The next time i write a post with this laptop its going as is….so you few who read can guess which keys do not work and i do not end up feeling like my fingers are going to fall off.

END RANT MODE

and have no time for me.
OK time to stop feelng sorry for myself and get out of the coffee shop and get some air….its 40F and maybe some fresh air will get me out of my mood.

In trying to come up with an answer i broke down in tears.

my birthday seldom made a big mark. as a child, it was a favorite dinner and as a little kid there was a party…the basics…as a teen there was a sleepover.  I did have a hay ride once…that was the first boy girl thing.  There was the birthday the girlfriend made me a picnic in her work van and we trekked off to the park cos it was a gorgeous spring day. But mostly if there was to be anything, it was me had to plan it, me had to carry it out, me had to do it….and it seemed a bit of a gimme….so i did not often do it.

Over the last 20 years there have been 2 big parties…40 & 50….and of course if you close your eyes and remember that 48 was on Golden Bay in New Zealand….that stands out.  But mostly the last 20 years have been about a personal celebration….dinner out, a feel lobster dinners in, some earrings, private little surprises throughout the day, a dinner out with the parents-out of law sometime in the weeks to follow.

so maybe this year the birthday should pass uncelebrated.

this learning to accept that everything….absolutely everything…has changed is difficult. Nothing is or ever will be the same.  Sometimes i feel like i am in the middle of a foreign country, i don’t know the language, i don’t know the customs, i don’t know where i am or even who i am…..and i sure as hell did not chose to come here….but i can’t ever go home.

I can be moving through my days simply and smoothly, and something jumps out and bites me….reminding me.

Today I read on Maria’s blog, her story about anger that lasts after a dream….it made me laugh and then cry.  There is nothing like having anger directed at you when someone dreamed you did something they did not like. We finally had to make a rule that said you can never get upset with someone because of what they did in your dream.  But now that she is gone….I can almost miss that….why’s that?  humans are weird.

Then I moved down in the blog to listen to some Mary Chapin Carpenter.  It reminded me that a very special woman brought MCC into my world.  For a moment I was reminded of what i believed was the unconditional love from her.  I do indeed miss that.

What will my future bring….what gifts will come to me, from what source.

I don’t know. Right now I have to figure out how to pay my bills. Guess its time to get on the stick and get myself a job.  I think that 9 months should be long enough to have gotten my shit together….rebuilt myself from all of the exhaustion, healed from all of the damage, and begun the grieving process.  which means “put on the big girl panties” and do something with my life.

sigh….why does it feel so….insurmountable.

I have always been the caretaker…i am good at it….but is there ever going to be someone who will take care of me?

that generated another set of feelings.

that i am throwing away.  its not my childhood (done and gone) or other peoples stuff…even people i loved….

but MY LIFE….

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.
Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.”

John O’Donohue

This has been a pretty shitty year for me. I don’t even remember new years eve last year….I am guessing it was pretty generic.

The year began with the usual rounds of doctor’s appointments.  Surgery was a known….wanting to get it over fast was the plan…but that was not to be….we had to wait till the second week of February.

I have the whole step by step of the next three months in another journal. Can’t bear to relive it right now. Just thinking about it this deep brings tears to my eyes and an ache in my heart so deep….It is something I hope no one i care about ever has to endure.

To have 3 people you care deeply about actively dying at the same time is hell.

To have to go through the nightmare of not knowing, trying to keep the focus positive, weathering the battle of mental unbalance that comes with failing health, the constant barrage of the medical treatment, the pleading of someone you love to fix it, make it better, the violence of mental confusion, the loss of hope, the loss of dreams, the loss of plans, the loss of friendship, the loss of companionship, the loss of trust, the loss…..of what was once familiar. I do not think i would wish that on anyone.

I have been screamed at, threatened, accused, slapped in the face. I have been begged to stop treatment in one breath, and pleaded with to help make it easier. I have been argued with, accused of lying, challenged about everything, from the time of day, to the name of the food on the plate. I have been talked sheer nonsense to, and then demanded an answer of to a question that didn’t exist. I have been called names and accused of torture. I have had to make decisions that were questioned as sanity ebbed and flowed, I have been told i had no right, when that had been given long before.

And yet, I have been given a birthday party from an ICU, and asked to stay the night in the hospital room because i made it “safe”

I lost a partner, a father-in-law, friends (to death and to ending in other ways). I lost a very special person who just could not understand that grief takes its own time, and that I had way more healing to do than any one person ever was allowed to see (outside of myself).

I have given up my home….not completely, but enough that it does not feel like mine.

I have no place in the world….no reason for being.  I have a few friends left, but for the most part they have their own lives (and if i am not available when they have time….)  I have no function in the world right now. I was a primary caretaker for so long…..I have to find a job, and am horrified about that….my skills are out of date, my resume a mess and the job market … well lets just say that my ability to get a job that would make it worth my time to drive to it and the gas to get there is slim to none.

I can not say that there has been no good about this year….

I have grown deeper involved in the threshold singing group, and found deep and close friendships through that group.  I have opened my house to my eldest child and his family as they work to try and rebuild their family (this means 3 little girls really run my household) and I have the love and support that comes from that family.  I have a precious little granddaughter once a week who supplies me with the best love her little 19 month old body can. I do have some positives in my life.

So I end this year….gladly. I end this year hoping I can shed some of the pain….and begin to move on in my life.  I end this year.

See you next year!