The Year of the Horse!

Or as many of us know it, just another typical year. 

Ha! Ha! Ha!

My hubby and I were born in the year of the Tiger. And you know what? Our son was also born in a year of the Tiger.  So if I was the kind of person who believed in coincidences, there'd be something to that. 

We were also all three born on Tuesdays.  And now that I think more about it, we were all three born in odd hours, too.  The boy was born in the 9am hour, I was born in the 5pm hour, and the hubby was born in the 7pm hour.  

I'm really not superstitious. I just like finding patterns and things in common. According to one of the doctors I work with, whenever I point out the Theme of the Day to him.  Because a lot of our clinic days end up having Themes.  And not obvious Themes like "people with epilepsy".  

But, I digress.

I have been missing my horse lately. Late 2023 and the entirety of 2024 were such effed up years, loss-wise, for me.  Our last dog died a few days before Thanksgiving 2023, and then my first horse died Memorial Day weekend 2024, and then of course my Dad died in August 2024.  I feel like all I did was wait for my loved ones to die that year, except I didn't expect my horse to die.  I mean, it wasn't a total and complete surprise, because she was 31 years old, but she still died pretty suddenly, considering.  

And of course, I'm in the horse video and post algorithms on all of the socials.  For a long while, I couldn't watch any of them.  For a long while, it was even painful to still take care of the horse we still have, and my dearest, darlingest hubby took over most of that responsibility for me.  For a while, I never wanted anything to do with horses ever again.  Which was a completely new emotion for me, for the first time in 49 years.  

I'm over that now, too.

I love watching the videos and seeing the posts again, but man, it makes me miss Nicker.  I know I still have Shasta, but Shasta and I don't have the same relationship that Nicker and I had.  Don't get me wrong, I love Shasta with all my heart. But Nic and I were, like, she was my heart horse. 

People ask me if I'm going to get another horse. I think that even if my hubby was agreeable to it (which he isn't, lol), I don't know if I would right now. Our new place isn't as set up for horsekeeping as our old place was. My body isn't as set up for working with horses as it used to be, ha ha ha.  The ground is a lot harder now.  I don't know. I will forever be a horse crazy little girl but I think my days of horse ownership will be over when Shasta decides to join Nicker at the Rainbow Bridge.

Which I don't want to think about right now. Shasta's 29 years old now.

So I'm hanging out at my Mom's house today. I hate that it feels natural to just call it my Mom's house now instead of calling it, you know, my parents' house.  I hate that there are none of my Dad's shoes or jackets by the back door anymore.  I know, I know, it doesn't make sense to leave such items around anymore, but it doesn't make it feel any less weird.  

So far it's going okay, I guess.  My Mom complains a lot.  This is not anything new.  Seriously.  I've learned in the last few years to just let her vent for a while because I know that she doesn't talk to many other adults during the day anymore, but it can still be a struggle for me to sit here and listen to someone complain about just about every single thing that happens. Especially things that don't make a difference at all in the grand scheme of things. 

Alright, I don't want to come on here and just complain about my Mom, either. I know I'm lucky to still have her in my life, and I thank God every day that I can be here for her.  But I also pray for Him to help me to know what to say and when to say it. And most of the time I pray for Him to just help me keep my mouth shut. If it is His will. Which it must be, because that's what I do.

I wonder if it would be His will for me to keep my mouth shut if my sister showed up?!  Heh heh heh...

Anyway...

Tomorrow I get to WFH. Or WFM as the case may be. The last time I did that (two weeks ago), she got mad at me (not really) because I wasn't eating. She kept trying to feed me every time she walked out to the kitchen, where I set up my little temporary workspace.  Every time she'd come out there - Do you want a breakfast bar? A banana? Some yogurt? A sandwich? No, Mom, I'm not hungry. (I'm really not. And plus I bring my own snacky snacks on which to graze -- not because I don't like what she has, but because it's habit to put such things in my work bag.)  It makes me laugh on the inside, because when I was growing up, food was very regulated here.  I don't know what that was about, but I like to think it had something to do with why I developed a binge eating habit later in my life - because when I was suddenly allowed to eat whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted, I went nuts and wanted to eat as much of whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.  And, boom! Now I have unhealthy relationships with food and issues with impulse control. Yay me!

Alright, I'm gonna sign off for now. TTYL!

Sometimes it's better to receive...

So the other night, I was playing on my phone before I fell asleep, like I usually do.  

Don't judge! I'm improving, in baby steps. I used to play games on my phone instead of going to sleep.  I haven't done that for a few months now, thank you very much. Now I just watch videos and read random articles and sometimes get caught up in searching random things that may have crossed my mind at some point during the day and made me think, I should look that up later.  (I think they call that "doom scrolling" and it may or may not be better for my health than playing games, but that is not the point right now.)

On this particular night, I noticed that there was a number by my telephone icon.  I hardly ever use my phone as an actual telephone, so this caught my attention.  A few clicks taps later, I had discovered a file called "Deleted Voicemails" that apparently contained 666 messages.  That's an odd number, I thought, although of course by definition it is, indeed, an even number.  Religious and somewhat superstitious that I am, I decided I had to do something about that, like maybe delete all of the "Deleted" voicemails.  Because I'm also the kind of person who likes to delete "Deleted" anything files, because if I said I wanted them deleted, why aren't they already deleted?! Annoying.

But 666 is a big number for a person who doesn't use their phone as a telephone, so I thought, I wonder how long it took me to amass 666 deleted voicemails? So I started scrolling down the list which, of course, also shows names/numbers, dates and times, and transcriptions of questionable but somewhat decipherable quality.  

And then it hit me: these go back for years.  One of the things I was bummed about after my Dad died was that I didn't have any saved voicemails from him -- my Mom was always the one who called on their behalf to wish me happy birthday or whatever, and they changed the greeting on their own voicemail a long, long time ago to go with the mechanized generic voice instead of his.  It seemed like a long shot, but what if somewhere in those 666 messages was one from my Dad?  It was a chance I was willing to take.

And...I found one!  Not just one, but I actually found about six of them! Oh my gosh.  I felt like I had just won the lottery.  I listened to them, of course.  It was so amazing, hearing his voice again!  Not the strange, quiet voice he had at the end, but the robust, happy voice he used to have.  They weren't very long messages, and in fact they were all kind of about the same thing, but still...hearing him say my name again, hearing him laugh, hearing him say, "Talk to you later, love you, bye" again...I genuinely cannot put into words all of the emotions I was flooded with. I thought I would never hear his voice again! So the surprise of finding these treasures, and the tremendous joy and extreme sadness of listening to the messages...I was such a bawling mess after that.  I've never been that happy but crying so hard in all my life.  

I literally could not stop just thanking God after that.  I couldn't even find succinct ways to express my thanks, which I usually make an effort to do.  It was just a non-stop stream of, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you" until I fell asleep.  And when I woke up to empty my bladder, I started thanking Him again, and in the morning when I woke up, I started thanking Him again.  Because I just have, like, no other explanation for finding those messages at that moment when they've obviously been there for a while.  

I haven't listened to them again yet. This happened a week ago, last Friday night.  Honestly? I'm afraid to listen again.  The emotions that overtook me when I listened the first time were so intense, I don't think I'm ready to feel that again right now.  Hearing his voice was so comforting, and of course I saved those voicemails in a couple different places so I don't lose them again (I hope!) now.  Knowing I have them is also comforting.  But hearing his voice was also very painful, and that's the part I don't want to revisit again yet.  I'm sure that some day I will want to listen to them again, but not today.

It feels weird, almost "wrong" as if there was such a thing, to admit that. Like I should be saying I want to listen to it over and over and over again.  Like that's what I'd have expected someone in my position to be saying if I wasn't the one in my position.  The things you can't know about grieving until you go through it yourself, I tell ya...

Anyway. Once again I have managed to finish my point in the allotted time, and now work is beckoning me back.  I suppose I should go take care of that; the sooner I finish, the sooner I can get my weekend started! And I was ready for the weekend to start on Monday!

Toodles...

And so it goes...

I had another vivid dream the other night.

Actually, I have vivid dreams pretty often. I think it's a side effect of my medication, or something.

Anyway, this particular dream involved several recurring elements, the main one being my Dad; and the other one being that we were in Grand Rapids, the town where both my parents were born and raised.  Okay, there was another recurring element as well: we were at my Godparents' house -- in this case, my Godparents being my Dad's best friend from high school and into adulthood and his then-wife, "then" meaning the time when I was a kid and we were spending a lot of weekends up there with them (yes, I feel I must clarify this because I have two sets of Godparents or at least two Godmothers, I don't know, families are confusing).  Only we were the ages we are now, and my Godparents weren't living in that house anymore, but apparently we were.  

Anyway, so my Dad was back again, alive but not exactly well, but walking on his own and mentally coherent and stuff.  But in the dream, we all (and by "all" I mean the only other people I remember being there were my Mom and my hubby) knew -- including my Dad -- that he was only there for a short time and wasn't going to be staying very long. I mean, it really was like he had come back to visit.  Anyway, I remember in the dream, he was sitting on the couch in the living room and I was trying to find a phone for him. Then I found one and I was like, "Who do you want to talk to first? Uncle Joel or Cousins Davies?" and he was like, "I don't know, whoever you call first, it doesn't matter to me," so I called my cousin (and yes, we call him Cousins Davies in real life, it's a long story) (oh and for that matter, Uncle Joel isn't really my flesh and blood uncle, he's the aforementioned Godfather with whom my Dad was friends with from childhood) and gave the phone to my Dad, and that's about all I remember of that part.  I also remember that while my Dad was on the phone, my Mom was sitting outside on a park bench in the yard just zoning out, and I was like, Don't you want to come inside and spend some time with Dad before he leaves again? And she just looked right through me and kept staring off into space.  So I went back in the house and while my Dad was finishing up his call, I was trying to think of all the things I've thought of in the last, what, 17+ months that I've wanted to ask him so I could ask him but I couldn't recall a darn one and it was frustrating because I know there have been a ton of things I've wanted to ask him or talk to him about, and there I had the chance and couldn't think of anything. 

And that's about all I remember.

I have a lot of dreams about my Dad.  I think I've mentioned that before. I remember, a few weeks after he died, I admitted that to my Mom because she said she wished he'd come visit her in a dream. And I blurted out that I'd had several dreams like that already. And then she looked sad and I didn't want to make her feel worse than she already did, so I stopped mentioning that around her.  Because, I don't know why she wouldn't have dreams about him, but I would.  It didn't make sense to me.  Except that I want to believe with all my heart and soul that I was his favorite person in the whole wide world, but you can't say something like that to your own mother, ever in your life, especially not right after your father (and her husband of 60+ years) has passed away.  That's just downright cruel.  So I keep it to myself.

Anyway...

We were having a discussion the other day. Sort of.  Not my Mom and I, because that would be silly! But we were talking about mental health illness and demonic possession.  And now you're like, Whoa! That escalated quickly!  It stemmed from this week's sermon, where I actually felt compelled to write down a few notes (and I am not implying by that that the sermons aren't usually interesting, because they are; I just mean that usually I'm sitting in the AV booth listening for key words so I know when to advance to the next slide, and in the meantime I'm listening to the sermon but trying not to get so lost in it that I forget to listen for the key words, or if I'm not understanding or relating to what he's saying, or if the AV booth is particularly messy I'll start tidying up or I'll grab some Clorox wipes or alcohol wipes and start cleaning things.  But this week, some concepts such as, sometimes people do bad things just because they do bad things -- not because the devil was involved.  Um, what? I have to ponder that for a while.  Me and my un-Biblically-educated self.  I'm working on that part.  For the second year in a row now, I'm reading the Bible in a year. I think I could do the Bible in a year for about ten years in a row and still feel like I don't know much about it.  But, I digress; unlike my hubby, many of my beliefs have come about from experience and not through teachings.  (I don't mean that he hasn't experienced them; I mean that he grew up being taught these concepts first and then seeing them played out in real life, where I've kind of seen a lot of crapola played out in real life and then learned later that there are actual names for these things, such as Grace and Mercy and Sin and such.  It makes more sense in my head than it does in words.)  

Because for a long time, I struggled with wondering why people do bad things.  Not even just bad things, but really malicious, cruel things to other people.  I don't mean, like, serial killer things, either.  I mean, things like lying for no apparent reason.  Hurting another person for no apparent reason.  What's the underlying "apparent reason"?  And then I learned that it could be Satan.  That made a lot of sense to me.  And now, I'm learning that it might not be, after all?  That people might just be that evil at heart?  I don't know. There's a lot of depth here that I can't formulate into words.  I'm not as completely shattered as I might sound like I am, it's just something else I have to think about.

Which, I don't know if you've ever read the Bible or not, but that will definitely give you something to think about.  Like just when you think you understand something, you don't.  It's definitely interesting and thought-provoking.

Anyway...

That's about all I've got for now.  I'm blogging after work because I had to get this off my mind before I lost it.  There were other things I wanted to write about from this week's sermon but I can't remember what they were, dangit.  I should actually keep my notes next time so I can refer back to them, I suppose.

Another point I wanted to make is that depression just sucks. I'm not in a down cycle right now, but I am definitely fighting one off. I wonder what it's like to not be constantly fighting off a depressive down cycle?  I wonder what it's like to be one of those people that always has to be moving, always has to be doing something, instead of someone who can be content just sitting around like a blob and not doing anything?  Or one of those people who can see that something needs to be done and just does it?  Like the dishes, or putting clean clothes away, or mopping the floor, or changing the cat litter box... sometimes I just hear people complaining about how it sucks being chronically ill and I'm like yep, I know what that's like.  I don't think of depression as a chronic illness, but it is.  And somehow I manage to live with it, and I have for almost 40 years.  40 years of fighting this stupid mental illness.  Sometimes it feels like it's going to break me, and sometimes it does break me.  But it hasn't won.  And it's not going to win.  I am going to win.  Even when I don't feel like a winner, I am going to keep fighting.  Even if I have to fight from the couch, or my bed, or behind a mountain of clothes that need to be put away or an even bigger mountain of clothes that need to be washed.  

Tell me that's not the devil sneaking in and trying to break me.  Tell me, if that's not the evil one, why I feel better and stronger after I pray about it, and ask God for help. Tell me why I feel more like a "normal" person the more time I spend reading Scripture and serving others in God's name and glorifying His name? 

That's what I thought.

I'm gonna sign off now. I've been sitting in front of this computer waaaaaaaay too long today!

Another year of blogging.

I had two of the oddest and most vivid dreams last night.

In one of them, I was driving my Equinox on the highway. I believe it was supposed to be 94, just before Spaghetti Junction, heading west.  I was alone in the car, and the traffic was moderate, and suddenly someone up ahead lost a trailer. A metal utility trailer, with nothing on it.  I knew this because, in the far right lane, this trailer was just, you know, cruising along by itself.  The rest of us were attempting to continue to drive at speed, as the trailer was pretty much still staying in the right lane, but it was slowing down enough that we knew it was going to be a hazard at some point and we didn't want to be there when it was.

But of course, it wouldn't be a vivid and odd dream if that happened, so the next thing I knew, I looked over and it was sparking - because the tongue was starting to drag on the asphalt.  I also noticed that it was veering toward the guardrail on the right side, so I was at least glad that it wasn't veering into traffic, and I kept trying to sneak around it, but there was just too much traffic and the other drivers were leery of driving next to it as well since it was starting to swerve.  Then, it happened -- the wheels broke off, and sparks were flying everywhere, and pieces of broken trailer were flying everywhere, and I was just praying that I would make it through (I was in the left lane, so as far away from it as I could get).  But it was like we were in a war zone suddenly, pieces of burning tire and metal were flying around and landing on the road, and we were trying not to drive over it. I thought I had made it and was clear, and then BAM! I heard something hit my back tire and I had this sinking feeling that I had been hit. 

Nothing happened right away, but a few seconds later the car next to me had it's rear tire explode and it went careening off out of control into another car and sliding sideways down the road. And I was praying that the same thing wasn't going to happen to me, and then all of a sudden I heard a loud explosion and the next thing I knew, I was trying to wake up (it's weird, trying to wake up when you're in a dream) and I was laying in the back seat of the Equinox, which was all crumpled up and lying in a ditch on it's side. I managed to crawl out and everything was like black and burned out and there were smoldering piles of cars everywhere, but I recognized that it was my Equinox because I could still see the Ewok sticker on what was left of the rear window.  And I was like, Crap! They got me! I have to get out of here!

The rest of that part wasn't quite as vividly detailed. I somehow ended up with my parents (because in the dream that made sense) and we went to the ER but we were there for my Mom even though I was clearly in rough shape, but my Mom kept insisting that nothing was wrong with me and it was all in my head and she was the one who needed to be seen, even though I could barely stand up and barely keep my eyes open and I was really, really sore. I don't know, there's probably something subconscious to that...lol

Anyway. The other weird, vivid dream I had last night wasn't as storylike as that one was. It was that my sister and her new husband had decided to buy a horse farm, but neither one of them knows anything at all about horses, so they invited my Mom and I over to see their new place.  (Which would so not happen in real life. None of it. ha ha ha.)  And I thought they just meant that they had like a horse or two, but we got there and it was like this big facility with like hundreds of horses, and they had taken over as the owners and had all this staff of trainers and hired hands and everything, and it turned out they weren't hands-on with the horses at all but just wanted to say that they owned horses.  And in the dream I was like, that's really dumb, you don't even like horses.  And my sister was like, That doesn't matter, I own all of them now.  

I don't know. They were both just so vivid, that I felt like they really happened.  I woke up from the one amazed that I wasn't sore anymore.

=================================================================

Maybe the one was mildly prophetic.  I was sitting here at my desk working this morning, and I heard a delivery truck driving down our driveway (which surprised me, and in fact I had been texting the hubby about it earlier because he said he was expecting a delivery and he hoped they didn't just leave it up by the mailbox like they have been doing lately, and I replied with something like I was pretty sure they would because no one in their right mind would try to drive a delivery truck down our driveway of glare ice right now) and then I heard the sounds of a delivery truck crashing into a snow bank and, to my surprise, I could look out my office window and see the front of a delivery truck!  (Which I should NOT be able to do!)  You know that feeling I described a few entries ago of sitting in my car at a complete stop on 35W, hoping that the car behind me was going to stop in time to not hit me? It was a feeling a lot like that, only it's a little different when you are hoping the delivery truck is going to stop in time to not hit your freaking house!

It didn't hit the house. But it was close. Like within 5 feet. If there wasn't a pile of snow in front of my window, it could have very well hit the house.  Our driveway is like a big, icy slide right now.  It would almost be funny, except the truck demolished my favorite bucket o' flowery crap that I had out there. The one with the "Welcome" sign that my Dad made, and the horse and dog yard thingy that my parents gifted me, and no I don't put these things away in the winter because the bucket thingy was full of dirt and super heavy and I had it off the beaten path where it was out of the way of the plow so it WOULDN'T get hit by anything. Except wayward delivery trucks, I guess.  

And now, the delivery truck can't get back up the driveway. They called another truck to come help them and apparently that didn't work either. Can you get banned from receiving packages from certain carriers for things like this? I don't know.  I guess we'll find out! 

But seriously. My take is, shouldn't professional drivers know better?  I'm not even a professional driver and I wouldn't have taken a big delivery truck like that down a hilly driveway.  You can see that it's icy.  In the past, drivers have left their trucks at the top of the driveway and walked the packages down to the door, or even left them at the mailbox at the top of the driveway.  Or, hear me out, refused to deliver them. But what do I know? I'm not a delivery person, I'm just a nurse.

They've got tow truck #2 here now. Hopefully the second try is the charm!

========================================================

It looks like someone put the bucket o' dirt and the Welcome sign and the horse thingy back up. I'm so happy that they weren't ruined. Thanks be to God and I actually do feel bad that the rest of their day was probably ruined because of our driveway. And I felt that way before I knew that my little yard thingies weren't ruined, just to be clear. I just feel bad because there really isn't anything I can do to help this situation. I don't know how to run the tractor, and even if I did, I don't know how to use it to get a delivery truck pushed up an icy hill.  I have a horse...but she wouldn't be any help at pulling a truck up a hill, either.  I would just be standing out there freezing my ass off, shrugging my shoulders and looking around as if the solution was going to magically appear in front of me.

And no one likes that.

========================================================

All righty. Back to work now. TTYL!
 

And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?

 Another year almost over, a new one almost begun.  

As one is wont to do at this time of year, I've been thinking back on the past 12 months and trying to decide whether it was an overall good year or not.  And then one of my friends posted the sentiment that is the focal point for today's post, and it struck me as one of those things I must share for relevancy's sake.

And here we are.

One day soon, but not today, I'll go through and perhaps list the major occurrences of every month of 2025, mostly to prove to myself that there were good things that happened this year.  It wasn't an altogether horrible year.  Not by a long shot.

I've just had a hard time these past few weeks or so.  

I remember, shortly after my Dad died, one of the things "people" told me was that the second round of holidays was going to be harder than the first.  I remembered those words, obviously, but took the advice with a grain of salt at the time, because that's just what you do when you're on Grief Auto-Pilot.  When all of the well-meaning people you know try to tell you how it's going to be, and you know they mean well but you don't really want to hear what it was like for anyone else because no one else could possibly know what it's like for you.  

And they don't.  But they do.  

But that won't change things. You still won't want to hear what other people have to say. But those of us who have been through it will still want to say it, because we want to help other people who are going to go through what we have already been through or are still going through.  Because this grief thing is horrible and if we can do anything, anything, to make it even the least bit easier for someone else, we will.  

But we can't.  

I think of that when I talk to people now who have lost loved ones, especially other adults who have lost a parent.  I hear myself saying the things that others said to me that I internally cringed upon hearing and sometimes I hate myself for saying those things to other people, knowing that they are internally cringing at my words, too.  Mostly I try to choose my words very, very carefully, keeping all of this in mind.  Trying to put myself back in their shoes, and doing or saying what I needed most at that time. 

But that just sucks because then, you know, I'm back at that place again.  Ground Zero.  August 2nd, 2024, at 7:30pm.  The place in time I have wanted to distance myself from for 515 days and counting.  

Anyway...yeah. My point being that the second holiday season without my Dad has been very difficult. I don't know if it was more difficult than the first one was, but it was definitely more difficult than I thought it would be.  I'm not sure why. Maybe because of all the emphasis on families getting together, and memories of Christmases past, and even farther back memories of Christmases as a kid, and all that stuff.  Or maybe because life, in general, has kinda settled into it's new normal now and then the holidays come up and nothing is normal anymore and the days are cold and dark and I've got this darn cold I can't get rid of and I didn't even feel like putting Christmas decorations up this year and it's kinda hit me out of the blue and I can't even drive the Lincoln right now because there's snow and ice and salt on the roads and I just miss my Dad and I'm not getting along very well with my Mom lately either and it's not that we're arguing because I'm not going to do that, I'm just going to keep quiet and not argue with her because that's the right thing to do.  

Urgh.

I miss my Dad.  I don't like that this year, 2025, is the first year in which he wasn't here at all.  I remember feeling like this in September 2024 -- the first month in which he wouldn't be on earth at all.  It's like that, but on a bigger scale.

I think about him every day, but most of the time now, it doesn't make me so sad that I have to stop what I'm doing and cry.  I mean, I am right now, of course, but usually it's not sad things.  I feel like I've come a long way in that respect.  It makes me happy and makes me feel loved, remembering him.  So many of the good parts of me, are from him.  I was always a Daddy's girl, and I will always and forever be a Daddy's girl...and nothing will change that, not even death. 

Alright, on that note, I gotta get back to work.  Good thing I'm not on camera today, since my eyes are all puffy now. Actually, come to think of it, I don't look or sound much different than I did before, and crying actually helped clear my sinuses out a bit, so, yay! It made my headache worse, but I'll take the wins where I can get 'em right now.

Toodles!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

 

It's beginning Christmas to look a lot like. That's how I read it, anyway.

I just realized I never wrote anything in here last month. I'm kind of not surprised. I think about writing in here a lot, but then I get distracted by something else and never get around to it.  Or I'm behind at work so I work through my lunch break instead of playing on the computer.  I mean, NOOOOOOO, no one does that, ever...especially not salaried nurses!

Actually, last month I didn't get to WFH much.  Mainly because the Medicare extension allowing coverage for telemedicine visits expired and wasn't re-extended or something like that, so we had to open more in-person clinic slots. Poor me...there were days I had to go in to the office 4 days out of the week! The horrors!  (I'm being sarcastic here. I know you can't tell in writing.)  It made me realize how spoiled I've become -- I mean how blessed I am -- with my job where I can work from home so often.  Going to the office every day makes me crabby. And it's nothing to do with the actual office itself, because I like the office and I love the people. I really do. The more time I spend with them, the more I like them which is a definite conundrum to working from home like we all do so much now.  

It's the commute that's getting to me.  On a good day, the commute from my office to my driveway takes one hour and five minutes.  But let's face it, there are no "good days" when you're talking about rush hour traffic.  We've always gotta slow down for no reason somewhere along the way.  Or now that it's winter, we never go the speed limit.  I do like driving, but I wish all those other people would get off the road first.

At the end of October, I was driving home from my Mom's house one Friday night -- if I remember correctly, I had spent Thursday night at her house and then worked from her house on Friday and was driving home that evening, so not too late in the evening. Instead of taking my usual route, I decided to take the faster freeways so I could theoretically get home faster.  HA HA HA!  That backfired on me.  Suddenly the lane of traffic I was in decided to stop moving and first I thought I was OK because I slammed on the brakes in time to avoid hitting the car in front of me.  But the car behind me did not slam on their brakes in time to avoid hitting me.  Even though it was only about 6pm, it was dark and rainy and I was shaking and mad, and the other lanes around us were moving so after I heard that sickening CRUNCH I carefully moved over to the shoulder, because I'm not stupid enough to stay in the freaking middle lane.  I was, however, stupid enough to figure the person behind me -- you know, the one who HIT ME!? -- would follow me.  HA HA HA HA again.  Nope.  They just kept going.  And I was so upset I didn't realize it at first.  So naturally I didn't get a look at their vehicle, or their license plate, or anything like that.

Hey, don't come at me saying I should have got that stuff. You weren't there. You don't know how fast it happened, and how difficult it was to see since it was dark and rainy, and I was focused on getting my car out of traffic while the other car was apparently focused on blending in with traffic.

So, yeah. That was fun. Short story long, I got a new tailgate and bumper now. Well, my Equinox did, anyway.  That's about the most exciting thing that's happened recently. Thank God for car insurance! I was super mad at first about the other person just driving away, but I'm over it now.  There's nothing I can do about it anyway.  It wasn't the right thing to do, but at least I wasn't hurt and my car wasn't totalled.  Someone out there is driving around with some Specific Blue paint from MY Equinox on their front bumper.  I lost my DeColores bumper sticker, and the decal from the dealership where we bought the Nox, but I didn't lose my Ewok window decal.  

And, Medicare now covers telemedicine visits again, so this month I get to work from home more than I did last month. Yay!  

A few months ago at work, we switched to Teams for our phone service provider. This is the first time I haven't had an actual physical phone on my desk. It was weird at first, dialing through the computer instead of a real phone.  It's still a little weird, but I can say that because I'm over 50.  Our house has actual phone jacks.  We have never used them, but they're there anyway.  But it's nice having Teams as our phone service at work because it's a lot easier to use when I'm WFH'ing.  I don't have to use my cell phone anymore! It's the little things sometimes.

Now I'm just babbling. I got a new keyboard a few weeks ago and I like the way it feels and sounds.  There's a word for that but I don't know what it is right now.  I unintentionally wrecked my last keyboard by packing it in my bag with too much other stuff.  Anyway...I don't like typing on the laptop keyboard. Plus it doesn't have a 10-key pad.  And I really don't like using the touch pad for a mouse, especially when I'm trying to do the church stuff on here.  

I have a lot of dreams with my Dad in them. Well, it seems like a lot, it's probably like one a week, sometimes more.  They're usually just like very casual (for lack of a better word), just like a regular life-type situation and he's just there and it's, like, no big deal or anything.  Those are the best. Sometimes I'll have dreams where I'll know in the dream that he's not alive so I'll be like, What are you doing here? And he'll just smile at me like he's got some big secret or something and act like he doesn't know what I'm talking about.  And then sometimes, and these are the absolute worst, but every now and then I'll have dreams in which he dies again.  Not in the same way, but from the same thing, if that makes sense. I mean, like, one time I had a dream that he was back at their house on the couch but in the same state he was in last time I saw him, and I was like, Oh, I thought you already died, what are you doing here? And of course he didn't answer me, but I was doubly upset because I was like, I thought we already did this, you mean we have to go through this all again?!  But thankfully, the vast majority of the times my Dad appears in my dreams are not like that at all.

This morning, when I was in that half-awake state and the news was on before I got up, I dreamt that my Mom and I were standing on the sidewalk across the street from the shop where my Dad used to work, and that he was sitting in the doorway, just sitting there, not really doing anything.  And then I heard this voiceover in my dream about someone being shot at Edgerton and Jenks (which is a block away from where the shop was) and I was like, oh my gosh, that's right over there! And I pointed in that direction and my Mom was like Yeah, so? And I was like, So we should get out of here! And my Mom was like, That's way over there! We're safe over here. And I was like, No we're not! Come on, let's GO! And I ran over and tried to get my Dad to stand up but he wouldn't move, either. It was odd. And then I woke up and actually paid attention to the news and they were, indeed, talking about someone who was shot at Edgerton and Case and how the area was sealed off from Edgerton and Jenks to Case, or something like that.  I don't know, it amuses me when the news filters into my dreams like that. 

There's a lot to unpack there.  Not really, though.  My Mom lives in a high-crime area and refuses to leave it.  Something can happen half a block away and she's not bothered by it because it's not literally right in front of her face. I don't have time to unpack all of that right now, or share my feelings on it in a civilized manner. So I shan't.

Besides, it's time to get back to work.

TTFN!

Something went wrong, alright...

 

It's called, I have new hobbies other than writing in my blog. Ha! Ha!

I've been spending my WFH lunch hour computer time working on computer stuff for church lately.  Sorry not sorry.  I do miss writing, so I am actually a little sorry because I do need to journal occasionally for my own sanity.  Or so I've been telling myself for the last 40 years.

But I'm not sorry because doing computer stuff for church is playing on the computer for the Lord, thankyouverymuch.  I never did fit in very well with any of the other official committees.  I do a lot of Bible Studies (which I also enjoy very much) but even some of those get challenging after a while.  But this?  Besides the fact that we have called ourselves the Awesome Committee?  This does not feel like "work" at all.  

I was trying to explain to my Mom what I do, keeping in mind that my Mom hasn't actually gone to a real church service since...probably since I was in elementary school and begged to go to Sunday School, so she actually walked me to the Lutheran church two blocks away a few times (or maybe more, I don't remember more than a few times, though).  I know she does watch some church services on TV now, though, so I tried explaining that, you know how churches have big screens up now on which they show the lyrics to songs instead of having everyone use hymnals?  Or the words to responsorial prayers instead of everyone having to have a bulletin from which to read along?  Kind of like a slide show to go along with the service?  I do that.  I make the slide shows and then I run the presentation during the service to keep the slide show moving along.  Because it doesn't run automatically.  And NO, it's NOT PowerPoint. It's a way more intensive program than that.  It does so many more things and I've only tapped the surface of what it can do! 

Why do I keep getting plopped in front of programs that people are already using and then getting tasked with figuring out how to use them better?  I'm a nurse, not a computer programmer! 

I'm only half complaining.  Everyone has their back-up career, right? Maybe not a career-career, but I guess this would be mine.  

Anyway...so that's what I've been doing when I'm not writing in here.  I've been watching video tutorials and reading articles and posts on user forums and trying to learn how to use said program better.  And having some creative fun in the process, too.  Win-win-win!

Sometimes I feel like sitting down and writing, just to get it off my chest, what I would say to my sister if I could say something to her that she'd hear.  But then I actually thought about it, and I thought -- I don't know what I'd say to her.  I think one of the last things I said to her was that I didn't have anything to say to her, lol.  And I think that's still actually correct.  Because I don't have anything in particular I want to say to her -- but I would dearly love to hear what she has to say for herself. I'd want to hear that before I'd decide what I wanted to say.  (Unfortunately, I probably wouldn't think about what I wanted to say before I said it, though. So it's probably best that this is probably going to stay a hypothetical scenario.)

My Mom has given up on getting in contact with her. Again.  She does this every so often.  She was sending her cards for her birthday and anniversary and sometimes just because, and occasionally trying to call her and leaving voicemail messages for her.  As she does.  And then she gets annoyed that she makes all this effort for nothing and decides she's done and she's never going to try to get in touch with her again.  For a while, and then she tries again.  I don't even point out that I can clearly see the cycle -- Hell, I lived the cycle and might even still be living it now except the 'I'm not going to try contacting her' cycle has gone on for a very long time this time for me, if that's the case!  Anyhoo.  The last I heard, she was giving up this time because my sister allegedly told my nephew (her son) that she intended to call my Mom but just hadn't yet.  IDK. Like I said, I've tagged out.  I guess the only thing I would want to hear at this point, the only thing that really pisses me off, is why she didn't come visit my Dad when he was in the nursing home or when he was on hospice.  ALLEGEDLY (and I say this because it's obviously all hearsay to me) she told her husband that she was having a hard time after my Dad died because she didn't get to see him.  Which, I have no idea why she told her husband she didn't get to see him, because she was notified many times in may ways by many people about what was going on when it was going on.  So my anger comes from the fact that she's probably lying (and I know that's speculation on my part) to her husband about what really happened. She's probably saying that we wouldn't let her come down to see him.  Which isn't true. I would have let her see him.  For him. Not for her.  

Whatever.

I'm giving up...

About a hundred* years ago, when I was pregnant with my son, I cried a lot. I mean, a LOT.  

* OK, a quarter of a hundred, plus two.

Oh yes, I hear you nodding knowingly and sighing, wishing I would've chosen something unique to write about.  Pregnancy hormones.  How stereotypical.  What's next, morning sickness? (Yes, I had that, too, for about 6 months.)

And besides, I hear you lament, that was so 27 years ago.  Don't you have anything else to write about?

It's relevant, I promise.  Because that's the first time I remember actually taking a good, hard, introspective and retrospective look at myself, and the other mothers in my life (namely my mom and my sister), and being scared to death.  That's one of the reasons I was crying all the time.

Some of the other reasons were very valid, too. It was a tumultuous time of our lives. We weren't sure where we were going to be living (because my hubby was being promoted, which was a really good thing, but he was also being sent to other states to work and there were rumors he was going to be offered a job in another state), we were newly married, my hubby's father had died about a year prior -- and I didn't even realize at the time how that alone was another wrench in the machine! -- and just a whole bunch of other Life Things that I could write about and get totally distracted by writing about right now.  My then-untreated depression and anxiety, our eventual moving to another state and therefore me quitting the job I loved and leaving our family and friends and moving to some town I've never heard of and being alone most of the time and being too depressed and anxious to go out and make friends or anything.  Whatever.

But what scared me is that I suddenly saw things in the way my parents raised me that I realized I did not like at all.  Mostly it was the controlling (which, let's be honest, was my Mom more than my Dad).  How I could only use the phone for 10 or 15 minutes at a time for no apparent reason. Or how I couldn't have friends sleep over, for no apparent reason.  Or I couldn't invite friends over at all, for no apparent reason.  It always, always seemed like my Mom automatically hated everything I liked and was against everything I wanted to do.  I couldn't do after school things because I had to be home right away.  Why?  I don't know.  "Because I said so."  When I got older, I told my Mom that her rules didn't make sense, which is why I didn't want to follow them and why I wanted explanations for them, and I got the ol', "Because I said so" and "As long as you're living under my roof, you'll do as I say," lines.  That was it.  End of "discussion".  It made me frustrated.  So frustrated.  

And when I was pregnant with the boy and staring down the barrel of motherhood, it made me mad.  So mad, all I could do was cry.  Why did it have to be that way?  It made no damn sense.  And I needed to know why it had been like that so I didn't repeat it with the child I was about to have.  

I guess that was the first time, too, that I realized that people's behavior's are affected by their pasts.  I mean, that concept didn't really, REALLY hit me until just recently, but that's when that seed was planted.  Because honestly, most of the reason I cried was because I thought I was doomed. Because my sister was a mother by then, and I had seen the same behaviors in her, and I thought, Crap, it's hereditary!  Even tho my hubby, bless his heart, assured me that it wasn't.  That we were going to be different.  That we were going to parent with purpose and rationale, and when it was appropriate, we would explain to our child why we had the rules for him that we did.  

Thank God for my husband.  For so many reasons!!!

Anyway.  I'm not sure why this particular scenario came to mind this morning.  Maybe because I'm still trying to figure out why people behave the way they do?  And the "people" I'm still trying to figure out are my mother and my sister?  I mean, one of life's great mysteries is that my sister and I grew up in the same household but turned out so vastly different.  I've always blamed it on the age difference (she's 5 years and 10 months older than me) but the older I get and the more I learn about people, I believe it's so much more than that.  There's a reason she has always been my Mom's favorite up until the last 10 years or so, and there's a reason I was always my Dad's favorite.  Personality-wise, I definitely take after my Dad more than my Mom, and she is a spitting image of my Mom more than my Dad.  In fact, I don't see any of my Dad's personality in her.  

The title of today's post was meant to tie into the fact that, while becoming more aware of other people's actions, I've also become more aware of the fact that I can be judgmental and I'm trying so very hard to give that up. Because spending time alone with my Mom, who is very judgmental, has made me see what that looks like to others, and I don't like it one single solitary bit.  So, much like when I was pregnant with the boy and suddenly seeing behaviors in others that I recognized in myself that scared me so much, all I could do was weep, I have been making a conscious effort to just be a better all-around person.  

And oh, it does pain me to say this ("this" meaning the implication that I don't want to be like my Mom), because I do love my Mom.  She's my Mom!  She gave me life.  She supported me the best she could.  But she has been through some shit in her life as well that has made her the way she is, and that's the kind of thing that also fascinates me.  Because some of it makes perfect sense, now.  More on that later. 

The moral of the story for now is, don't judge anyone because you don't know what they've been through.  Cliche, I know, but it is so very true.  

Made it to another Friday!

I swear, this month has 5,624 days.  Every other month in recent memory has just zipped by, but this month, holy moly! Every time I turn around it's still August.  It feels like it's gotta be at least November by now, but nope.  Still August.  

Last year I was pretty non-committal about my birthday.  It was a milestone birthday and all, but given that it was literally a month and a day after my Dad died, I really didn't feel like celebrating.  And this year, I kinda don't feel like celebrating, either.  Not even to make up for not celebrating last year.  Not even to call it a milestone-plus-one birthday because who does that?!  Next year will be our milestone anniversary (30th) but this year is one of those inbetween years where neither one is a milestone.  We don't even have the day off this year for the first time in, like, ever.  

We usually take our birthaversary day off to go to the fair or something, but not this year.  The fair ends on Labor Day and our birthaversary is after Labor Day this year, so that didn't work out.  It's in the middle of the week so it's not like we could take a long weekend and go do anything fun, so, I guess we just ended up not planning anything. Welcome to life in your 50's, kids. It's like a party, all the time.  At least, you want it to still feel like a party but sometimes you just can't anymore, because life.  

Not that we don't have big, fun things planned on the horizon. Just not next week. 

Anyway...seasonal allergies are kicking my ass.  And it's that time of year where I don't know whether it's allergies or a cold, or both.  It's probably allergies but it's a good reminder that cold and flu season is right around the corner.  And the temperature outside went from 85 to 65 like it saw a state trooper.  I do not like it.  I am not ready for "fall weather" yet.  I mean, I like wearing hoodies as much as anyone, but I don't want to yet.  I don't like being cold.  And I know that complaining about it will change it, so, here I go.  Because my body aches and my throat hurts and I just want to crawl back into bed and sleep the rest of the day.

So the other day, when we went to the fair, we ended up driving past the nursing home where my Dad resided, but from a different route than I usually took to get there. I didn't know we were going to take the route we took to get to the fair (long irrelevant story) and I had figured out pretty quickly and well in advance that we would end up driving past it, so I can't even say it caught me off guard.  But when we drove past it, I suddenly couldn't stop crying.  I hadn't had an crying episode like that in a long time.  And I drive within a block of that place almost every time I go to work (thanks to fair traffic having 36 all backed up).  So it wasn't even that I haven't been close to the place recently. I don't know what it was exactly, and I'm not driving myself crazy trying to figure it out. I just accepted it, had a little cry on the way to the MIL's (where we parked), and got about my day. 

I used to wonder what people meant when they said they thought about someone [who had passed away] every day.  Did it mean they actually sat and thought about that person intentionally and then got all sad because of it, or what?  Well, now I know. Because at some point every day, I think about my Dad.  I see something that reminds me of him or something he liked or something he would have liked, something I wish I could tell him about, or I stop and look at a picture of him for a few thoughtful seconds, or something like that.  Or I go to my parents' house and my Mom says something and in my head I hear the smart-ass remark that my Dad would have said. That happens a lot. It makes me sad. Oh, well.  It's hard to explain.  Part of it is that my Mom just tends to be so negative about everything that I try very, very hard to keep all of my comments positive when I'm with her just to combat that. And that's not a new thing for her at all -- she has always been that way. I recognize that now.  And I don't want to perpetuate that.  So I try to only say positive things or nothing at all.  Do you know how hard that can be?!?!  Because I like to vent, too.  But certain people you just can't vent around.  Because you'll say something like, This person mildly inconvenienced me today because xyz and the other person will overreact and be like Anyone who does xyz is despicable and selfish and horrible! And you're like... That's not what I meant, I was just having a bad moment and it was mildly inconvenient but I'm sure it wasn't malicious... but it's too late.  And then every time you see that person for the next six months, they ask you had anyone xyz that day, and you say no, and they smirk and say, Yeah, they know better now, don't they! and you just sigh and change the subject.

I don't know what I'm getting at here.  I didn't actually have a specific case in mind in that scenario.  I just find people and their behaviors very, very interesting. And I'm also very, very annoyed by people who presume to know what other people are thinking. Maybe because of all the times I was told what I was thinking, and what the person thought I was thinking was so far from the truth it wasn't even funny.  YES I'M TALKING ABOUT MY MOM AND MY SISTER lol. Alas, I don't have time to trauma dump right now.  I have to get back to work. Because lunch break blogging is fun!

Alright. Toodles!

 

8, 8, I forget what 8 was for...

You know what? I don't know exactly how many weeks it's been since my Dad died anymore.

I'm not even kidding. I don't.

It's like, once we got to 1 year (52 weeks), I stopped counting. 

I've noticed that Fridays don't bother me as much anymore.  I still don't like them, but I don't hate them, either.  They're by far not my favorite day of the week again yet, but I don't dread them.  I never fail to recall that they are the day on which my favorite Dad in all the universe left me, but that fact doesn't quite ruin the whole day for me anymore.  But if it ends up being a bad day, if I end up moody for no other apparent reason, that's what I blame it on. 

When I think of my Dad (which is still daily and, for the record, I don't want that to change nor do I expect it ever will) I don't feel that heart-crushing sensation every time anymore, and my eyes don't start welling up with tears if I think about him too long. OK, well they are now, just because I said that.  But usually they don't.  I feel more loved than hurt these days.  More thankful that I was so blessed to have had a Dad who loved me more than anything, and less feeling absolutely torn apart inside because the first person on earth to love me more than anything is gone. 

OK, now I'm starting to cry, when I was just thinking I haven't cried for a while, either. 

But my point is that, it's odd, the difference a year can make.  A year ago I had no idea how I was going to carry on being my father's daughter without him here.  How could I be a Daddy's Girl without my Daddy? That would make me just a Girl, and we all know I'm not good at that!  How could I be me without my number one fan?  I mean, my husband likes me and all (lol) but...you know.  

If I thought I'd gone through the gamut before my Dad died, what with losing him slowly (or not-so-slowly at times) to dementia and such, I don't know how to explain what I've gone through in the last year and am still going through now. 

Because when one of your parents, or both of your parents, or I suppose any prominent figure in your life, really, dies, there's one big thing that has to happen that I'd never realized before. Because I'd never lost anyone in my life who had as big of a role as my Dad did.  You have to sort of re-invent yourself.  Maybe that's not the right term; maybe it is. Obviously, I'm still working on it, whatever it is.  But, you know, it changes everything in the family dynamic. 

I don't know exactly how to explain the depth of this.  How you have to change the very way your mind works.  You don't have that person to rely on anymore, so you have to shift your way of thinking.  Even if you're 50 years old, you have this harsh realization that you have to be more of an adult because you can't ask your Dad anything anymore.  Even if you couldn't really ask your Dad anything for the last 5-10 years because he was already losing his mind anyway, at least there were some things you could ask him and think maybe he might be giving you the right answer.  But now, you can't even ask him at all, so, you better learn to figure it out yourself.  Suck it up, buttercup.  

It's eye-opening, for sure.  But I can only imagine that he's sitting up there, watching me figure things out and smirking at it all, going, Yep, I told you so!

That's all I got for now.  Toodles!