{"id":4525,"date":"2012-09-28T11:03:24","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T16:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/?p=4525"},"modified":"2012-09-28T11:03:24","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T16:03:24","slug":"a-genius-for-self-delusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/a-genius-for-self-delusion\/","title":{"rendered":"A Genius for Self-Delusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Self-Denial-and-Fall.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4526\" title=\"Self-Denial and Fall\" src=\"http:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Self-Denial-and-Fall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Self-Denial-and-Fall.jpg 640w, https:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Self-Denial-and-Fall-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Self-Denial-and-Fall-449x300.jpg 449w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It may be impolite to brag about one&#8217;s accomplishments, but I&#8217;m gonna buck convention and admit my absolute genius for self-delusion. In the past month, I&#8217;ve convinced myself that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>eating large amounts of chocolate won&#8217;t result in weight gain if combined with exercise,<\/li>\n<li>our new grandchild would be born before his\/her due date,<\/li>\n<li>and publishers would snap up my book proposal about post-traumatic stress disorder in children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If it weren&#8217;t for cold, hard facts like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>my jeans fitting a bit to snuggly,<\/li>\n<li>our daughter-in-law now a week past her due date,<\/li>\n<li>and the sweetest rejection letter ever from the first publisher to respond to my agent about the book proposal,<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I would still be wrapped in those delusions. Instead, I&#8217;ve moved onto new ones. My two favorites are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s still summer.<\/li>\n<li>Mom&#8217;s holding her own in the fight against Alzheimer&#8217;s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But brilliant foliage of the trees along our gravel road forced the abandonment of the first bit of self-delusion. Two phone calls with Mom shattered the second one.<\/p>\n<p>She called yesterday morning, something she rarely takes the initiative to do. &#8220;Any news on the baby?&#8221; she asked.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; I answered, &#8220;and it&#8217;s getting really hard to wait. I was hoping the baby would be born today, on your mom&#8217;s birthday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That would have been nice, &#8221; she agreed. &#8220;But Jolene, if the waiting&#8217;s hard for you, think how much harder it is for Abbey.&#8221; She sounded so much like her old self, I wondered if the prospect of being a great-grandmother was winning the war against mental decline.<\/p>\n<p>But she called again later in the afternoon. &#8220;What&#8217;s my old address?&#8221; she asked.<\/p>\n<p>I told her and asked, &#8220;Why did you need that?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m filling out this registration form to prove I live in a different county. It asks for my former address.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Is this so you can vote for president?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she replied. After a pause she asked, &#8220;What&#8217;s today&#8217;s date?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now it was my turn to hesitate. Every year until this one, my mother spent all September anticipating her mother&#8217;s birthday, talking about her, telling stories, saying she missed her. This year, she didn&#8217;t know what day it was, even though I&#8217;d mentioned it in our last phone call.<\/p>\n<p>I swallowed and said, &#8220;September 27. It&#8217;s your mom&#8217;s birthday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We chatted for a few minutes. I teased her about who she would vote for. I promised to call her as soon as we heard anything about the baby. Then I hung up, let go of my delusion, and faced the truth:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mom&#8217;s memory is failing.<\/li>\n<li>Alzheimer&#8217;s is chewing more holes in her brain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the other hand:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She knows who she&#8217;ll vote for in the presidential election.<\/li>\n<li>She&#8217;s eager for news of her first great-grandchild.<\/li>\n<li>She can still call and talk on the phone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>She may be failing, but her life, and ours, are rich with memories. And when she can&#8217;t remember anymore, we&#8217;ll remember for her.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That&#8217;s not self-delusion.<\/li>\n<li>That&#8217;s love.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It may be impolite to brag about one&#8217;s accomplishments, but I&#8217;m gonna buck convention and admit my absolute genius for self-delusion. In the past month, I&#8217;ve convinced myself that: eating large amounts of chocolate won&#8217;t result in weight gain if combined with exercise, our new grandchild would be born before his\/her due date, and publishers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[59,404,818,1875],"class_list":["post-4525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walking-down-the-gravel-road","tag-alzheimers","tag-fall","tag-mom","tag-self-delusion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Genius for Self-Delusion - Jolene Philo Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Genius for Self-Delusion - Jolene Philo Staging\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It may be impolite to brag about one&#8217;s accomplishments, but I&#8217;m gonna buck convention and admit my absolute genius for self-delusion. 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