An emotional touchstone

Feelings on the inside that need to put on the outside.

Making peace with my dad only to lose him to cancer. I wanted (needed) so much for him to live longer. Three weeks from the discovery of stage four small cell carcinoma to gone. I appreciate that we were given those three weeks to say sorry, to say I love you. However, I will never see my dad again and that pain is beyond words.

Damn the holidays for making apparent that my sisters and I have lost four grandparents and one parent. We’re down to a crazy Mom, whom I love dearly and do no want to lose.

To all my friends who I just recently introduced to this blog, feel no pressure to read it. It’s stuff in my head that needs to be written. I’d write it and put it into the Wailing Wall, but the Internet is more convenient.

There’s frustration growing with in me. Right now it’s manifesting in cleaning. Put shit in order. Organize pantry, drawer full of storage containers, tidy up my tiny bedroom space, work on my bathroom.

But here’s the crux, there’s other stuff that I need to be working on that’s being ignored. Finding an internship. Possibly finding another job to replace the one I have now. Graduating in five months. Time has flown by. I’ve now been in the City for almost seven months.

Some of you have wondered how I got from the east coast by the ocean to the Midwest city I’m in now.

How I got here….

In a car.

Long story shorter-

Dec 2007: Move in with boy. He’s neurotic and narcissistic, but I wanted to be able to return to school, so I ignore his neurosis.

Thought I was in love with him, thought he was in love with me.

Ok for the first few months.

Then I realized we were all wrong for each other.

Actually, I knew this even before we moved in together, but it afforded me the ability to quit my job and return to school.

August 2008: I return to school to study medical assisting. Looking for the complete 180 to what I had been doing.

September 2008: The boy starts acting really odd. Like little lies when lying wasn’t necessary.

October 2008, a few days before Halloween: I find out he had been sleeping with his best friend’s girl friend.

World: Shattered.

Moved my stuff to a friend’s house and stayed there for 3 weeks. Didn’t have the emotional energy to put my stuff in storage and pack up the car to drive north with a dog and three cats.

For many unhealthy reasons, I moved in with him. Went on with life.

Life was ok, neither good nor bad.

Two years go by, we hardly see each other because of work schedules.

My sister L* knows that I need to get out of there. Come back to the Midwest, live with me and K*, she says.

I start to really take note of every time the boy is a dick, in general and to me.

By February 2011 I made the decision to leave on April 3rd.

He would be at his friends house for the weekend and I would have less than 48 hours to pack all of my stuff and get it into a storage unit and make the first part of the journey to my Dad’s house to stay for a few days with my step mom.

It sucked, I cried.
And now it’s seven months later.

I left out a lot because I’ve done my best to make peace with all the bad shit. I’m focusing on the now, making the present count so that there’s hope for the future. My future (fingers crossed) with Fisher.

Real love, I’m finding out, isn’t crazy or dramatic. It’s warm and fuzzy. Like a little flame in your heart that keeps you warm when it’s cold. Real love is not a four alarm out-of-control, wipes out cities fire.

I am not a storyteller. This blog is just thoughts put into words and  typed on a keyboard. An emotional touchstone that I am happy to share with a few dear friends. I want to not feel like we’re strangers, even though it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.

 Mount Lemon, Tucson AZ 1999