanted to with my own relatives who passed away in nursing homes. Maybe I just want to prepare myself for what awaits me one day.