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

9 days of Christmas in January.

Pre-Ps. If you could click on an ad once you're done reading, it will bring you lots of good luck and a little bit of extra cash for the holidays.

Why does google randomly make me change my password when I sign in for blogger but never for my google home page? #whitewhine

 So, I haven't written for a while. What's been up in my life?

Getting cold here in the upper mid-west city. Well, yesterday was 50 and rainy, but it did snow and stay below freezing for a few days.  I hate winter. Very cold temps and wind, specifically. Wearing tights under my work clothes. I know I’ll survive, but I’d rather just sleep through winter.

Good lead on an internship. Keep your internet fingers crossed.

Loosing hours at work because the boss keeps adding more days when the office will be closed. The good is that I’ll be able to spend about 10 days with Fisher. I’ll be taking the cats with me and leaving S* with L* and K*. Hopefully K* won’t teach her any more bad habits. Between him and the ex, the dog isn’t as well trained as she used to be. She used to know down, but now when I give her that command after a sit, she just looks at the ground like that’s good enough. She’s getting older, but doesn’t appear to have arthritis that would prevent her from laying down on command. 

We put up a tree and decorated the house. Took a few shots of Bailey’s to get me in the spirit, but I got there. L* is particular about what ornaments go on the tree (her ornaments, her tree), so I did the around the house stuff. Garland and bows on stuff. Looking forward to baking and decorating cookies. Plus, we’ll have our two family traditional foods for Christmas dinner- orange jello with pineapple and shredded carrots plus waldorf salad. Kinda sad our family only has to traditional Christmas foods. Oh, and yeast rolls. Not a family recipe but a family tradition. 

This weekend I need to make muffins to send along with my mom’s and oldest sister’s (D) presents. Cat stuff for my mom and wine for D*.

Everything is going well with Fisher. He calls so say that he thinks about me a lot and wants to know what I’ve been doing. I’m doing good at not freaking out. Occasionally I text or call and leave a voice mail. But if I don’t hear from him, then I don’t get all psycho. 

Two classes next semester and then I graduate. Excited and scared (in a good way). Did really well in my meeting planning class this semester. Happy that I’ll have the professor of my major for a class next semester. She’s pretty awesome and appreciates the experience I have and that it makes the class better. I know that there’s professional stuff I know well, but it’s nice to have it acknowledged by my major professor.

What else? 

Have to take meds to sleep at night. Taking the Celexa because if I don’t, then I have withdrawal symptoms. Interested in not taking it and only taking the clonopin and adderall. Wonder what my psychiatrist would think of that?

In the realm of TMI- I’m off birth control pills and had an IUD put in. No more hormones please and thank you. My body felt so much better when I wasn’t on the pill. No hormones and no babies and a committed relationship. 

Fisher and I have touched on the possibility of having kids. Of course we won’t talk about it for reals until we live together and both have steady jobs. But if we do want to produce a gene counterpart then we’ll have to start sooner rather than later. His age doesn’t matter, but I’m now on the wrong side of 35 and there’s a possibility that early menopause runs in our family.

I’m totally open to adoption, not sure what F*’s feelings are on the matter. He’s an only child and since my dad was an only child and my mom and dad had all girls, it would be kinda cool to have a boy that would be half his family’s genetic material and half mine. Not that mine is all that stellar. 

I began to think differently about my no kids rule, after Fisher and I had Thanksgiving with a few of his friends and their friends. There was the cutest little girl there, 19 months old and we bonded instantly. I entertained her while her mom and dad were finishing cooking, told her about Columbus, genocide of the Native Americans and small pox. Good times.

Then later after dinner, I was playing with her Winnie the Pooh lego set and I see Fisher pushing the little girl around in a box having a good ol’ time. There’s not doubt in my mind that he’d make and awesome dad. And I’ve always thought that I wouldn’t do to bad as a mom. Cloth diapers, not using the word no, you know that whole Montessori school thing. 

Sleeping too much. Should be looking for more internship opportunities. It’s so damn comfortable to spend time in bed with my dog on one side and H*, my snuggle bunny (9 year old) kitten attached to my hip and sleeping under the covers with me. With the last year and a half being the season of human and pet death, I want to spend as time with them as I can. R*, my oldest cat will be 15 this coming spring, H* will be 10 and my dog S* will be 12. And even though R* is doing really well with his insulin shots, no one live forever. Although L* had a cat that lived to 18.

‘Cause what you really want to read about is the age of my pets. 

So, taking cats with me for my 9 days with Fisher. Sadly, leaving dog, who will be well taken care of in the City. 

Two more classes, then graduation. Keeping fingers crossed for internship.

Computer is being really slow when I type. Emptied my trash, which had a crap load of stuff in it. Maybe that will help.

Word hates my grammar usage. It yells because it cares, too bad I don’t listen.

 Ps. Miss home away from home in Texas, miss my friends in West Palm and excited about seeing a very good friend at the end this month and meeting her little boy.