This is not a cry for help or sympathy. Please refrain from feeling sorry for me or my family if that happens to be your emotional response to this piece.

The first vivid memory i still have access to is from when I was 5. I made my first friend with the line, "hey you're the birthday boy, right?" Nolan was and took the bait; we became friends.

I do not have as specific of a first memory of my mom. I do not know how or why the brain works in my case here. I would prefer to have my first friend memory be hazier and my mom dropping me off for first day or kindergarten be more clear.

A vivid earlyish memory I do have is when she picked my friends and I up from 3rd grade one afternoon after school to go see the new christmas movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jingle All the Way, in theaters. It was one of my highlights that year, which I would guess to be 1996. To this day I still have to put my family through a viewing of it around the Christmas holiday.

I love no one in this world more than my dear mother. Things have become harder for her in recent years. The doctors say it's early Alzheimer's and not to be insensitive, but I do not believe them. I think like me, they have not a fucking clue. I digress.

I just want my mom to be happy and not apologize for her "condition" as they call it. If anyone owes apologies, I know I probably can start playing catch up. Like when she was patient with me growing up. Like when she marked up my five paragraph essays until there was as much red as black and I told her she was wrong. She wasn't wrong and without her teaching, I wouldn't be capable of attempting to write. I could go on.

I just hope that someone else will read this and feel slightly less alone or identify because they've personally experienced something similar.

I want to help my mom during the day but that's when I go to work so I can afford my bills. I know at some point I will stop going to work during the day so I can spend time with my mom instead.

I have shared this with Very few people because I viewed it as a private family matter. Also I wasn't sure if the "early" part of her condition would be easy to explain. My mom is in her fifties.

I'm not quite sure if I should be writing this out into the world but it feels therapeutic to me right now and I hope I'm not being completely selfish and insensitive to my family for not telling them or anyone really that I'm going to hit publish right now and come back to it later.