Since you've been gone...

Dear Daddy,

A year ago today you left this world.

It still feels like yesterday.

In some ways it is a little easier. In other ways it is still a very fresh and raw wound.

I still feel like every time I go to Mom's, you will be there, sitting in your chair. I still feel like every time Jack's cell phone rings, it will be you on the other end, asking him to come over and help you do something.

We went to Wakulla Beach the other day, and even though I tried my best to enjoy it, all I could see was the ghost of your memory, walking along the same stretch of shore. One of my first memories with you is there at that beach. I still remember, 31 years ago, you carrying me to the boat because I was terrified of the hundreds of fiddler crabs that scurried over the sand. I knew that in your arms I was safe. I longed for that sense of safety many times over the next few decades.

We had a volatile relationship for most of my life, but the last eight years was as close to perfect as we would ever get. I would give almost anything to have the chance to keep adding to those years.

I didn't realize you were telling me goodbye the last time you spoke to me while you were lucid. If I had known, I would have done so many things different. I would have said so much more. I would have hugged you. I take a small bit of comfort in the fact that the last words we spoke to each other were " I love you." I can count on both hands how many times you told me that once I was old enough to remember. Each time is etched in my mind so very clearly.

I didn't know it would be goodbye forever, Daddy.

I feel dead inside. Still. It is so hard to laugh and smile. Most of the time it's forced. The mention of your name still makes my throat close. Jack and Alex talk about you often. I just nod my head and pretend to smile. I don't have the heart to tell them it rips me to shreds each time.

I wish I could cry. I wish I could purge.

They say the body is 70% water.

I say my body is 70% tears that I have been unable to shed in 30 years. You taught me that to cry was to be weak. I know that is not true, but the training is so strong, so much a part of me, that I have never cried myself clean. Ever. I have had a life that requires many tears, and I have never been able to shed all of them. I have a few sets of strong shoulders that would let me cry on them..but I am unable to do so. I rather throw myself in front of a moving train than break down in front of someone. The sad part is, I can't do it in private either. I can cry sometimes...but never enough. If the day ever comes that the dam breaks...I am not sure I could recover.

A huge part of me is just gone. You took that with you...and I did not even know that you carried it with you.

I know now.

I still carry anger with me. Angry at the reason you died. Angry because the place you were at to heal did not take proper care of you in time. Angry because YOU SHOULD HAVE LIVED. You beat the goddamned cancer. It was GONE. Because of that terrible "rehab" facility you were in, the pneumonia was too far gone to save you. I am angry because you had that stupid DNR order...and the no artificial means order.  So we watched you dehydrate to death, while drowning at the same time. I am angry I could not be there every day, the way I wanted to be. I was there when you went in. I was there half of a day and an entire night later. I managed to get Jack up there to say goodbye. I am angry that you waited until the one time NO ONE WAS THERE to die. I am angry that you died alone. I am angry that Alex has to grow up with out you.

I am angry you died.

There, I finally said it.

I'M FUCKING ANGRY THAT YOU LEFT ME!

I'm angry you didn't take me with you.

But I love you. So much it hurts to breathe sometimes.I miss you so much. My life has not been the same. Every night for the last year, since the day you died, I have told you goodnight before I went to sleep. Every night I tell you I love you and miss you and would give just about anything to have you here in the flesh.

I am going to stop now. I think.

Not because I don't love you or miss you or wish that you were here in the flesh with me, but because my ritual that used to bring me comfort is actually helping to keep that wound raw and open.My heart has not let you really die yet. My mind knows it. My spirit knows that you are free now. My heart still refuses to accept it.

I'm scared that I will be stuck here in hell forever.

I want to be free. I need to not think about you constantly. I need to let you go. I know you can't fully rest with me the way I am...pulling you here...holding you here.You need to be fully free, as much as I do.

I have to wake up, and face reality. You are gone, You won't be back, not as you were. I have to realize that it's okay. You served your time. Like mine, in different ways, your "life sentence" sucked ass.  I am as angry that you escaped as I am that you are no longer here with me. With us. Because we all loved you intensely. I wish we knew just how intense before it was too late.

I don't know how to heal...so I have to wing it...just like I have always done.

I want you to know I will be okay. Eventually. I hope you were able to forgive me for all the stupid mistakes I made. I forgave you for yours.

I still would give just about anything to have you back, but I also know that you would hate that. You were ready, you were ready for years to get the hell out of this place.

Death is not hard for the dying. It's hell for the living.

The irony of the whole situation is that if you COULD speak to me, you would chew me out for feeling this way after all this time. Suck it up. Move on. Let it go.

I hear all the things you would say to me. I've never been very good at doing what I was told.

I love you Daddy. More than you could ever imagine. More than you ever knew. I wish I could have told you while you were still here. I just hope you heard all the times I've said it since you left.

I have to heal somehow. I don't want to talk to anyone anymore. I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to sleep...or wake.

I still have to live this life. I have to accept that you already lived yours.

You earned your freedom. I still have a few years left to serve.

So this is me, trying to let you go, Daddy.

My love for you will never fade, but you deserve to be truly free. Your memory will never die.  The anguish has to go though. So today, on this terrible and beautiful anniversary of your timely and untimely death, I am going to work on setting us both free. I can't talk to you anymore, not for a while at least. Until it is not so raw, not so fresh.

So this is the last time I am going to call out to you..where ever you are. I ask you to give back that part of me that you took. I ask you to help me let you go.

I love you so much, Daddy.

Enjoy your rest. I'll see you when I fall asleep for the final time. Save me a seat next to you...

Goodbye Daddy.

I love you.

(The first two videos were two of his favorite songs...the rest...are from my "Oh my god I am dying" playlist.)

One of those weeks...

It has been one of "those" weeks for sure. I fought a hell of a migraine from Thursday until Tuesday. Jack ran out of his pain pills, and the horrible nurse at his doctor's office was in no hurry or in any way concerned about it. So he was in agony for three days. He even went to the ER, the pain was so bad, but because he has a "specialist" they would not help him. Finally he had to threaten them with a lawyer to get results ( he is still on workers comp ) but at least he finally has his medicine. We actually DID contact a lawyer, and in fact Jack meets with him in the morning, to see if he can help us get some results. His job is now talking about trying to put him on disability, and he has still heard nothing about that second surgery he is supposed to have. The doctor office says the insurance company is dragging their feet about approving it, while the insurance company said that the dingbat nurse has not even submitted all the paperwork to them yet! So we are caught in the middle, and decided that having a lawyer would be a good thing right now, to help us navigate what is to come. We are not looking for money or a settlement or anything, we are just looking for proper doctor care and hopefully get him back to work, even though we know he will probably never go back to being a heavy line mechanic anymore. His awesome boss created a position for him though, so if he ever does get to go back, he will have a job, so that is good.

So stress has been high. It sucks to have to watch the person you love most in life in constant agony, and there is not one thing you can do about it. I think that is why my migraine was so vicious, the stress and worry were just getting worse, and so did the migraine.  I actually got what I call reverse tunnel vision for a day or so it was so bad. As a lot of people who have migraines experience, I know one is coming because I get these wavy lines in front of my eyes, kind of like heat shimmers on a hot road...this is my cue to take some meds and do what ever I can to head it off. Only this time I could not get it under control, and the wavy lines were so abundant I could not see straight ahead. All I had was peripheral vision...while tunnel vision is where everything else fades except the center of your field of vision. Ergo, reverse tunnel vision. I could not hardly stand to even look at the computer screen, it would cause a flare up after about ten minutes. I live on my computer, so this part is what bothered me most, sad to say.

If we get an income tax this coming up year, I really need to go and get new glasses. I think that would help a lot.

So yeah, the last few days have been less than fun to say the least.

At least he is no longer in pain, nor am I, and I can SEE, so that is always a good thing.

He is nervous about tomorrows meeting with the lawyer though. Or rather, the investigator, as this is just to see what kind of case we have, what we are looking for, and if they think they can help us. I can not go with him, for reasons I will explain shortly, so I made him a sheet with questions to ask and things to mention. We like to joke that I am the brains of this operation ( that is our marriage ) and he is the brawn, and while it is a joke, as he is very intelligent, I am a pro at handling things like this and they make him a bit nervous.

The reason I am not going is partly because of Alex, I have no where to put her, and she is way to hyper to sit there for a couple of hours quietly while we talk business. The other reason is because we have a new furry family member. Friday, Jack and Alex saw this dog running around in the road. Skinny, ribs showing, skittish. She followed Jack and Alex back to our house from the mailbox up the road at a distance..well, it was Alex she was following. She came in to the yard and would not come near Jack, but she went to Alex and laid down at her feet. I got her some water and some food, which she scarfed. It was obvious she had not had a meal in a while. It is also obvious that she is part Shepherd and part Coyote. (Called a Coydog actually lol ) She lopes and acts like a Coyote, with a shepherd face. She is young, maybe 8 or 9 months old.   Once Alex started petting her, she let Jack and I pet her, and suddenly she was the most friendly thing ever. We coaxed her in the house, and she promptly jumped up on the couch and went to sleep. Not a care in the world. She is Alex's shadow. Follows her everywhere, and whines if she leaves the house or goes to the bathroom without her. She sleeps in the bed with her. We do not know if she used to live in a house, or with people, but she is house trained ( although, from our experience with Wolves, they do not mess in the house usually, they will hold it until they are outside, even if "wild" ) and she acts almost identical to our Tundra wolf, Baby, that we lost two years ago to old age. Jack gave her a bath, and took her to all of our neighbors, and to the two streets on either side of us, to see if she belonged to anyone close by. No one claimed her, but a few said they had seen her in and out of the woods for the last week or so. So, unless we see a missing dog sign with her on it somewhere, we have adopted her. I named her Wiley ( Wile E Coyote lol ) even though it is a girl. It is weird, we feel like she has always been here, and we have only had her for less than a week. The only problem is, we do not know how she will react if we all left. She is not destructive, and she gets along perfectly with Soccer, our Shih Tzu, but she freaks if Alex leaves, even if we are still here. So we worry about leaving her alone just yet. If she WAS with humans before, it has obviously been a while, as you could count all of her bones, so there is a good chance she has abandonment issues. I do not want to come home and find my couch ripped apart or something. She is a BIG dog, even as young as she is, with her paws on my shoulders she is almost as tall as I am, so she could reach counters and my desk and stuff. So we are going to have to ease into that...all of us go out in the yard, or take a short walk, leaving her here, then coming back, to see how she does, and to let her know we WILL come back. I do not think I have ever seen such a loving and trusting dog though, especially one who seemed to be half wild. She is very submissive, and will lay down or stop messing with something if you raise your voice. So she is a bit of a mystery, but she is a good addition to our family. I wonder what she will look like as she fills out and grows up?

She loves to play with Soccer lol.

She is a total sweetheart, so hopefully she will get used to the place and realize that even if we leave, we WILL be coming back, and that we are not leaving her forever.

So yeah. That is the main highlights for this week. I missed my Foodie Friday post last week, due to the migraine, but next up is Stuffed Bell Peppers. They were so good, but we ended up eating them in the dark. We have had really bad storms almost daily here for the last couple of weeks, and right as I took the peppers out of the oven, the power went out for several hours. So we had a candle light dinner lol.

I will work on those pics tomorrow and get the post ready to go for Friday.

I think that sums it up for now. I am sorry for the several day absence, but I was trying to keep my brain from exploding and keep Jack from being in agony. Things should return to normal now!

Have a great Thursday!

On reinventing yourself...and a hard decision..

I have been thinking a lot about the reinvention of self.

I have certainly done it, and most people probably have. Changing the style of clothes you wear. Changing hair style and color. For those of us who blog, changing blog names, making new ones. As I said, I am reasonably sure that most of us have gone through this process at least once.

I have noticed something though. Some people seem to do this constantly. Every week, or month, or every few months, they totally overhaul their lives, or something about their lives, only to end up the same exact way they were before. Then they announce some big new change, a total revamp...and they end up right back where they were before, facing the same problems, having the same attitude, going through the same issues over and over again.

I have learned that you can not run from your problems. You can not run from yourself. You can make all the outward changes in the world, but if you do not change who you are at your core, then you are always going to end up right back where you started. If you have a bad attitude, or if you blame everyone else for your problems, you can change anything you want, but if you do not change your attitude, or take some personal responsibility for your life, you are just wasting your time and effort. Six week, or six months from now, you will be right back at square one, with a new name, a new face, or a new wardrobe, but until you change your outlook on life, none of it will matter.

Instead of trying to change the outside, try changing the inside. Consider that if you keep having the same issues over and over again with other people, maybe it is not the other people's fault. Maybe it is YOU that needs to change, not them.

Keeping things fresh, and having a little shake up every now and then are very good things in my opinion. Repeating the same mistakes over and over again while wearing a different (metaphorical) outfit changes nothing. It took me a long time to realize this. I spent so much time blaming my parents for my mistakes, or saying that I was a victim of circumstance, so since it was not my fault, then it was also not my fault that nothing ever changed inside of me. I stopped growing and learning. I spent all my time being bitter and angry, feeling betrayed and victimized when people supposedly did me wrong. What really happened was people got tired of my bullshit, and decided they were better off without me. I realized I was that person that everyone walked on eggshells around, because they never knew when I was going to blow up, or flip out on them, or get up on my high horse and be totally bullheaded and unreasonable about something. I was a walking time bomb.

It took most of the people I care about basically walking out on me and my bullshit to realize that until I took a long hard look inside myself, and realized that the only person who was making me a victim was me, I was destined to be alone and miserable. My marriage suffered, my relationship with my family suffered, my friendships suffered. Granted, not ALL of the fault was mine, there were some cases where whomever I was dealing with was just a jerk or something, but most of the time, I could place a good portion of the blame squarely on my shoulders, even if it was a situation like I am in now. Someone is in my life who is not good for me, I do not like this person's attitude, or their outlook on life. However, because I care for this person, I allow the relationship to continue, even though I am unhappy, and need to get out of it. I am not being what this person needs in their life, and they sure as hell are no where near what I need in mine. So even though it is the person's fault that they are the way they are, the blame is just as much mine because I let it continue.

The funny part in all this is that I hate to be the bad guy. I hate to be the one who walks away. I hate to be considered a quitter, or a bad friend, or whatever the case may be. So I have let it continue, knowing that the relationship is not what I need, and since I am not getting what I need, I am not giving what they need either. I just can't stomach it anymore. To much has been lost, I have had to fight to hard to get back what was taken from me, and I just do not want to do it anymore. The person has not changed in years, and from what I see, they never will. The backlash is inevitable.I will be talked about, probably slandered, and told to anyone who will listen that I am a bad person, because that is how this person works. Know what? I honestly do not care any more. That no longer scares me, because the people in my life who care about me know me, and know who I am at heart. I do not hate this person, in fact I have cared for a long time, but I just can not stomach the relationship any longer. No amount of external reinventing will change who they are inside, and after years of witnessing this, I fear they will always be this way, and that makes me sad, because if all that icky energy were channeled the right way, this person would be the best friend one could ever have.

I have been agonizing over this decision for weeks, and it was a simple thought and resulting picture that brought it all to a head, and I realized that I will be okay, and just as importantly, the other person will be okay as well. We both deserve better in life, and this stagnant friendship is only dragging us both down. So I am freeing us both tonight. My decision is made. It will hurt, and it will probably hurt us both, but I have to do it. I have worked to hard on myself to be drug backwards, and it is like looking at myself in the past. I am moving forward, and the person I see ahead of me will never be obtained until I get away from those who keep me rooted to who I was in the past.

I have learned these lessons the hard way, which is how it usually works for me. Nothing worth having in my life has ever come easy, which is why I know this has to be done. I speak from a place of understanding and experience, not a place of " I do not like you anymore, kick rocks." I hope this person finds happiness within THEMSELVES, not from external trappings and through other people. Because unless you can look hard at yourself and realize your own faults, you have no room to be pointing out any one else's in my opinion.

So that is where I am tonight. Making hard, but much needed choices. So we can both move forward in our lives, what ever direction that may be. I know the other party will not believe it, but I end this relationship with no ill thoughts or wishes, I truly hope that this person is happy and will continue to be so, and will experience great love and friendship. I really do. I still care about them, but I just can not do this anymore. What was had is now lost, and I do not see a way to get it back. So I am walking away, even though it is hard and pains me to do so.

So folks, I guess the moral of the story is this:

Have a great week everyone, and take some time to do some inner reflecting, what you find just might surprise you...

Tired today...

I do not know what is wrong with me, but I can not seem to get enough rest these days. Maybe it is because my body is trying to get rid of these infernal sutures, or maybe it is because of my moon time, or maybe it is because I am overdoing it. Maybe it is a combination of all of those things, I don't know. All I know is I am feeling like a zombie and I do not like it.

My leg hurts a lot today, I had to break the pain pills back out just to walk today. I am not liking this rejection of the sutures thing at all, it is almost as bad as the break was. I feel like my leg is on fire and there is nothing I can really do about it.

Today I rested, played around online this morning, and held down the couch watching episodes of the show Sister Wife. It is an interesting show, I quite like it.

I am trying not to get frustrated with myself about not being able to do much without being exhausted. I have NO patience when it comes to myself, it bothers me that I can not do the simple things like clean the house as I once did. I feel better so in my mind I should be able to do everything just as I did before, and that is just not possible yet. I ran the vac, dusted my entertainment center and desk and cleaned the 2 glass tables yesterday and I still feel like I ran a marathon. No matter how much sleep I get, I am still tired. I hate it. I have been cooking, and Perth, thank goodness, has been doing the dishes for me. By that time of the day I just want to lay down and go to sleep, yet when I get in bed, even as tired as I am, I lay there, unable to sleep because I am just not tired enough to sleep.  Or maybe I am TO tired, I do not know. I am so glad tomorrow is Friday, it means I get to sleep in over the weekend. Jack had to wake me three times, and Alex had to wake me twice before I managed to drag out of bed this morning, which is unusual.

I guess I just need to be kinder to myself and let myself heal, but it is hard when the clothes hamper is overflowing, there is three loads to fold, and other things need to be done and I am just to tired to do it. Perth has been a huge help and I am so glad he is here. Jack has been as much help as he can I guess, but I know he does not want to do it so it makes me feel bad about it.

I need to work on laundry tomorrow I guess, but I do not intend to do much else. I wish I were the type to be able to lay back down and go to sleep once I get Alex on the bus but I get headaches, and even if I didn't, guilt keeps me up.

I sound like I am whining and I do not like that either, but I needed to vent I guess. I will just be glad when all this is over and I can move on and not be exhausted and in pain. At least I got 5 good days in between having the cast off and when the skin pain started. That is a good thing, 5 pain free days.

I guess that sums up the bitch and moan fest for today. Maybe things will be better tomorrow. I hope you all have a great day.