it's funny...

...even when I start out writing or talking honestly about how I'm doing, I spin it. I've noticed that I'll bitch and moan and whine [or whinge, if you prefer], then I'll turn around and say something to distract or turn the conversation to another topic [yeah, I'm looking at you "ooo, look over here, I'm playing EverQuest II, pay no attention to the emo chick behind the curtain" sentence from my last post].

So here it is, no misdirection or sleight of hand: I'm struggling. There was a lot of shit that went on with my Dad and with my Mom, their illnesses, and their choices...the ones they made, the ones they avoided, and the ones they wished they had made. The time I spent with Dad before he died was priceless, but I also learned a lot and saw too much while I was sharing life with him. He confessed a lot, shared a lot, and to be honest, he laid a lot of weight on my shoulders. As he said frequently: "sorry to lay this on you, kiddo...in a little while, it's not going to matter to me, but you are going to have to deal with it". Many late nights listening to him, comforting him, trying to help him through the shit he was dealing with. And now I have my own lifetime to try to sort through it all, make my own choices, try to follow through on some of the things he asked of me, and get my own shit in order.

I'm tired. I'm losing patience with myself. I know that it can take years to work things through and move on after losing your parents, and that's without factoring in all of the weirdness and drama and extraordinary circumstances of the situation with my mom and dad. But it's exhausting, and I never know when something will sneak past the defenses and masks. Even now, I'm fighting the impulse to end on a forced hopeful, positive note, like "it will just take time, and I know I'll get there eventually" or something similar [look back at some of my prior entries and you'll see I've done that more than once]. So instead I'll just end it with a final confession [one that's actually kind of hard to admit out loud]: I'm a bit lost right now.

a brief break in the clouds

Impromptu trip to Disneyland a few days ago...Will made it all happen and away we went. Crazy how tiring it is to walk around the park for 9 hours a day...we dubbed the aching feet, knees, hips, and muscles "Disney Legs", and bravely soldiered on. There was a special Halloween event at the park that night which we didn't know about...and it sucked, because they closed the park at 6pm and you had to pay an extra $54 per person to get in. We only had the one night, so we shelled out [extremely annoying, especially since we are both premium annual pass holders] and made the most of it. It wasn't that horrible, actually...the population thinned out, lots of people young and old in costume, wait times for rides were crazy short [less than 5 minutes for most of them]. So while we wouldn't have planned it that way, it worked out all right.

We picked up some more art: Will got an awesome chroma-cel of the Magic Mirror from Snow White that will go amazingly with the other two gicle paintings he has, and I snagged an original of Maleficent with matching watch...that Disney thing with the guy in the storefront, painting it by hand. More than we both planned to spend when we first headed down, but once in a lifetime chances to get something so unique and interesting. And as with a lot of things these past months, I had the "can't wait for Dad to see this" thoughts...sigh. Old habits, made over a lifetime...ouch.

These past few weeks were much needed ones for both of us...losing Taz so suddenly was hard and unexpected. She had been a part of Will's life for nearly fourteen years, the one constant through those times. Think about where were you fourteen years ago, think about *who* you were back then...and now imagine losing someone that was with you that entire time. So he took some time away from the grind, and was sweet enough to share the time with me. Nothing special, just chilling, relaxing, watching movies and telly, going to Disneyland, playing on the computer, he did his fireman stuff and hung out with friends, both of us basically just ignoring the outside world for a bit and recharging.

Can't speak for him, but it was a much appreciated break for me...kind of struggling with how to deal with everything. There's been a lot of loss for me these past few years: two of my closest friends moving away; the deaths of an aunt and uncle, both in the same night; losing another aunt; and losing my mother and father within less than a year of each other. Finding Taz that night reopened a lot of it, threw it all off kilter again...which really sucked, because I wanted more than anything to be there completely for Will. I loved that dog, and I'd only known her for a couple of years; I couldn't imagine how hard and weird it must have been for him to lose her. So I tried hard to hold it together for him [even though he saw right through it, darn it] and just be there for him, the way he's been there for me.

So these past few weeks have been a welcome respite, and came to an end much too quickly. A grey bit snuck in towards the end of that time, just after we got back from Disney, during a call from an old friend...it was really good to catch up, and definitely good to hear where they were and how life was going. The rough bit came when they asked about Dad...they've known me for a long time, and knew Dad, so I was able to share some of the harder parts of the whole situation. It was good, but also very hard, and brought a lot of it back to the forefront again. So a bit of a rough spot there, but tried hard not to let it entirely diminish the hard-won mellow tone of the time off. We finished up the weekend with me finally getting into EQ2...after years of avoiding it [because I knew how easily I could get caught up in it], I gave in and rolled a character and got started. Danger, Will Robinson, danger...