Honestly, this past month has been the [insert here every sad adjective known] month in my life. I'm not still stunned but I want to be. Tomorrow marks one month to the day and date that I lost my father. I can't help but notice that I refer to his passing as if I've somehow misplaced him and it's only a matter of time until I find him again. I'm aware of that, it's on my list of things to deal with. I also can't help but notice the day and date. I'm wired that way - and February is wired that way as well. When 28 days are in February, March's calendar dates will follow the same steps. Mine is a mind that notices things like that, and I am not excused from it even when I wish it weren't present.
I'm tired of being sad. Seems selfish to say but I am. I want to go back to before and change the course of this picture. In four week's time, I've lost my father and my health. One I have to accept and the other I'll have to regain. Slowly. And both will require a strength from me that for the first time in my life, I'm wondering if I have. I know I do, I must. I am exactly who I am, and who I was before. I'm just laden with a different experience now, a loss that colors me, wounds me, but it's still me.
The journey is one that I wish completely forgettable. The sleeplessness replaced by the desire and ability to only sleep. Eating has gone from something I had to do to keep up my strength, to something I eye warily as whether or not this particular banana or piece of bread is going to rip through my system and make me bleed. Being out of the hospital is like being on the other side of this month. I have been pushed down, run over, chewed up, poisoned, and now spit out. Here's the challenge: Deal with it. Can I deal with it? I don't know. There have been moments today that were torture. I thought I was past the torture moments. There have been moments today that were naive - me thinking I'd wake up, stretch my arms and set about a normal morning. NOT the reality of waking up, grabbing my stomach and taking a pain pill (but not after serving up for myself the internal battle of being weak versus that's what the doctor gave me the pills for in the fist place, to abate the pain. Demon thoughts.)
And there was one moment today, that I reached out to my dearest friend from childhood, now living in Vermont, dialed her up, asked her to take some time, and we talked. That's not easy for me, the reaching out, saying I need. But I did. I said out loud how afraid I am, how disappointed, how challenged I feel. I wondered out loud if I could climb out of this, if she believed that I could. In addition to a heap of love and compassion, she told me that I am strong and that I can heal and that I will get through this. This is basic stuff, I know, but it's where I am, and it's what I needed to hear. She's known me so long and well that when I start to doubt, I'm just going to have to remember that she believes it, and lean on that for a bit.
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