The worst year of my life and what it taught me

That's me and Dad on the first day of his chemo treatment. It was St. Patrick's Day 2011

Well, to say 2011 has been the most fucked up year I've had to date is probably an understatement. As you've read, we've been through some serious mud courtesy of the Universe. Despite all of this bullshit and horror, it's taught me a lot about myself and the people I have previously and now surround myself with.

For starters, I believed that I would be graduating from college by December of this year. Unfortunately, life had other plans. I also decided to try my hand at the ultimate multi-tasking experience of life by doing the FT college, FT mom and part time employee thing. Don't get me wrong, I've worked most of my life, but when you have a husband who's the breadwinner and haven't worked a regular job in almost 11 years and have crap work history over that time, people don't want to give you the chance to explain that every time your kids are sick, your minimal pay has to be forfeited to take care of those kids so your husband can continue to work at double to triple the pay you make. So, I made the decision to go back to school in lat 2009 as opposed to getting fired for working a minimum wage crap job and getting fired in a few short weeks. This gave me the chance to be around other "adults" and eventually have a future for my family where hubby didn't have to work 80 hours each week for us to survive.
I got a part time receptionist job at a company that was a 13 mile drive (1 way) from home. We then moved from Largo to St. Pete shortly after, making that drive an extra 5 miles longer and it started right after my kids got out of school and was getting me home after they were in bed. My parents were helping a lot and my husband was dealing with the dinner and bed time routine and chores wonderfully. The downfall was that  we decided to keep our kids in school in Largo, so I was driving them to Largo in the mornings, driving back to St. Pete for classes, back to Largo to pick them up, back to St. Pete to my mom's, then I was driving to Palm Harbor to work, then back home to St. Pete when I was done for the night. This wasn't too bad at first, but gas quickly went up to $3.90/gallon and the driving was exhausting. That doesn't even count my instant road rage as soon as I sit in the drivers seat.
A few short weeks after all of this, we were told of my fathers diagnosis. This was maybe a month into my working, about a month into the semester of classes and only a week or 2 into us moving into a new house. (That was falling apart and we soon found out was in foreclosure). But, we were going to figure it out.
Dad started chemo in mid-May, just about a week and a half after diagnosis and it wasn't too bad at first. We handle everything with humor, however inappropriate in my family. I continued to work and go to school, but the job didn't last. I didn't think it was right to burden my parents with watching the kids for me to work with this new pile of shit on their heads. So, I ended up having to leave the job after only working for them for a short 2 1/2 months. It sucked, because I enjoyed working with the people, though the job itself wasn't so great and neither was the mileage.
We got papers from an attorney just a few days after Dad starting treatment, they were requesting a final judgment of foreclosure on a house that we had already dumped almost $2500 out of pocket into in hopes of fixing it up and eventually buying. (Forgot to mention that I was T-Boned first thing in the morning of moving day and that shoulda been a sign) So, I made furious phone calls and was doing tons of research both for school and about the house and about my father's treatments and cancer.
Flash forward to the first few days of May and the end of Spring classes, I made the decision to take the summer off of school to go with my father to Dr's and treatments and spend some time with the kids for the summer.
THAT didn't work out, either. I found a job for cash working as a remodel assistant. (manual labor monkey) busting my butt, knocking up tile, painting and smelling like a 4 day old corpse when I left. I LOVED IT! But we also had to move due to the house situation, so I found a new place and signed the papers and go to work on fixing it up. (This place was a horror story in the making between the paint colors (think slaughtered 80's cartoon characters of all colors in every room) and the cleaning (19 hours on just cleaning the TILE floors)) So, I was working the equivalent of 2 remodeling jobs, doing the mom thing, and going with Dad. It wasn't too bad. I was loosing a TON of weight, too. BONUS!!!!
Here are some before and after photos of the [2nd] house we moved into.

The bedroom before

The bedroom after. 

The kitchen before. OMG!

The kitchen after. GO NOLES! lol

Now, these are the highlights. We didn't do much other than clean for a week and paint for another week and get the carpets cleaned, but it was cheaper and in the area we needed to be close to my parents. This house ended up taking up most of my time and my husband ended up having to go out of town for work, so I had to do the move mostly on my own with my mother driving a few loads to the new place and she helped me paint a bit. I got it all done in a matter of 3 weeks. Including the move and clean up of the old place. Most of it was done while working and taking the kids to and from school and around Dad's appointments and it made me feel wonderful that I was able to do it all and not break down.
All of this running around and moving also caused me to lose a SIGNIFICANT amount of weight in a short time and made me realize that my head and heart could handle everything as long as I kept moving and didn't sit still. Essentially this is what most call avoidance. I am a fucking PROFESSIONAL! I had moments of panic and uncontrollable sobbing, but then I'd move, walk, rake, lift weights, and it would all stop.
All of this also made me take inventory of the friends I had. The people that we'd been spending time with, dropping everything for and helping out, trying to workout schedules with the meet up and it occurred to me that not a single one of those mofos had bothered to call, stop by, or even send an email. How awesome is that? Other than the ones I posted about before, I had 1 person who seemed to give a crap that I didn't share a bed or DNA with. Linda.

Ignore the mess in the background, but this is me (in the orange) with Linda.

During all of this mess, she was the normal I needed. She let me vent and made me smile and just hung out and helped when we needed it most.
Don't get me wrong, Linda wasn't the only non-relative I spoke to for 9 long months, but she was the one who was there most often and most consistently. I also had Erin K, who bought me the coffee I needed and just allowed me the distraction and venting when her time would allow, there's also Amy who has a busy schedule, but she came over to run with me, hung out for the ceremony we had, and more recently attended a naughty fitness class that was hilarious. I also had Susan aka MS14. She's been super cool to hang out with and helped me work through my frustrations with fair weather friends and she's bought me lunch on days when she's off and we just generally have a good time and talk. She also gives me suggestions and things to think about when it comes to treatments and such with Dad, seeing as how she's a nurse and all. lol
I also have other friends that have a ton going on and I haven't been able to see often like Gary, Crystal and Gina. They all have their own thing going and I love them for the times I do get to see them, or just poke fun at them on face book.
I also reconnected with my old friend Chris and met his amazingly awesomely wonderful wife Leina that I have more in common with than 2 strangers from opposite sides of the country should. Chris and Leina are wonderful friends and they own a tattoo shop and a gym and work extremely hard and have super long hours and live too far away, but when it comes down to it, they're the ones that I can just vent incessantly to, like Linda, and they just take it all.
These are the people that I am the most thankful for. The ones who aren't "brought down" by my negativity. (fucking cheap cop out.)
This year has also taught me that family does not equate to loyalty and reliability. I have family that is genetic, but the majority of them can suck it. Hardly any of them have bothered to even contact my mother or father or I about my Dad and he's THEIR EFFIN BROTHER! Then there's my "nuclear" family. Mom, Dad, and little brother. We're a strong set. Anyone weaker would have broken under what we've dealt with. And then there's my chosen family. My cousin Jen, while genetically related is also a part of the chosen group. She's called me more than almost any of my friends and worries about my father and mother almost as much as I do, I'm sure. There's also the one I like to call Rahkenstein. She is amazingly strong and has no idea. She has a HUGE heart and has so much pain in her past that I don't know how she does it. She has so many medical things going on at any given time that I worry about her every day, but she worries about my family and I just as much. Then there's my in-laws. My husbands wonderful family.

My husband's grandfather had to have his leg amputated due to the shitastic disease myosarcoma. I sat with my husband's family the entire day of the surgery at Moffitt because I knew that feeling all too well. The feeling was still fresh for me, but my husband's boss wouldn't allow my husband to leave work, so I went in his stead. I know it's probably not the same, but I felt like I could do something to help, having been in that exact same chair not 3 months earlier.

On top of all of this crap, we've had both vehicles break down, Dad's been hospitalized twice, my husband almost quit his job, my son skipped his first class, I've cried myself to sleep and thought things would just get worse. Despite all of the bullshit we've gone through this year, we've still managed to do our yearly breast cancer walk and donations, I've held my GPA up and improved it once I went back to classes in August, my husband and I renewed our wedding vows after 10 years of marriage, the kids are doing alright, we had a pretty good Christmas except that it was the first one my father missed my entire life, because he's been in the hospital for 22 days now. For all of that, we've grown stronger as a family and I have become stronger as a person. I'm down 80+ lbs (out of avoidance and a poor attempt to literally run away from it all), my husband got a good report from his Dr on his state as a diabetic, and we've helped my parents with what they needed.
Over all, this has been one really shitty year. One which I can't wait to wish good riddance to. The only good thing to come out of it is knowing that we van handle the worst and not kill anyone in the process.

I will not make resolutions, because it's all just another way to write down something I'll most likely fail at or kick myself for not overachieving. I will say that I will try. I will try to continue on the path of being better at what I've proven to be pretty decent at this far. I will try REALLY REALLY hard to NOT end up in jail or the psych ward. I will try to remember these 3 photos that I took of journal covers I saw in TJ Maxx when Christmas shopping.

And within those you surround yourself with.

I sure as hell hope so.

I try to, as often as possible.

And this one, I need to remember when it comes to everything else in life.

I'm hoping that a metaphorical fire is ok. Literal would be painful.

And THIS is our family motto:

On that note, have a HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEAR! BRING ON 2012!!!!!!!!!!

He is human, after all. That kinda sucks.

As children growing up in healthy homes, we tend to idolize our parents. It's not something we decide consciously, but we see them as bigger that life and with all of the answers and abilities that we didn't see them obtain and our only explanation is that they're "super" and have some amazing power.
As we grow and become more experienced at the battle of life, we see them as human but still hold them to a higher standard. (except maybe between the ages of 13 and about 18) We unconsciously place them on pedestals and expect them to have some type of super power as if they'll forever be indestructible.

As adults, we learn that our parents are not super heroes after all and they don't really have any super powers, but are human. Once we have our own children and we begin to experience what our parents have gone through, we begin to assume the role of "super" to our children without ever realizing it. While we all know that our parents aren't super heroes of the mythic sense, they do remain our heroes in some way.

Very few things have ever put me in a position to hate that my parents are "simply" human more than the monster that is cancer. My father has always been more than just a man, my dad, my mother's husband; he's been a super hero. He made amazingly impossible softball plays (and so did my super mom), he worked more hours than I thought were humanly possible for anyone to physically be capable of, he's been "the ideal" all my life. And now this horror shows up in our lives.
Yes, my dad has been sick in the past and he even took around 11 whole days off of work in the last 15 years. I've seen him cry at funerals and he may have even had a bit of leaking from the tear ducts on my wedding day. I've seen him sore and witnessed a few drops of blood seep out of his skin when he was cut, but never anything that took him down. In my eyes as a child, my dad could wrestle an angry bear and put a wild lion in a sleeper hold and knock him out and come out of both barely breaking a sweat, but now I've seen the extent it his humanity and holy shit, does it suck!
My dad is not supposed to be able to be afraid, he's never been afraid of anything. He's not supposed to be in constant pain or be sad or get depressed. Those are all normal human things and he's supposed to be super human. He's my DAD! And now you, cancer. You come along and hit me in the face with the big ass reality brick and fuck everything up. Fuck you.

Know this! We are a family. Not just any family, but the strongest of this family you will EVER encounter and this is MY DAD! He's a super hero and he is going to fight and kick your evil ass. Sure, there are going to be days when he's unsure or days when he's truly scared or tired, but those are the days where you get to look over his shoulder and deal with ME! I will be right behind him this entire fight and I know that I may not look scary, but I am angry and strong and I have children that expect my dad to be there when they need him and a brother who needs to be able to hang out with him and a mother who loves her husband more than anything. So help me, I am going to make all of those things happen come hell or high water.
So, cancer, while some days may seem like you're gaining the upper hand, don't mistake that for you winning. Everyone has to slow their pace a bit to catch their breath, we all have to look up to see the finish line, all this does is strengthen our will and renews our fighting spirit.

That is my super dad and he taught me to be a stubborn, strong, fighter of a daughter and we're competitive by nature. You should know that we are here to win and we will take nothing less.

F*cking Christmas Season

I gotta say, I hate this time of year. People are generally greedy as hell and gradually becoming more impatient and greedy. My favorite parts of this season are all of the older movies that I watched as a child, the trees and their smells, the cool weather (where applicable) and the time with my family (most of it, anyway).
What I don't like are the reports of home invasions, the reported sickening amount of money people spent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday considering our unemployment, foreclosure and homelessness numbers and the fact the people do stupid mean things to each other like that chick that pepper sprayed her way through Walmart to get to the cheap ass TV that's gonna be broken in a year because her kids really don't appreciate shit. How would they? Look at what that dumbass did to get it for them.
Honestly, if it wasn't for our kids, we wouldn't even bother with anything more than the time with family at my parents' house and maybe a small tree. The tree would be just big enough to scent the entire 1K-ish square feet of our rented and crapilly maintained home. I would continue with trying to donate and help others out when possible, but I wouldn't worry about presents and all of that.
Anyway, we're literally down to the wire at school. I have 1 more day of classes in each course to attend and then it's finals. This is where I begin to stress out for seemingly no reason, but this has been the hardest semester for me yet. That is taking into account the Spring semester when we moved twice and were told about my father's cancer and also last summer's semester where a 14 week course and all of it's assignments are jammed into a mere 8 week semester and that was the one when I had to take a state exam for my math course to determine if I'd be able to move onto a course that would actually COUNT toward my friggin GPA. Well, I'll stress and freak out, as usual, but this time I have 2 simple papers and 1 CTAP final paper to write, proof read, edit, finalize and turn in for my Ethics course, which I'm not even interested in. Unfortunately it's a required course for my 31 year old ass to move on to complete the last 3 requirements in order to finally obtain my AA at 32 at the end of the Spring semester. But I'll do it because I've made a decision. I'll do it because others have assumed that I can't or won't follow through. I'll do it to prove to myself, my husband, my kids and my parents that I can and to make them proud of me for something other than just surviving and for not killing my children. I'll do it because I'll be able to say that I accomplished something I set out to do for one of the few times in my life that wasn't passing a person through my no no lady parts. And I'll do it with all of my awesome and at the honors level that I've worked so hard to earn, regardless if I can afford the pay the $100 dues for the National Honors Society for that shitty little stamp and I'll copy it times a bazillion and frame the original and I'll gloat every day until the summer semester begins my fight to accomplish my BA. And you know what? It'll be just as awesome.
Enough of my bitching and gloating simultaneously. And yes, I'm aware that I went full on adult A.D.D. on this post.
Have a great Sunday tomorrow and go out and have an adventure.

P.S.
Happy Birthday to my mother tomorrow. She deserves a medal and a plaque and a trophy and a fucking bronze statue of herself after dealing with my father and I and then my brother and husband and my kids for as long as she has. But then again, we deserve the same for putting up with her, so I'll just call it even. lol Love you, Mom.

Alrighty, then.

So, here's the not-so-skinny. My school semester is coming to a close and I am a bit stressed out and emotional about EVERYTHING. I had a girly break down last week, as I'm sure you've read, if you get the email updates. It was embarrassing and relieving all at once. I also decided that one slack ass webventure wasn't enough and though I should share my limited self labeled wisdom of my "fitness" or wtfe you wanna call it. So, now I have 1 more thing that is a good intention and may very well get shoved to the side, though I hope not, since I find so many other things about fitness more interesting than my life. Plus, I find that it makes me sound more interesting and much less angry and assholish.
Well, that's all I have for now, I'm in a weird anti-computer, but not really/nervous and paranoid place at the moment and this makes it a bit hard to concentrate on being my typical amazingly witty awesome self. Though, no matter what, the awesome is always there, just might be a little in the background today.
Cranky ass, over and out.

P.S.
I hope you had a great holiday and realized all that you have to be thankful for like my family and I did.

Well, well, well. I told you I was a slacker....

So, for those 3 of you bothering to pay attention first a thank you. Next a sincere apology for the amount of blogging (still hate that word) slack time I've taken. It's been a long while since I've posted, as Crabby McSlacker (see her awesome blog, HERE) aka Dr. J pointed out to me, ever so graciously.
Life has been a series of "OMG"s and "WTF"s and a little "Oooohhh, something shiny"s as of late.
The whole Dad has cancer debacle has come to a head in the last few weeks. I not so recently told you all about the vow renewal ceremony we were planning that we successfully executed and are glad to have over just because of the stress involved, and I've gotten somewhat back into the groove that is my higher education. So, if you wanna know, read on. If not, fine, screw you, go watch some animals duke it out HERE.
First off, my last post was WAY back on Sept. 5th, which you can read right over thisaway where I told you all about my frustrations with missing "friends" and how Dad was recovering after his lung surgery. Well, I still say screw those missing mofos and Dad is doing pretty well.
We found out a little over a week ago that he's in remission for now and that they still want him to go through another 3 months of chemo. The musculo-skeletal oncologist has apparently been jerking him around and delaying telling him that his only surgical option since the cancer metastasized in his lungs is a full amputation. This, for my dad, is NOT an option until it comes to a literal life or death decision. The cancer is dormant, but in his blood stream, so surgery to remove the initial tumor isn't going to avoid another issue like what we faced in the end of July. So, for now, we deal with the 3 month chemo assignment and he is able to get back to work as soon as he's feeling up to it and has adjusted to the chemo.
Next, I mentioned the hubs wanting to have a vow renewal ceremony, which we did. The ceremony was wonderful, short and sweet. The days leading up to it were stressful, busy and full of caffeinated profanity, but we had the chance to write our own vows and share our day with family and close friends, and for that we are truly thankful. (If any of you are interested in seeing the video (maybe a 5 minute clip of the vows) or any of the photos, email me and I'll see what I can do. I may even make all 11 of you readers suffer through it and post it up on here) We had a great time, despite the before and after cleaning and really enjoyed the chance to dress up and show our friends that we clean up well and can still have a relaxed great time, no matter how old we seem.
Now, for the filling in of other life events...
The kids are doing pretty well in school, though the boy seems to be slacking lately. The girl is in the drama club and will be playing the part of Miss Clara in the elementary school production of The Nutcracker. I'm doing alright with my classes, despite the ever growing conspiracy our family vehicles seem to be putting together to stop me from being able to attend classes. And now that the ceremony is over and the cancer treatments are at a somewhat easier to handle level, I'm hoping to be able to concentrate a bit better on acing all of the papers and exams coming up in the next month.
Our vehicles are robotic versions of emotional and mental health assassins, as they decide to break down every friggin time we seem to get ahead on bills and see some type of workable budget falling into place. Xmas shopping has been started, though most of what I've purchased has been clothing and I know the kids aren't looking for clothes for the most evilly commercialized holiday in US history, but oh well.
On the weight loss front (or plateau, whatever) I'm kind of in a holding pattern for the moment, but hope to once again be kicking Jillian Michaels' recorded toned ass at some video at home workouts. I'm in that weird between size just before being able to solidly claim single digits for the first time since discovering my first "with child" status at 19. I am not really dieting, per se, but trying to limit the amount of potentially deadly  bullshit food that makes it to my mouth. Though, for some reason, I have found that increasingly difficult over the last 2 weeks. I am not denying myself the "treat" type foods, but trying to balance them with my love for fruit and veggies and healthier alternatives to the crap my family would like to eat every day.
It would also be good to note to SOME CERTAIN BLOG OWNERS/AUTHORS, that I am becoming increasingly more interested in health and fitness blogs and it's not fully due to their giveaways and penchant for obtaining free crapatolla from different manufacturers to review and tell us peons of every day life about, but I am actually finding an interest in these things. Whodathunkit, right? I am finding that since leveling off at the weight loss place I am in, that I am no longer losing ridiculous amounts of hair or suffering the spontaneous loss of a toe nail here or there and have officially come out of the weird possible stage of amenorrhea I seem to have been placed in. (this happens post-puberty more often to women in hard core military training or with eating disorders or training for stuff like marathons, but is a stage where a woman's body stops menstruating due to the loss of an unusually large amount of body fat, a hormonal imbalance and sometimes illness. My situation was from the unusually large percentage of body fat loss in a short period of time, from what the Dr said.) While my cycle has returned to somewhat normal, I kind of miss the days where it wasn't a real worry, but I know that it wasn't really a sign of being truly healthy, though doc said it needn't worry me since she sees me as healthy.
So, now that you know I have my once monthly angry uterus syndrome back, an odd craving for shitty food, a dad in remission and 2 broken as vehicles and just about everything else any other stranger never really needed to know, feel free to leave your thoughts below in that there comment box. And if you feel so enlightened, link some friends back to this place of incessant and narcissistic rambling so they can have a look see, but please don't post it all over the evil that is facebook, as I do tend to say a few things here that I would prefer certain family doesn't discover. This is my safe place, and if family invades, no one is safe.
So, go out and have a great week and an awesome adventure, and try to keep it legal and then come tell me all about it. I'm off to go stalk someone else's much more awesome blog life for a few.

Hello, again. It's been quite a while....

Well, yeah, I'm a slacker, what more do you want from me?
So, as I said before, when I first started this "interwebby journally wannabe diary" I tend to dive in head first and then lose steam. Well, here is your proof. It's been a few weeks since I've posted anything, not because I didn't want to, but because I just got caught up in more of life's bullshit.
Since the last time, Dad's restarted chemo and is doing alright, kids have started back at school and so have I. We're doing alright so far. New schools for the kids=new frustrations with everything from new schedules to effed up car lines and retarded "staging areas" in the mornings. I may not agree with the crap they have to do at school, but I have to support it, even while calling it stupid. I've been working out more than ever and loving it while cussing at Jillian Michaels and her perfect body assistants in her DVDs.
I've also found our frustrations increasing with every day. Money is low, bills are high, car isn't wanting to function properly, temps are rising outside and the air in my house still hasn't gotten fixed.
As far as the money goes, we found ourselves in quite a tight spot. I got to the point of needing to find outside assistance and decided to turn to the community assistance programs. What a crock of bullshit. I understand that there are rules and regulations in place so people don't continuously take advantage of a system meant to help people out and not allow them to just sit on their asses. The only thing I have a serious problem with is that there are way too many people that do exactly that and that causes those of us that don't to not qualify for any help. I ran into the problem of these programs only assisting those that already receive assistance through the state, or falling into a low income category. Now I get it that people in a low income situation need the help, but so do people that don't meet that cut off and now they're in a short term financial situation where they need a little help. GODS FORBID that anyone try to go out of their way to try to change this rule or that the utility companies try to work with you. Then it would effect their multi-billion dollar revenue. Bastards.
Anyway, now that I've ranted about that long enough, onto the working out...
I finally stopped to think about it the other day and overall, I believe I've lost around 80 lbs. Now this is an awesome thing for me, but I would like to take a second to say a huge "FUCK YOU GUYS" to all of my friends and family that never told me that I was the size of a fucking garbage truck. I mean, COME ON! There's no way that you could have cushioned the blow a little and at least said something along the lines of "hey, when was the last time you went to the gym? We should work out together and motivate each other." I wouldn't have taken that as a "Damn, girl, do you even speak anymore or is everything just mooing now? You really do qualify as Cow status now" I mean, seriously! But anyway, so here I am, having lost about 80 lbs in about 7 months and I feel great. I'm healthier (I know, I can hear the groaning) I am definitely much stronger and can actually do 50 girly style push ups. Yes, girly style because I don't know what's wrong with my shoulder that doesn't allow it to push my weight back up in a full military one, so here I am doing the girly ones. I've been doing the 30 Day Shred for about 2 weeks and decided to jump up to the Ripped in 30 today. Man, it's kicking my ass, but I feel great when I'm done. I also ran a full 2 miles yesterday in 19 minutes. Only walked a total of 3 blocks through the whole thing which I guess means I didn't run it ALL, but close enough, dammit! I'm that much closer to running the 5K for the ACS Making strides walk in October and SO FREAKING CLOSE to a single digit pants size, it's killing me.
Hoping to score a copy of P90X this week to try out and see if I can't get super jacked by the time the husband and I decide to renew our vows on Nov. 5th.
Fingers crossed.
Well, enough of my inane rambling. I'm off to do something much less productive. Go out and cause some trouble and let me know how it worked out. But don't ask me for bail money, cause I definitely can't help you there.

Thanks for nothing, Mr. Sandman.

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.