It's been months since I've slept well. I don't know for sure if it's just stress, or my mattress sucking, or what. I'm sure these last few days are mostly caused by stress due to tomorrow's Dr appointments for my father and trying to figure out this renewal ceremony that my husband and I have decided to do, but I am tired of feeling exhausted.
Along with the stress, returning we have the paralyzing fear of whatever news could be heard tomorrow. It's going to be a very long and anxiety ridden day. The first appointment is with the musculo-skeletal oncologist. This is the worst appointment to deal with first thing, because from what my father has told me about the Dr, he's quite the douche and I am never in any mood to deal with such activity. Regardless, this is also the man that gives my father the worst news, so I will go and listen and do my best to keep my predisposed rage in check and not end up in jail before noon. Next on the list is the post-op appointment with the thoracic surgeon and some x-rays to check on Dad's progress since the surgery. He seems to be doing well physically, but as I've said he's falling into a depression and I can't fix that.
Yes, I am in school for psychology, but when it comes to family the approach has to be gentle and you have to know when to back off. It's not about asking "How does that make you feel", it's about allowing my father to have whatever emotional reaction he has and then trying to talk to him about it without going all whiny and having a breakdown. THIS is the most difficult part of it all.
I have yet to reach that point in my life where I've been able to build that proverbial wall that stops me from reacting to other's emotions and feeling them as if they were somehow my own. I'm an empath, I have emotional reactions to people that I don't even know and sometimes I react to the emotions of people I can't even see. It sucks sometimes.
I feel like a friggin nut case. I'm fine one minute, the next I have this horrible fear of the worst, the next I'm laughing about how ridiculous I'm being and I know it's all kind of related to grieving. Not in the sense of someone dying, but with something like cancer, people go through grief based on what could happen, not necessarily on what is happening.
We're all dealing ok for now, but we really need something to work out the right way. We need things to turn back in the direction of normal. My father really wants and needs to go back to work, my mother needs counselling and to get out of the house, my kids and I need to get back into the grind of school and homework and I have never looked forward to deadlines and writing papers and research and MATH so much in my life. I crave normal like a meth head craves their death in a baggie.
I'm realistic, I know that getting back into school isn't going to make everything else normal, but it's something I can rely on that is somewhat predictable. I have a syllabus with due dates and I have work that has to be completed with deadlines, so there is some ability to plan for things there. I just kind of wish that I had the same for the home life so I could prepare as well for what's coming. Some warning would be great.
SLEEP WOULD BE BETTER. This falling asleep at 5 a.m. and getting up at 9 is NOT working out. It's not the fact that I'm limited to 4 hours of sleep, I did that for 3 semesters straight, I can hang with that, it's that the sleep that I'm getting starts too late and is NOT real rest. It's tossing and turning and waking up every 20 minutes because I'm not fully asleep and I hear things that wake me up. It's the dreams that are happening in this half-sleep state that have a sound track in the background that I'm not able to decipher if it's happening inside my head or out. It's the fact that when I look in the mirror, I LOOK like I haven't slept in months. I NEED REST.
So, today I will go have coffee with a friend, I will do the yard work (after the rain stops) and I will go running tonight. In my travels of the day I plan to try to find a mild sleep inducing medication and take it no later then 10 tonight in hopes that I can wake around 6 a.m. and get my shower and do what needs to be done before the hell of the day takes hold and sweeps me into the tornado that is my life, for yet another day.
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