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.

Ah, stress, how our friendship has blossomed

Well, today is another day and surprisingly I don't feel the need to smash anything or maim anyone, yet. But it IS still quite early.
Yesterday wasn't too bad, did some housework, had to explain to the husband and kids that I am not a slave or maid and I will be limiting the dishes that we are all allowed to use so I'm not spending FOREVER cleaning the ones no one else does. After that continuous hour of bitching and preaching we went over to the 'rents' house so Dad and I could go to another gun shop. Dad wanted to talk to the guy about showing me how to break down the firearm we have, so I agreed. Hey, any excuse to go look at firearms, my testosterone is overwhelming some days. They had a few nice pieces, but nothing that made me drool.
The guy at the counter looked at my handgun and explained that breakdown wasn't really necessary and it was a pain in the ass, so it may be better to skip unless absolutely necessary, and that was that.
The trip was awkward, both there and back. Apparently Dad read an email that I forwarded to my mother and was super pissed off about some of the stuff I mentioned, but he was mad at mom, not me because it was referring to stuff she says about him somedays. Our family is usually quite loud, but yesterday otw to and from the shop, it was almost complete silence.
Then otw home from the shop, my father explains that he's nervous and scared about the cancer and the surgery, but he can't show it in front of my mother because she gets irritated and pissed off. Let me tell you, I come from a family of master fucking communicators. Woo. Until recently with the cancer diagnosis, my Dad wasn't really one to communicate his feelings AT ALL, you never really saw him cry or get truly upset, unless it was at a funeral. If he was upset about something, it usually was only seen through his frustration, cussing and yelling. Now, this sounds really horrible, but this cancer has been a reason and the catalyst for my father to communicate what he's feeling. Let me tell you, it's more of a curse than a blessing.
31 years of reading my father's actions and reading between the lines of what he's saying and all of a sudden there's this life altering news and now he has to throw him discussing feelings into the mix. I'm going to school for psychology, so I know that something of this caliber changes people's attitudes and lives. I knew that before I took a psych course, but when you're living it, it's a bit different. It's all very new and still really REALLY awkward.
Up until late Feb, I had only seen my father tear up or cry maybe 6-8 times in my 30 years and all were funerals, births and my wedding. In the last few months, I've seen my father tear up or cry out of fear, anger, frustration, and who knows what else. Do you have ANY idea how weird that is? He's my father and I love him and most of the time when he cries, it's not something you would notice unless you really knew him or were looking for it, but I see it and it scares the shit out of me. I want to hug him and just sit on his lap when I see it, but I think if I did that, #1 he'd scream in pain, because of the giant tumor in his leg and I'm no small girl, and #2, I am a little afraid that he'd punch me. lol
All this sharing and musing is brought to you today by the pre-op appt I'm going to with him in a few hours. It's hard to explain what's going on in my head or how I'm feeling at anytime, unless I'm super pissed off. (as evidenced by the post from the other day, see "And now I've heard it all...") It's kind of like grieving, but not. I kind of feel like it's not really happening sometimes, other times I feel like it's some cosmic joke that is never ending. Other times I feel overwhelmed by the frustration and lack of control I have over my life right now. And there are some days where I wake up and feel like I'm just floating around watching it all happen from outside my body and it's some massive nightmare. Honestly, I really wish this whole year was just some massive nightmare, between the 2 moves into crappy situations, the lack of money, the cancer and all of the bad news we keep getting. I tend to wonder where all of this is coming from.
I've told you that I'm not Christian, which the few of you here already know, but I wholeheartedly believe in karma and I believe that everything you do pays you back in some form. I'm just really starting to wonder if there was some other life I've lived where I was like some sort of war lord or human trafficker or if maybe I was a slave driver or sweat shop owner, because in less than a 6 month time frame I've had more Universal shitty-ness happen than most people I've met and I don't get it.
Well, I guess that's my morning novel, so I'll go and try to pretend to be normal for another day. I need to shower and get ready to go. I'll probably get another entry up this evening, after the appt and after I go help a friend pack her stuff for her move. I just have to survive the next 33 days of chaos before I have some semblance of normalcy in the form of the fall semester of school. Fingers crossed that we can all make it that long.
Go out and have an awesome adventure, or at least stay out of jail. After all, that's my goal for the day.