So much is going on, I'm not sure where to begin. I will tell you now that my emotions are torn in many directions at once, and I am writing my thoughts here for my own therapy; though if you really wish to read them, that's fine with me. Comments are not necessary - in spite of how I feel, I do still believe that everything will all work out in the end. For now, allow me some melodrama so I can get it out of my system.
In general, it seems that my spirit is that of a great sailing ship, one on which I could forge my way through the toughest seas on the worst of days, and choose my own course and destination. However, the life that my spirit is living keeps making me feel more like a fallen leaf, rushing through white water rapids without benefit of rudder or oars, or even a compass or map. If only I could either find the strength and tools with which to make my way, or a way to be content floating haphazard according to the whims of unseen forces. Ah well; if not in this life, perhaps in the next.
Dad has improved tremendously. For that I am relieved, grateful, even joyful. While I was assured his life was never really in danger as long as he was receiving medical care, his own response to his situation worried me and I could not help but have a small nagging doubt that I continually had to push away. He was very ill - bronchitis, cellulitis, a UTI, and his legs were swelled up like grotesquely overfilled sausages. He was in agony and he was helpless - and he was heavily drugged. When I saw him in that state, it was truly disconcerting to me. I have always viewed him as the conglomeration of every character the legendary John Wayne ever played - tough and stubborn and loving - a force to be reckoned with. When I witnessed his hallucinations from the opium, and I heard him crying out in pain; at those moments I would have offered my own life to save his if common sense didn't prevail. Fortunately, I was very well aware that giving up my life would have been an ill gift for him and for the whole family. I have more to say on that later. But for now, I will say again that I am grateful and relieved to see him moved to rehab and making great progress in regaining the use of his feet and legs.
I am currently facing (more) financial hardship - first due to lost hours at work because of the vertigo relapse, then the fact that I had only worked a 4.5 hour shift for this most recent paycheck. I have been feeling very frustrated by this situation and by feeling like I don't dare to increase my hours yet. At the same time, I have lived with January and Giles for over a year, when I was supposed to have achieved my massage license and traveled to Ghana with Yaw by Christmas of 2010. However, a wonderful surprise awaited me with that paycheck - I received a week of vacation pay, which greatly reduced that financial burden. Again, I am relieved and grateful. I still have to make some arrangements with my car loan, but it ins't nearly as bad as it was going to be. And as for massage, I do have that license now, and thanks to help from my parents, I am on the way to opening my own business. The first steps have been taken: from here, it's only a matter of time and effort. Like my father before me, I am amazingly stubborn.
Wonderful news came yesterday - January's daughter, Clara Rose was born! She is beautiful (of course) and has pipes to beat the band (my genes). There was concern that her respiration wasn't up to par by a certain time, so procedure called for her to go to NICU, but it is for observation to make sure she progresses as expected. She is expected to be released after about 48 hours. Seeing as how she's a couple of weeks early, a little extra caution is not unwarranted, though it's causing January and Giles some stress to be unable to bring her home. Again, common sense has prevailed, and in spite of a strong parental desire to stay super-glued to Clara's side, they both came home this morning and rested while I was at work, and returned to the hospital as soon as I got home.
So before you go thinking that I entertained even a moment of suicidal tendencies, I would like to expand on my comments above about offering my life to save my father. Truly, if I knew his life were in danger, and that it wouldn't cause a horrendous burden on my family, I would be willing to save him that way. But he would not have thanked me for it. Seeing the grief that I can only guess at and cannot truly comprehend that my friend has lived through after the loss of her daughter, I could never wish that pain on my father and mother. And it would burden him more to know that it was done to save him. My husband who loves me, and my sister to whom I am a best friend would feel as if I had deserted them. My niece and her family, along with the emotional pain, would be burdened with funeral arrangements and deciding what to do with all my stuff in their home. And someone would have to do something about my debts. (I think they'd rather keep the burden of having me in the house with them - aside from the familial love, I do give them help with Nixon and the housekeeping.) And my best friend, Mara, would be certain that I had forgotten that we are not actually Thelma and Louise, and that even if we were those two characters, they drove off the cliff together. It would be a terrible breach of etiquette if Louise drove off the cliff alone. Yes, Mara, that means you're Thelma. :-)
Why on earth would I go away and leave all these wonderful people to deal with the loss of someone they love? No. As I said, it wasn't a suicidal tendency that drove that thought - it was love of my father, and wanting to neither see him suffer, nor to lose him. There has only been one other occasion in my life where I felt that way - when I lost my baby, conceived barely days prior, and only a dream to tell me in advance that she was there (I always thought of the baby as a she). In the hospital, when they told me I was pregnant and she might be in the wrong place inside me (an ectopic pregnancy), I would have gladly given my life up if they could have found a way to put her in the right place and get her all the way to full term. I was inconsolable and unfairly angry when I woke from exploratory surgery to find that they had taken her, and it took me a while to forgive David, who had the horrible duty to make the decision to let them do it. But in the end he was right, of course. Save the mother because there's a chance she could have a baby later. Except I never did. Again, I have to say - if not in this life, perhaps in the next. But I am in no hurry to get to that next life with so much loving family and so much beauty in this world. I do still want to absorb as much as I can for as long as I can.
I can't even think up a list of songs to put as a soundtrack to play behind this. Even my usual, musically emotional train wreck playlist is inadequate to keep up with the twists and turns and sudden jolts that comprise my current emotional state. It's not PMS, believe me. It's just that there's been so much turmoil (both good and frightful) in such a very short time frame, that I don't feel like I've had the chance to breath out from one high emotion before the next one is on me. It will pass, I know. Things will settle down. My vertigo is all but gone, and I just have the afternoon fatigue to get past, so I will be able to work more. My business is almost to the fledgling stages and will start to grow soon. Yaw is still with me, and we take up every opportunity to spend time together. My family is alive, and if not completely well, they are improving every day. I just need to keep breathing. As long as I do that, everything will work out.
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