Sunday, 15Mar2009

There are certain things in life that just seem so damn wrong you can’t help but wonder if the world will ever be the same. On a small scale, a huge dent, yet another hole, has been thrown into my family. For some, like my grandma and Dad, the hole is bigger than for others and yet we’ll always feel it just the same.

My uncle died on Sunday at 6pm.

We all knew this was coming, from the time the words ‘pancreatic cancer’ and ‘stage IV’ entered the scene we all knew that this disease would end his life. And Grandma keeps saying how unfair it is, how she wishes it were her. I can’t understand how you’re supposed to live through the death of your child. But even as unfair as it is, there really isn’t a fair or unfair. This is life. And death. And not one of us can escape any little bit of it. We all live and we all die but all we really have to work with is whatever time we get in the middle. 

And we’re watching ‘The Price is Right’ (well, Grandma is at least). This is her routine and somehow not even this event has interrupted it. It’s not as like she’s clinging to her chair but maybe it’s just a force of habit for her. And I have to hand it to her, she has coped remarkably well. I think she is as relieved as anyone that he didn’t have to suffer, didn’t have to linger and be in pain like he was afraid. Everything has happened as it should have. And that’s as much comfort as I can offer to anyone.

Sad.

I’m really very sad about everything right now. I hate it and I’m uncomfortable acknowledging it. But I think maybe that’s one of the things you’re supposed to do when you’re trying to get in touch with your emotions and stop being so logical all the damned time. But ignoring this pain and loneliness is so much easier. I guess that’s why no one ever said life was easy. But this part sucks. When I was little I used to imagine how things would be if you had a rewind button and a pause and a fast forward button for life. I so wish I could fast forward through this part of the movie. Even though I know that if I did that I’d never appreciate the great times (and sometimes that’s just the most annoying fucking thing ever).

It’s funny; no matter how well I think I’m coping there’s always a billion little things that could sucker punch me at any moment. I got an apartment on Saturday and I was pretty excited; I really felt as if I’d conquered a big step. I’ve been looking online for furniture, thinking of color schemes, figuring out how I might want to decorate. And yesterday I felt fine, I really did. Until he called me right after I’d eaten dinner and told me that friends of ours were moving and that their going away party was that night. So, armed with all my good intentions of saying goodbye, I went. I drove to my old apartment so that we could ride together and I didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal. For all intents and purposes it wasn’t. But while we were on our way downtown he starts telling me about how he’d called the jewelry store to see if they would take back my engagement ring. Bam! Sucker punched right in the stomach.

It triggered a little flood gate that let out just enough emotion to make me feel sad. I haven’t let myself get to that point, except at night when I’m trying to fall asleep and feeling alone. I’ve been operating under the guise of being ‘fine’ and moving on and getting things done. I don’t want to dwell, I really don’t. But, as usual, I took the idea of not dwelling to the extreme and haven’t really allowed myself to grieve the ending of a five year relationship. Because somehow, after all this therapy and thinking and reflecting, I still think grieving and sadness and emotions are weak. Deep down that’s what I believe and I don’t know how to short circuit that thought process. I guess I keep thinking that my therapist is supposed to know. But telling me something and getting me to believe you are entirely different skill sets.

And today I thought if I just kept going, kept moving, and not thinking that I’d be ‘fine’ again. Mostly, I was. At work, that’s easy; there’s phone calls and emails and a plethora of other distractions. I went to Target, figuring that I could keep my excitement going by buying dishes and cups and towels. Except that’s not how it went at all. I wandered around fairly aimlessly for awhile until I realized that the entire process of replacing all the things we’d shared for the past year and a half was freaking depressing. I couldn’t get myself to focus or care enough about the color of plates or towels or curtains. So I figured it’d be easier to just buy some household essentials. I had toilet paper and laundry detergent and even that made me feel like I was going to have a panic attack. Bam! Left hook to my jaw. I could not breathe thinking about it, thinking that I didn’t want to buy new stuff, I didn’t want to do any of this. But it’s not about what I want right now – his decision has drawn a line in the sand telling me to back off, telling me that he’s not worried about what I want anymore because him breaking up with me is about what he needs.

I keep repeating to myself that it’s just not all about me, that it’s extremely likely that this time alone will do me good too. And I can’t help but wonder if that’s common sense or my favorite coping mechanism of avoidance and compartmentalization rearing its ugly head. Probably a little bit of both, though I’m hoping it’s more of the former than the latter.

starting over

I’ve been writing in so many random places for so long – my draft emails box, my computer at work, a paper journal – that it finally makes more sense to keep it all in one place (or at least attempt). So far 2009 has been an odd year. If you would have told me last month that I’d be crashing at a friend’s place sans fiance I would have laughed. And yet. Here I am, hanging out on their couch, sleeping in a foreign bed, feeling like a displaced person. And somehow it’s not that bad. I’m not as deflated as I’d have imagined after being broken up with after nearly 5 years, after a year and a half since moving halfway across the country to be with this person. I’m doing alright, I can certainly survive this. I’ve gone through worse. As a tiny Filipino woman once told me, I’m a pretty tough cookie. She was waxing my nether regions. So if I can deal with that without flinching, I can do this, right? Not the same kind of pain but neither is exactly a casual frolic in the park.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!