Super Blue Full Moon in Aquarius Monday Morning Check-In Post

How Are YOU??

The moon will be full in Aquarius at 1:26 pm Central Time today. Ah, lovely Aquarius, with its embrace and love of humanity and its struggle with actually being a human.

That would be me I am talking about.

Today could be an emotional day with the super and blue full moon in Aquarius (full of emotions and not sure how to feel them or what to do with them) coupled with Jupiter, the planet of expansion and luck squaring off with boring old Saturn (rules and order, blech, but it’s in retrograde and in Pisces which is again why it may feel tough to work right now). At the same time, Mercury is retrograde in Leo (me, me, it’s all about ME!).

The effects of all of this along with the other squares (Venus squaring Jupiter and the Sun and Moon T-squaring Uranus) and oppositions (Venus opposing Saturn, Moon opposing Mercury, and Sun opposing Moon) happening today will be felt for some time with events playing out over the weeks ahead. Expect the unexpected (I am looking at you Uranus).

The moon will move into Pisces at 5:50pm Central and at that point, any emotions you’ve not gotten in touch with will certainly start to show themselves to you. As always, the element of water is a wonderful support as a conduit for any feeling state that causes discomfort from repression to overwhelm.

“Nora, there was only one full moon in August, so how is it that this full moon is blue?”

I’m glad you asked. Only during a Mercury retrograde would some archaic system of blue moons come into play. Not only is the full moon blue if it’s the second one in a single month, but it is also blue if it’s the third one in a series of four full moons in a single season.

It’s spot on for me that this moon is blue, which is also my mood. Blue. This shit with my mother is hard. Two decades ago I enacted boundaries there for my own mental and emotional health and well-being, but this does not mean that I do not care about her.

It is heartbreaking to have to distance myself from someone I love, and when that someone is my mother………I don’t have words right now. For any of you who have had to enact boundaries with someone you love, I know you know well what I am sharing here.

She is in good hands it seems at the memory care community she is housed in. She’s locked in so she can not wander. A wandering episode precipitated her move from her Ohio home into a facility in Michigan earlier this summer. From what I can gather she and I were on the move around the same time, and she is now closer to Chicago than she was just a few months ago.

I am contemplating going to see her. The last time I saw her was in 2019 when her sister died. I drove down from Ojai to Orange County, CA to be with her and the rest of the family who had flown in to gather there. It was then that I, along with everyone else there, noticed that my mother’s memory lapses were more dramatic than they had been before.

Back in 2015, she asked me what I was doing for Bernie’s campaign and then the next time we spoke she asked me again. I was frustrated back then as I thought that was just the regular version of my mother not remembering things I had told her. She was so frequently not present that she often told me or my sister the same thing multiple times and/or got mad at us for not knowing things she swore she had told us and/or often claimed not to remember important things we had told her. Her drinking played a part in this as well. So, I assumed in 2015, that it was just this, and now I think this was when her Alzheimer’s symptoms began to present.

At the memorial for my aunt in 2019, my mother’s remaining half-sister expressed concern. I volunteered to talk with my mother about her memory gaps. I took her out to brunch on the last day we were together after her sister’s death before dropping her off at the airport where she would fly home to Cleveland.

I waited for the perfect moment, putting the need to have this conversation in the field around us, and waited until I felt it arrive. We were almost done with breakfast and were relaxed in one another’s presence.

“Hey Mom,” I started gently. “I notice that you may be having some issues with your memory.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

“Have you talked with your doctor about it?” I asked.

“Not yet, but I will,” she said.

Before saying goodbye I asked about it again and she assured me she would set up an appointment.

Two years later she would call me to tell me she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I had already spoken with a cousin of hers who was with my mother at the doctor and told me the diagnosis was dementia. Our mother’s financial advisor also corrected my sister and told her it was not Alzheimer’s but dementia. I don’t know if this was denial on their part or if her diagnosis at some point changed, but she has Alzheimer’s.

“You have to let people help you now,” I said. “You have to let the love in.”

I guess that was too much for her as that was one of the last times she and I spoke.

The details of her diagnosis and current cognitive state are something my sister and I only got clear information on last week.

She is in moderate-stage Alzheimer’s. As predictable as this is for someone who began leaving me when I was eight years old, it’s also devastating for all of us, her and everyone around her, everyone who loves her.

To distract myself I have been out of the apartment a lot the past week going to street fairs (I love it when the city gives the streets to the people and their art) and shopping and dog parks and restaurants and thrifting and just wandering the city, anywhere and everywhere but at home with my thoughts, much like my mother often did.

How are You?? Please drop me a comment below and let me know.

P.S. I am not looking for any advice here. If I need advice I’ll certainly ask for it. I am sharing to share as it is healing for me to share.

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