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!

 

13 years?!

 

That's how long I've had this particular blog going. 

Thirt. Teen. Years.

I thought I just started it, like, a couple of years ago. 

😆😆😆😆

I crack me up sometimes.

This blog is a teenager!  I've been writing in this blog longer than I've been working at [place where I work]! Longer than I've been driving the Nox! 

I mean, I know that I started this blog about the time we started our adoption journey, but it doesn't occur to me that that was so long ago now.  I mean...I was in my 30's when I started this blog.  (Late 30's, but still.)  Now I'm in my 50's.  (Early 50's but still.)  

Erh ma gersh. I wonder how many times I've changed the password in 13 years?  Ha. Ha.

Anywho...

Not much going on today.  I drove the Lincoln to work last Thursday and Friday. That was fun!  It's not stressful at all driving a literal land yacht though pre-rush-hour traffic.  I even tried leaving early so I'd not hit the heart of rush hour traffic.  But who am I kidding? Driving that thing in the city at all is stressful.  It used to just be stressful because it's such a boat, but I'm used to driving it now.  That part doesn't stress me out.  What stresses me out is other frickin' drivers.  People who don't know that there's a reason to leave space between me and the car in front of me -- my car doesn't have anti-lock brakes, therefore it takes longer to stop than modern cars.  Not only that, but I don't want other cars that close to my car. In general, but especially in a classic car that's going to be more difficult to replace parts on if some idiot causes any damage.  

It's also not really fun driving a boat with no air conditioning on the hottest days of the month. But I didn't care -- the reason I drove it to work is because we decided to finally go to the North St Paul car show on Friday night, and the easiest way to do that was to go directly from work.  So actually, I spent the night at my Mom's on Thursday night so just drove the Lincoln to work Thursday morning.  I stressed out about parking it in the lot at work, too, because that's how I roll. 

At least, I consoled myself afterward, I wasn't still working in downtown St. Paul and had to try to park it in the parking ramp! I think that would've been a big H-E-L-L N-O.

But I knew it was too long to fit in just one spot, but I didn't want to park as far away as humanly possible like I usually do.  I know, I don't overthink at all.  I still worry that kids are going to steal the hood ornament, because my mind is still stuck in the 90's, lol.  Anyway, I tried like 3 different parking spots before I settled on one that I liked, because it was far enough away that I didn't feel I was taking patient parking, but close enough that I didn't think anyone would mess with it without being noticed.  (Cars have been broken into in that lot before.)  And it had to be in a spot where I could get the door open without being in danger of hitting another car, because those doors are as long as some compact cars, and I had to be able to drive forward out of a spot because it's a freaking long car.  Anyway.  Hashtag car girl problems.  

Then I got to my Mom's house, and we went and ran her errands or whatever, and got back to land for the night.  She had thoughtfully cleared space in the garage so I could park there.  But the neighbor across the alley had their garbage receptacles placed so that I wasn't able to just pull up and execute the ol' 3-point turn to get in like I used to.  I did end up moving their receptacle once, but it still took about 5 minutes of back-and-forthing it to get in.  A little embarassing, but more maddening than anything because my Mom -- bless her heart -- who does not drive and has no freaking idea what it's like to try to back any vehicle, much less a 19.4-foot behemoth, into a small garage, just stood there smiling at me the whole entire time. I was hot and sweaty (no A/C, remember) and getting more and more frustrated and in my head was like WHY ISN'T SHE HELP DIRECT ME INTO THE FREAKING GARAGE?!?

Ahem.

I'm trying to show grace.  But if you see someone struggling to park something, anything, wouldn't you maybe HELP THEM!?!?!  

Alright, alright. I'll quit. It's not the first time I've tried to just say -- no, it's OK, she doesn't drive so she doesn't get it.  But it's also not the first time I've completely understood why my Dad got so frustrated with my Mom so many times.  Like, all the time. With anything having anything to do with driving.  

So after I executed my beautiful 38-point turn and got the car safely parked in the garage...my Mom was like, "You should have pulled in straight, it would have been a lot easier."

No. No it would not have been. Because I would have then had to try to back it out the next morning.

LE SIGH.

I love my Mom, I really, really do.  But this is how we get along. It's how we have always gotten along. This is not new. It has always frustrated me to high heaven and back, and I need to vent about it or at least write it out so I can try to figure out new ways to deal with it and/or try to understand it so I don't just keep it inside and get mad about it.  It's like she's in a bubble and doesn't see anything else around her but her.  I know she had childhood trauma.  Lots of it.  I have started to see how it has affected her, but I'm not going to write about it here yet.  Mostly I'm going to write about how it has affected me, because it has.  

Anyway...so that's the story of why I drove the Lincoln to work on Thursday and Friday.  I might drive the Maverick to work sometime. I don't know why I feel like the Lincoln is so much more reliable than the Maverick.  Maybe because the Lincoln has actually been gone through by a mechanic and the Maverick hasn't?  IDK.  But we've driven the Maverick back and forth to the cities many times and it's been fine, too, so, whatever.  We have an AAA membership, it's fine.  :D  The Maverick is easier to park. A freakin' barge is easier to park than a Lincoln Town Coupe.  

Probably. I've never tried to park a barge before.

So. I've been working on planting more flowery crap in my yard this year, a little at a time.  I used to be afraid to, because I wanted to make sure everything was perfect and I wanted to research what to plant where, and I wanted to decide on what kind of landscaping and whatnot and everything. Somewhere along the line this year I was just like, eff all that, I'm just gonna start buying stuff and putting it in the ground and whatever happens, happens!  Actually, that kind of started last year.  But I had this problem of buying things to plant and then waiting too long to plant them because I was overthinking where to plant them because I wanted everything to be perfect. I bought 10 Norwegian Spruce seedlings that came with 2 lilac bush seedlings and waited so long to plant them that only like 5 of the seedlings survived to planting. That was last summer, so I ended up planting them anyway, and some of them took off but then a couple of them got accidentally mowed down and, long story short, two of them (and neither of the lilacs) survived to this year.  Now one of the seedlings is taking off and the other is, eh, I think it might still be OK. The year before that, I planted some hostas under some of the trees up front, but the deer ate them. This year I noticed they've come back a little bit, but the dang deer have eaten all the leaves off my hostas in the front.  Last summer (actually, late fall) I also got some plants from my sister-in-law -- something called hot lips, and I forgot what the other one was -- that we planted in the yard, and the hot lips survived the winter but then got accidentally mowed over and didn't come back after that.  I also tried to transplant some phlox from my mom's yard but I think I put them too close to the A/C unit and they all seem to have died. 

ANYWAY, I've picked up a few other things this year here and there and have randomly yet somewhat strategically planted them in the yard.  The only thing I think I may have waited too long to plant are the bleeding heart roots that were delivered right before we went on vacation -- but we'll see. I planted them anyway.  If they come up in the spring, yay!  I thought I was pretty much done for this year, but then I realized that fall is a whole planting season, too.  Every single year I threaten to plant tulips and things that will come up in the spring, but I never have. This just might be the year.

Alright, the real reason I wanted to write is because I got a new keyboard with round keys that I'm trying to get used to.  It's not bad.  I think I'll like it.  Temu retail therapy seems to be my new thing.  

I'm outta here for now!  TTYL

A whole new world/I'm still standing

Don't hate me (actually, if you're going to hate me over this, it's your own loss) but I'm not a huge Disney fan. Despite the fact that Fantasia is my favorite movie of all time.

Just because I'm not a fan doesn't mean I'm a hater.  I've just never been a princess type of girl, or a movie-goer, or into the things that are, you know. . . popular.

But you know how it is when you're trying to think of a fitting title for that day's blog, and a phrase pops into your head, and then it becomes a song and you realize that the only part of the song you know is the chorus but you can't get it out of your head anyway?  And so since you're not a Disney person, you don't really want to post images from the movie because that feels somewhat really misleading. . . so you post an image of the sheet music because that's what really comes to your mind when you see or think or hear that phrase.  But much to your dismay, the music shown isn't actually the music that plays in your mind, but at that point you don't care and just post it because you don't have all freaking day and people probably won't notice, anyway, unless you tell them?

Welcome to my thoughts.

I really don't know how the rest of the song goes.  I can't even claim I know the whole chorus, just the title.  

Anyhoo.  I'm still standing, better than I ever did.  Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid.  I'm still standing, after all this time.  

That's also fitting. I'm gonna go add that to the title. 

It's weird now, having passed the one-year mark. I feel like a huge milestone has passed.  I mean, it has, I know.  But I'm glad, because the more time that passes, the more I can forget about what it was like at the end.  And the more I can forget about that, the more I can remember the good stuff.  And the more I can remember the good stuff, the less sad I feel.  That doesn't make sense -- you'd think remembering the good stuff would make a person more sad.  I'll have to keep working on that one to figure out what exactly I mean by that.  All I know is it's a comforting feeling, remembering the good things.  It makes me want to get up and do things instead of sitting around having a pity party.  I'm tired of having a pity party. 

I think that's why I've been subconsciously avoiding going to my parents' house the last few weeks.

Since my Mom doesn't drive, she literally hardly ever leaves the house.  This summer she has started going out in the yard and pulling weeds and doing some yard work and just sitting at the table like she and my Dad used to do way back when, but even for the last few years she didn't even do that.  When it was hard for my Dad to move around, he would just sit in his recliner all freaking day, in the living room.  

When I talked to my mom on the phone on the 2nd, she said something like, "I thought you and I would've gotten together and done something today." Which was news to me.  I was like, You never said you wanted to get together and do anything. And she said, We never had a chance to talk about doing anything.

I was like, Waaaaaaait a second! I call you every freaking day.  You had plenty of changes to talk about doing something.  She said something like, "That's not the kind of thing you talk about on the phone."

???

Over the last year, and this was a really hard lesson for me to learn but I have learned it and I have learned it well . . . over the last year I have come to realize that I had a very different relationship with my Dad than I do with my Mom.  Well, duh, I know, doesn't everyone?  Even so, most of the time we tend to lump "our parents" together as one being, don't we?  Until one of them falls out of the equation and we realize that they actually were two separate people; go ahead and laugh, but some of us didn't come from broken homes so we didn't have to learn this until much later in life.  I think I've ever written about this in here before.  

Anyway.  I was kind of proud of myself because I didn't feel bad about not doing anything with my Mom on the 2nd.  I didn't want to do anything with anybody.  I didn't know how I was going to feel, so I didn't want to have any plans made.  And it worked out perfectly! We went to Bible study in the morning, as we usually do on Saturdays, and I didn't feel like talking to anyone or interacting with anyone, so I didn't.  To be honest, the last place on Earth I wanted to be that day was in the city, or in my parents' house.  Everything in that house reminds me of my Dad, but in a depressing way.  It's not the minimalistic house of my childhood anymore, full of sunlight and fresh air and music and energy.  I don't like being there, and even if my Mom had suggested doing something together on the 2nd, I would not have been up for doing anything there.

Alright. That's about all I've got for now.  It's time to get back to work, make some calls, prep some notes for clinic tomorrow, and drink some more water.  TTYL!

The first year: DONE

My Mom just asked me The Stupidest Question Ever.

I'm generally in the "there are no stupid questions" camp.  But honest to goodness, I was just talking to my Mom on the phone not five minutes ago, and she said to me, "So you remember what today is, right?"

Um.

No. It's only been on my mind all the time for the last year.  I've dreaded this day for most of the last year, once the initial fog lifted.  There is no way on God's green earth that I would ever forget that today is the one-year anniversary of the day my one and only Dad, the person who probably loved me more than anyone else on the face of the planet (except my husband but that's a different kind of love), took his last breath on earth.  I've been fighting to get that image out of my head all day. I've been avoiding writing about it all day because that's not what I want to remember today.  I hate August 2nd.  I want to skip it. I want to skip this whole month, actually, because even seeing the word "August" makes me wince now.  August just hurts. 

And then? I was looking for an image to share for this blog, and one of the images that came up was for an article entitled something like, "Why grief may hit harder after the first year," and boy oh boy, I am not even ready to try to tackle THAT thought right now.  

Because today?  Hasn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be.  It has been painful, don't get me wrong.  I have cried several times.  I have chosen to avoid most people today, and the ones I could not avoid I did choose not to interact with.  (So if I interacted with you at all today, consider yourself special!)  I spent the day cleaning and organizing and this made my sad little heart feel happy and in control. I thought of happy memories, and that made me happy, too.  I wore one of my Dad's t-shirts, even though it's three sizes too big for me, and I didn't care that it was three sizes too big for me.  I almost cried when we couldn't drive the Lincoln to Bible Study because apparently I left the door open last time I drove it and that drained the battery (I do not know how I managed to do that...all I can imagine is God didn't want me to drive it this morning for some reason, so there we go.)

I bit my fingernails down, but not nearly as bad as I used to.

I feel like I've come a long way in the last year.  I do miss my Dad, and I know I always will, but I am so glad that he is not suffering any more. 

Since I wasn't going to write today, that's all I'm going to say for now.  Before I turn into a blubbery, sobbing mess, I'm going to sign off and play some mindless games on my phone and try to get to sleep.  Sleep hasn't come easy lately, but I'm not sure if it's because of that, or because I switched from Ozempic to Mounjaro and am finding myself with more energy -- which is a very welcome change that I'm trying to embrace by keeping up with housework and yardwork.  Either way, I'm gonna go. TTYL.