This Isn't The Life I’d Imagined, Thank Goodness

I sure didn't see this coming...but if I'd gotten what I'd expected, I'd have shortchanged myself

Oct 28, 2025

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I have no idea who I am. This is not the life I’d imagined. For one, I’m way too aware of shit cycles that involve asses other than my own.

7:30 am—Mom sits on the commode for the third time this morning. When did I become okay being the overweight 68-year-old woman dancing for the delight of a 95-year-old demented alter kaker, keeping her entertained long enough for gravity to do its job pulling out poop1 that has been inside her for at least six days.

Who is that in my mirror?
Where is the wild red hair, the toughness and leather, the spitting image of Cher as Rusty Dennis in Mask that I was?

Out and about on the street with bed hair? Dinner used to be more than handfuls of sliced turkey while standing in front of an open refrigerator hoping something will magically appear, cook, plate and clean up after itself. I had a day job. A large circle of friends. I might not have always been the best me, but I was me and I could tell you about myself.

Now I don’t recognize myself in a whole new way.

I’m the caregiver for a parent who is dying at a barely detectable, infinitesimally slow pace. A banana slug moves approximately 0.006 miles per hour, the movement driven, if you can call that driving, by mucus. A sloth’s metabolism is so slow it can take a month to digest a single leaf.

I’m a caregiver for a banana sloth.

A care plan was set up, should she outlive me, as one does when one adopts a parrot, a cockatoo or an albatross, but no one adopts an albatross. Except me.

She is my albatross.

I dance in front of her, until a poop smell wafts over me and I know that after six days of everything going in—Miralax, Milk of Magnesia, Stewed Prunes, Biscoydal—something is finally coming out of my 95-year-old beloved banana-batross’s ass.

Is this who I am now?
I used to dance for dollars. Now, I’m dancing for poop.
Definitely not the direction I saw my life going.
My high school yearbook didn’t have me listed as most likely to dance for poop. Or dollars for that matter, so…

I’m also someone who doesn’t get sick.
Instead, I get hurt.

And despite the dancing for dollars, I’ve always been an ungraceful, awkward thing. It didn’t matter, once you’re naked, no one really expects Misty Copeland or Twyla Tharp.

I used to be a Timex, I could take a licking and keep on ticking.

Now, instead of the lollipops I got at the pediatrician, every ER visit someone slaps a yellow FALL RISK polyester bracelet on me. That would’ve been the practical choice for my knuckle tattoo instead what I wound up with2. How many Polyesters would be spared if I showed up in the ER pre-labeled? I could’ve been the Jane Goodall of Polyesters.

It’s been suggested—more than once—I start thinking about a walker.
“That’s not how you see yourself, is it?” the ER doc asked.
I have knuckle tattoos. Piercings—in places you can’t see. Wild stories. I’m a bad ass.
A walker? Nah, I thought, that’s not who I am.
Maybe it is, though.

I’ve broken…toes, wrists, nose, another wrist, a toe..well, it’s quicker to show you.

Yes, I’ve broken things often enough it requires a spreadsheet.
Some people scrapbook. I spreadsheet.

Writing and spreadsheets are the only ways I know to make sense of ~~the~~ my world.

Head, shoulders, wrists knees & toes.

After multiple breaks and macerated knees, I’ve lost the instinct to protect my face, avoiding instead, any additional pain and damage to my extremities by throwing my arms back and free falling as one does when skydiving. Except skydiving involves a parachute, free falling in the street is more a wing and a prayer kind of landing. Last week, I completed a full circle around that song—I broke my fall with my head.

I spent a day in the ER of a crummy hospital where blue gowns are for regular people, yellow…for irregular people. One grimy little man walked around wearing just a diaper and a look of confusion while another equally squalid yelled, “I want my clothes,” repeatedly, for over an hour.

Each had lost their yellow hospital gown.

In triage, they said, “At your age, you should have a CT scan.”
Was that necessary? That first clause? You should have a CT scan is a complete sentence that did not need modifying.

This visit wasn’t my plan. Not the falling. Not cracking my head. Not the ER.
The plan had been to go food shopping.

Hi. My name is Jodi. I’m an alcoholic. I have alcoholic peripheral neuropathy. When you step on an uneven, wobbly or slippery surface your brain knows immediately and autocorrects for it. You probably don’t even notice.

That’s not me.
My brain doesn’t actually get the message.
Like, not ever.
Like moved, no forwarding address.
I don’t know I’m falling until I see the ground speeding towards me.

I don’t know I’m falling until it’s too late to stop.

Add a walker, I’d crack my chin on the crossbar on my way down.
I have no trouble walking. I can walk for hours.

I have trouble keeping myself, well, up.

When I close my eyes, if I’m not touching a wall or sitting down, I’ll fall over. Weebles wobble, but Jodis fall down. Even sober Jodis, which seems highly unfair. You know how you start lip reading before you’re really aware of your hearing loss? You hear yourself say—Wait, I can’t hear you, I don’t have my glasses on—I use my vision to stay upright. My brain chooses a point on the horizon, or closer and compensates.

I need to see to remain standing upright.

Six hours of ER insanity, three CT scans, one EKG, five stitches.

An equal opportunity outdoor faller, I’ve gone down on sidewalks and in the middle of Eighth Avenue. One day there’ll be a car heading towards me, unable to stop in time.

That knowledge should be enough to stop me from jaywalking.
Nah—that’s not who I am either.

Say hello to my little friend. He needs a name and a good backstory….

Keep your awareness in your feet, they say.

Look buddy, I’m listening for dogs who want to say hello to me.
I’m scanning for what might make an interesting photo.
I write in my head when I walk, making mental notes for later. This was a completely different essay before walking to the subway. Have you any idea how difficult it is to parse a good sentence AND scan the sidewalk for cracks AND look out for dogs and cars and sidewalk poop AND pay attention to how your feet feel?

Look up “Can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” Here, let me save you the trouble.

So who am I now?

I can’t feel my feet. Don’t remember the last time I brushed my hair or applied eyeliner. I keep jeans in three different sizes. I own a dozen pair of glasses from yellow to red & white polka dots and let’s not forget my rhinestoned readers. Yes, I’m that chubby white-haired lady in rhinestoned glasses, with a second pair on the top of her head. I wear sensible shoes and boldly striped compression socks because of the whole can’t walk and chew gum thing.

Adding a walker to all of that would be…well, even bedazzled, a walker and knuckle tattoos? I might as well give up and go all socks with sandals.

I’m a lady who dances for poop—specifically and solely, I dance for Mom’s poop. While this has the possibility to be a new career path, I’m going to allow that thought go unnoticed—forget I even mentioned it.

I thought I’d be:
—be dead by 23; or
—a garbageman or a famous actress; or
—have a farm house and fall in love with a small town vet like Diane Keaton and Sam Shepard in Baby Boom — without the baby part. Just tick tick Boom.

I thought there’d be a small town. A weather-beaten face. That I’d die young, famous or both.

I may imagine myself as Xena’s Hebrew cousin, Yetta the Warrior Princess, but the mirror reflects someone named, “Ma’am” in rhinestoned readers and comfortable shoes. Someone with bandaids in her wallet, hard candies in her pocket and a tissue in her sleeve. Someone who spends more time thinking about some old woman’s poop than she does her own appearance.

The cash and prizes never look the way you expect them to. And thank goodness for that.

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