Worries, Fears and Broken Promises: The one where I go back on my word about not being depressing anymore

This is going to be an honest post. 

This is going to be one that returns to my recent habit of posting depressing shit, even though I told you I was making it up to you earlier today.

I'm going back on my word.

Partly because I feel like if I don't say this all in one form or another my head will explode, or my life will implode in on itself, and partly because this blog started out as a place where I could say anything.

And I try to keep it that way.

I'm stressed lately.

Maybe even becoming a little bit depressed.

It's sneaking in, quietly and carefully so as that at first I didn't even notice it.

But then it knocked a dish over and broke it and I'm painfully aware of it's presence now.

I'm beginning to worry about things I can't do anything about.

That's always a sign that I'm struggling inside.

I'm having anxiety attacks almost every day again.

That's a sign too.

I have very little interest in writing, if any at all to be honest with you. I had to almost force myself to write this post.

I don't feel like talking very much by the end of the day.

What I do feel like doing is sitting in my room as it grows dark in the evening and "forgetting" to turn the light on, until I'm staring at stupid shit on the internet in almost complete darkness.

I do feel like eating terrible foods.

I do feel like shopping. 

And I do feel like crying.

And I do feel like talking about cancer. All. the. freaking. time.

It's sickening.

But all of this heaviness in my chest is weighing down my mind.

Like I said, I'm starting to worry about stupid things.

I do my budget, and then re-do it and re-do it over and over to make sure my paycheck will last until the next one comes {even though I know it will} because out of nowhere, I'm worried about money.

I cringe every time my boss asks me to come to his office at work, or sounds grouchy on the phone because I've suddenly convinced myself {without any evidence or probably cause} that I'm about to get fired.

I'm worried about my poor little van because it has 130k miles on it and today at a stop light, the idle sounded rough and tired and I just knew it was going to die on me any second, and I really {like really} need that van to last me at least through the end of the year without requiring any major repairs, and all these awful fears and senseless worries just swirl around above me, until I'm having a crying panic attack in the stairwell at work, downing Rescue Remedy like it's water. 

I feel heavy.

I feel tired.

I feel scared.

I feel worried.

I feel like I'm standing on the edge of some terrible impending doom and I am powerless to stop it.

I feel very, very mortal.

And worst of all, I feel guilty.

I've been fighting with my father. Who has cancer. I mean really, what kind of hateful, awful person fights with someone who has cancer? What kind of terrible daughter gets angry at their dad who just found out he's sick, for ANYTHING? And what kind of miserable excuse for a daughter misses her dad's oncology appointment because she figured he was too angry with her to want her there? Only to get a text after it's over from him that says

"Wanna know what my oncologist said? He said where's your daughter."

Knife, meet heart.

I keep thinking "I should call someone...plan a girls night...it'd be good to get out" and then in the same 10 minutes I think "No...crowds would bother me right now...and it's never cool to be the girl at the bar who keeps talking about cancer" and that's all that flows {and I mean FLOWS} out of my mouth when I get face to face with anyone these days.

I think "Maybe a vacation would make me feel better. A weekend trip somewhere" and then I think "And as soon as you get back from spending all that money, the van will die, you won't have cash to fix it, you won't be able to get to work, you'll lose your job and end up living in a minivan that doesn't even run"

Welcome to my hell.

I'm not sure what to do.

I want to be shaken....snapped out of this weird kind of nightmare filled coma somehow. 

I want something to be excited about, and less to worry about...or at least some sign that the things I'm worried about would be manageable if they did happen...or enough self control to stop worrying about them.

Really, I'd take any of those things.

I just want something to feel excited about.

Letters to my father

I came to the library in Scottsdale today on my lunch break, instead of going out to eat with my co-workers.

The same library where you used to take me when I was 12. I loved it then because it was huge, and beautiful. With the big sparkling gray castle in the kids section, complete with a tower and turret for private reading, and the grounds around it were so so green and luscious it was like a small oasis in the middle of the desert we actually live in. Big, gushing fountains and thick shady trees cooling down the silky soft grass...it was my 12 year old paradise.

I like it here now because it's air conditioned, and quiet, and when I bring the kids I have an excuse to ask them to whisper. We're in a library after all. And there are used books we can buy for 50 cents, and the castle is still there. And when it's really hot and nobody is looking, I let the kids run through the fountains. Just like you did for me when I was little.

I like coming here alone now too, because the bathrooms are big and there are so many stalls. Bathroom stalls are a good place for grieving. You can close the door and stay as long as you like. No one rushes you in the bathroom, especially when there are 20 other stalls for them to choose from.

I'm just not sure what it is that I'm grieving. 

You aren't dead yet.

I guess that's what I'm grieving that right there: the yet in that sentence.

Before this there was never a yet on the end of sentences about you dying. 

Up until all of this, I think I believed somewhere in the back of my mind or maybe the bottom of my heart, that you would live forever. 

Not in the unrealistic "death doesn't exist" way, {I've believed death was real ever since my cat Bob died when I was 5 and you made me look at his body and touch his tail so I would understand what death meant} but more in the sense that I never reconciled the idea of losing you someday. 

Of watching you die.

So now I hide in bathrooms among stainless steel and white tile, and try to practice saying it out loud without my voice breaking.

I try make myself say the word cancer without tears filling my eyes.

I try to accept that you are in fact mortal, without the very breath leaving my chest.

So far I haven't made much progress.

The Friday Diary: Goodbye June

So so, it's that time again. 

It's the end of yet another month in 2012. 

Can you believe it?!

I hate to sound cliche, but really, this year is flying.

I think I say that every year, and I mean it even more every year.

I guess that tells you something about getting older.

Anyway, let's wrap it up.

June feels like it went by so fast that I hardly remember any of it.

I guess that's a big part of why I love blogging: it's a time capsule of our lives. At any point I can look back as far as this blog goes and see where we were a year ago, or two years ago, and so on.

This month I:

Fell in love with Grey's Anatomy, lost a tragic amount of sleep watching it on Netflix, and made it my life's dream to find a best friend like Cristina Yang. I don't need to find a boyfriend like McDreamy. I already have one.

+

For the first time in 4 years, I made something that was neither food nor a baby. It was fun.

+

And I told you all about the Big C. I guess in regards to that, I owe you an update. It feels a little wrong and overly casual to say this in a post as silly and unimportant as the Friday diary {but how important are any of these posts, really?} but here it is: My dad's cancer spread more than they initially thought after surgery. The tests all came back showing that it has spread to his nearby lymph nodes, and he now has stage 3B Colon Cancer. 

He has to start Chemo immediately.

I promise at some point I'll stop being the Debbie Downer in the room who's always talking about people dying.

At some point.

Now, to lighten the mood, a couple pictures from my phone because I'm too lazy to take any nice ones.

Jackson watching a dust storm roll in.

The kids playing "camp out" in the hall by the front door. Don't ask me why.

And yes I do have boxes of shit I still haven't unpacked in my house, DON'T JUDGE.

Happy Friday.

The Friday Diary: A Week of Worry and Healing

It's Friday. 

Finally.

I don't have a whole bunch of pictures of what we ate or the things we did, because we ate things like pizza and left over spaghetti in between getting home from work/daycare and going to the hospital to visit my dad.

Oh, yeah, we also ate hospital food.

It wasn't awesome, nor was it picture worthy.

But, the good news is my dad's surgery went as well as could be expected. As of right now, they're calling the surgery curative, and chemotherapy is not being recommended at this time.

That's exactly how the doctor put it.

It was some of the best news I've gotten in my life.

For those of you who sent emails, text messages and left comments or private messages, encouraging and comforting and checking in, thank you.

Really, thank you.

I might not have written back to all of you. 

I might not have sounded as grateful as I was.

But every single "how are you doing?" or "how is your dad?" or "Thinking of you' message meant the world to me.

And in case you were wondering, I did end up taking the day off. 

And Wednesday too.

I waited in the waiting room, I fed my father ice chips, and I watched T.V. with the kids and ate chocolate covered pretzels. We healed. We coped. We were thankful for good news. 

And we napped. A lot.

Napping is good.

So, that was our week.

And now it's Friday, and I just have to get through one more day before I can have an All-Pajamas-All-The-Time weekend with the kids while Bill is in California with his kids.

It's gonna be awesome.

Happy Friday.

I hope you all have a quiet, predominantly pajamas only attired weekend, with the people you love. The people you would take the day off work to wait for in the hospital if they were having surgery.