More deep thoughts...

You know how I said I don't like Fridays?

Man oh man. I don't know what happened, but last Friday night, some kind of hell-hole portal opened up. I just could not stop crying from, like, Friday at about 7pm, until . . . not sure exactly.  I eventually fell asleep Saturday night, or early Sunday morning, so, sometime then?  I was seriously in a state of tears or almost tears that whole time.  And just mad. Mad at everything.  Mad that my Dad isn't alive anymore, mostly.  Probably the "Anger" stage of grief, one part of my brain said, but then I told myself to shut up and quit trying to be so effing smart because what does it matter anyway? My Dad is gone, and I miss him so much...

And it's funny, because earlier that day I was thinking that I have been handling this all pretty well, not having any mental breakdowns, yadda yadda yadda.  Maybe I'm going to be alright. Maybe my anti-depressants are working too well. Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet.  I don't know how to let it sink in.  I think it just has to sink in on it's own.  It's been sinking in for years.  It's been years since I've been able to call my Dad and just talk to him on the phone.  It's been a few years since I've been able to have a legible conversation with him (yes, I know I said 'legible').  Of course there were happy moments in the last few years -- I will never forget going to visit him at the stupid nursing home and the way he would smile and wave at me and say, "Hi, kiddo!" or "Hi, sweetheart!".  Even if we couldn't have meaningful conversations, he knew I was there.  He knew I was there on the day he died, and the days leading up to the day he died.  

The most difficult conversation I ever had with my Dad was a monologue, lol.  It was the day he died.  A few hours before he died, actually.  We were all sitting around his bed and I just had this really strong, sudden urge to talk to him alone.  I kinda fought it, because I didn't want to be weird and make everyone leave the room, but I didn't want to say what I had to say to my Dad with everyone (or anyone else) in the room, either.  So I argued with myself for a while and thought, maybe I can just have this conversation with him telepathically, but that didn't feel right, and finally I was like -- no, I have to talk to him, and everyone else has to leave.  So I asked everyone else to leave.  And I'm not going to tell you (or anyone else) everything that I said to my Dad, because that's going to forever be between me and my Dad.  He didn't respond but I know he heard me.  I felt oddly better after that, in a way.  For a short time, anyway.  It's hard to explain.  

Anyway, so Sunday I woke up feeling like my antidepressants had kicked in again.  We went to the state fair -- something I didn't think I would have been able to do the day before.  I was looking forward to going, to being lost in a sea of people for a while, and to just walk around aimlessly and indulge in some retail therapy.  I only cried the usual daily amount (lol) which was a complete 180º difference from Saturday.  Seriously...I cried more on Saturday than I did even on the day he died.  I don't know what it was exactly, but it reached up and smacked me out of nowhere, and nothing at all was making me feel better that day. All I could do was try to hang on and go with the flow (lame pun somewhat intended) and do whatever I could or couldn't do that day, and be ever so thankful that my hubby understands what I'm going through.  Which also makes me super sad.

Seriously, though. I never realized how many people I know who "know what I'm going through" i.e. have lost a parent (or more than one parent) until recently, and that just breaks my heart, too.  That there are so many of us living with this kind of pain and sadness...it's horrible.  Talk about belonging to the club that no one wants to join! It is just so heart-wrenching.  I can't even find the words right now. It makes me sick to my stomach. I want to gather us all together into a big group hug or something, only on the condition that no one says the words "I'm sorry" or asks "How are you doing?".  There are no good, accurate replies/answers to give.  We know you're sorry -- we're sorry, too.  And if you don't know how we're doing, you really don't want to know.  I don't want to answer how I'm doing because I might be brutally honest and it might be a bad time to be brutally honest, or it might be that I've already told myself that if someone asks how I'm doing, just say "I'm ok".  On the other hand, I haven't come up with any good replacement things to say to someone who is grieving yet.  I've said the same things to people and probably will continue to do so, but I am trying like hell to find other things to say.  Because after the first three times you hear "I'm sorry," you pretty much go numb to it.  You have to, or else you will yell back something like, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT SO STOP APOLOGIZING!!

Alright, that's enough for now. Gotta get back to work. TTYL