Day 1,168 (not) in the Nanny June Care Home

The One With Mixed Messages

I don’t speak to many people on the phone. Video calls are my favourite way to ‘speak’ to people now but there is no denying that phone calls feel more personal and private.

I remember interrupting school trips to find a pay phone to call home and tell my parents I was ok or queuing up at a pay phone on residential youth holidays to call home to hear their voice. At uni, when I lived away, when I moved back... their telephone number was engraved in my memory as the passcode to security and safety, reassurance and rescue.

We’re also creatures of habit, and hearing a certain persons voice brings associations and memories and triggers a feeling we can’t control. When we can’t see a person our imagination creates them sitting there, taking the call. For most of us it isn’t a photographic image but more the essence of who they are, their very being - untouched by time or age or distance.

Talking to Nanny June gave me a false expectation of a phone call that couldn’t be. Her voice, without the visual reminders of fragility and memory loss tricked me into the past. A sort of cruel time travel to the person I have lost - before I lost them. I was almost enjoying the feeling of reliving the past before being hit with the fact I was fielding questions aimed at her sister, about our parents and arranging a visit. Gentle reminders that I am not her sister were (of course) irrelevant and just led to more questions aimed at her sister, about our parents and coming to visit.

Also there were very many issues with Nanny June‘s speech and finding the right words. I am ignoring this. It hurts my head to process that as well.

We ended with:

Me: Okay then, it was lovely to speak to you. Bye.

NJ: It was lovely to say goodbye to you too. Oh.

Me: It’s ok. I knew what you meant.

NJ. Bye.

Me: Bye.

I cried for a bit after that. My brain had tricked me into believing I could relive the past and despite myself I fell for it... but as the saying goes - (now more than ever) “don’t look to the past, we don’t live there anymore”.