MIL is now in her new digs. We were really lucky they had an opening. It's nothing fancy, but the people are nice. It's hard to imagine MIL in a place without her beautiful things around her. She is an artist, and having visual stimulation was always really important. It all had to be left behind. Tomorrow SIL and I will be going through and boxing it up.

SIL is taking it hard. She wasn't here to see the decline. On the phone, MIL always sounded better than she actually was. Even being here, there were things going on that neither I nor her care worker picked up on. For SIL, putting her into a home is the beginning of the end. I have a hard time knowing what to say. It's probably selfish of me, but I am relieved to be relieved of the responsibility.

I feel like I've been in a pressure cooker situation of one kind or another for too long. Before MIL, it was years and years of train wreck after train wreck. With the possibility of freedom dangling before my eyes, it's hard not to say 'I'm ready to be done'. I didn't want to allow myself to acknowledge that before.

If I'm sad about anything, it's that I feel MIL and SIL both deserve better. They deserve someone who will be truly sorrowful and mourn with them over this change of events. I'm sad for them. I'm sad out of empathy. But I'm not sad for myself other than for the fact that I don't feel what I think I should feel.