Time Does Not Heal All Wounds

The old addage that time heals all wounds is most definitely false. My Daddy would have had another birthday a few weeks ago and I had another birthday two weeks later. I have cried and continue to cry over our loss of him.  It has been almost 3 years without him and there is still a physical pain at times.  My throat closes up, an emptiness in my heart and I feel a knot in my stomach some days just when I think about him being gone. Does that sound like I'm healing? It certainly does not feel that way in the moment.

I do recognize that those things only happen part of the time now,  so I guess it is progress. I go on with my life because that is what one does, but I often think, "How would my life be different if he hadn't pulled that trigger?" Would I be a better or worse person? While I wish the answer was I would be a better person, I doubt that is the truth.

Instead I have fought my own work ethic and personality to be more present for my kids. While not perfect, I am much more apt to ignore work calls and messages after hours. I have always been bug in physical and verbal affection, so that remains the same. I am becoming more balanced with caring for my community while still saying no to things that will take too much from me personally. 

I am becoming able to speak of Daddy without tears at times. Maybe I am healing,  but there seems to be a huge hole in my heart that nothing can fill. 

Feeling Stuck

 I often feel like I can't move forward. There are so many things in my life that gnaw at me.  Things that happened this morning,  last week or ten years ago they all haunt me.  I wish that I could forget. If it is an action by another, I forgive easily,  but I cannot forget.  I think I don't forget it,  because the wound happened and I'm trying to stay on guard so it doesn't hurt as bad next time.  So have I truly forgiven if I can't move past the hurt?

If it is something that I have done,  I will likely never forgive myself for what I did wrong to someone else.  It will continue to enter my thoughts as I go to sleep.  

I wonder if it is due to being raised by a narcissist and being married to one as well.  Was I always going to be this way or was I programmed by my upbringing to be guilty always? I sit alone often and just cry because even though I know everything is not my fault I also know I have some fault in every situation. It is exhausting to have lived this long and constantly question myself. 

I just want to be happy and carefree like I was to some extent growing up.  I miss my father's perspective and reassurance in my life. I truly think he is the one person that understood me fully and he's gone. I also think maybe he didn't understand, because he would have known that I needed him now more than ever and he killed himself.  Then that moves me to thinking I was not there enough for him to voice his despair over his situation and that is why he is gone. Do you see what I mean? This life is exhausting. 

I am obviously not doing well in my goal to get back to my grateful, balanced self as previously posted. When I take a step in the right direction one of the other areas of my life falters. Maybe I'm just destined to be an unsuccessful juggler always chasing after the ball that dropped.

Enough

Enough, will I ever feel like I am enough for anyone in my life? I have spent my entire life trying to be enough for everyone else. My parents, my brother (okay maybe not. JK), my grandparents,  my friends,  my bosses, my husband and now my children I have tried to please them all. To be my best for them all,  but is my best enough?

Am I enough?  I have asked myself this question dozens of times in 34 years.  Yet, in the last six months I have asked myself this nearly every day multiple times each day. 

I am grappling with the guilt of being a working full-time plus mother/wife/child/sister and all of the time I put my job before family. The honest admission is it happens a lot. I wonder if my short visits and lack of time are the reason my father is gone. I wonder if I had made more time for him would he have stayed. He killed himself just after my busiest two months a year for work.  Just two weeks after my mother finally cut his hair (something I had done for the last year and a half) when I couldn't break off a solid 45 minutes in a month's time to cut his hair. No one blames me,  but I blame me.

My kids need the calm, loving and understanding mom they used to have.  Instead they get the cranky, loving and apologetic mom. My husband needs some different me, but I am not quite sure which version of me he needs that he isn't getting.  My brother needs my presence I believe,  so I am trying to include him in our crazy schedule more.  My mom needs me to listen and I do, but there is something more she seems to need that I can't figure out.

I am wondering now am I enough for me.  Am I ever going to consistently feel happy or content in my life? Am I always going to be failing someone?

Regrets

For most of my life, I operated on a no regrets plan.  I did everything that I thought would be fun within the bounds of the law. I continued on that path after my first child was born.  He and I would load up after work and head an hour away to the zoo. We laughed. We read Bible stories.  We snuggled in his tiny toddler bed. We sang. We loved while we lived as large as our meager means allowed.

Now,  we run.  We run to school. We run to therapy.  We run to basketball.  We run to archery.  We run to baseball.  We run and run with a few laughs and a lot of anger.  Anger at unmet expectations and willful disobedience.  Anger at the fact that I am the parent constantly running. Anger that even if something arises for my spouse's work that I need to attend, I must navigate childcare.  I must make sure someone can pick up the youngest by 5:45. That whomever is picking up has one of our booster seats. Know if we'll be back in time for dinner. Know if everyone in our house has clean clothes for tomorrow. Know what appointments are happening this week and who is taking the kids to the appointment (spoiler:it will be me or my mother). Know what is at home for dinner. Make dinner. Plate every one's dinner. Eat dinner. Say hi to my spouse when he arrives home whilst the rest of us are eating.  Clean up all of the dishes from cooking.  If I run the dishwasher, I must now announce that to everyone (they evidently cannot understand the light system; orange in progress, green clean). Baths. Arguing over bedtime. Tucking into their beds. No time for reading or singing, just a hug and a kiss. Time for tv with my husband.  Time to clean the house,  I have none.

Angry words because the house is not clean.  Help, I need help. I am not the only person that lives here.  I should not be the only person responsible for cleaning.  Anger at another crappy day, that will surely roll into tomorrow.

Regret. I am not the happy mother I was.  I am not the fun wife I was.  I am not the kind mother I was.  I am not the attentive wife I was.  I am tired.  I am angry.  I am lost inside myself.

Worst Days Looking Forward???

It has been two months since Daddy took his life. I constantly acknowledge how his life was cut short internally and aloud to others, but somehow writing that simple sentence has brought with it a cascade of emotions. I miss him.  I know I should have seen him more.  Picked up the phone more. Loved him harder,  so he would understand I still needed him.  I still need him.

I know that I took him for granted in my constant rush and hectic life as an adult.  I should not have.  I would do most anything to have him back.  To kiss his cheek.  To hold his hand. To tell him I love him. To tell him what his crazy grandsons have been up to lately. To cut his hair and make a mohawk (temporarily). To laugh with him.  To watch his eyes light up. I can no longer have more of those moments.  In my hustle and bustle of work and parenting,  I missed giving him his final haircut.  Something I did not realize I had cherished over the last two years. He wrote, "October 17, 2018 haircut" in his notebook, but I did not give him that haircut as that was my busiest time of year at work. My mother did it instead and that haunts me mercilessly.

I truly believe my busyness coupled with our disease (genetic form of ataxia. He was symptomatic due to age, but my brother and I are not. ) is why he is gone. Do I understand why he did not want to continue his downward decline of mobility and speech? Yes. Do I wish that he had talked to me, us, about it?  Yes.  Do I love him less because of his choice? No. Am I angry at my father? Yes. Why? Because I know at some point I too will weigh my own quality of life versus the quality of life my life brings to my family and friends. Also, his death led me to promise my child that I would not make the same choice as my father.  Yet, I know I might (years down the road when our disease has taken the ability to do the things I love away). While it will not be a decision on my own,  in the night with a gun. I do know, as I often tell my husband, that I would like to be able to choose a dignified death when I am ready. To me as of now,  that remains choosing medical assistance at a time when my life still resembles my life and not one bound by immobility and speech that no one understands.

That is something most do not understand. You do not get to be you when you can no longer do the things you love that make you,  you. I long for a way to extend my full years of life.  Simultaneously, I am frustrated that the medical advancements we were promised in 2004 are not here. I made my decision to bring my own children into this world based on those advancements and can only pray that they are available soon. For my brother.  For my boys. For me.

People do not understand why I am the person I have become. Most do not know that I know what lies ahead for my life and how bleak it seems.  While I do my best to trust God, I know my outlook on the future is grim. I only hope when I experience the psychiatric changes (both my grandmother and father experienced extreme paranoia and explosive anger) that I can maintain some semblance of myself and my thoughts of positivity through darkness prevail.

All of this brings me to my goal for the immediate future. Get back to me,  the old me despite my future prognosis. That starts with my health,  because I believe that will be found to be vital to slowing the physical advancement of our ataxia.

Am I going to eat only whole, unprocessed foods? No. Am I going to cut the foods I love, sweets and cheeses, out of my diet? Hell no! Am I going to cut my portions on indulgences? Yes. Am I going to increase my activity level?  Yes. Increase my water intake?  Yes.  Increase my gratitude for the life I have been given? Yes. I am going to get back to the young woman that answered her father's questioning of himself- what he had unknowingly bestowed upon his children with,  "What disease you have given me does not make my life not worth living. Instead it makes it more worth living. I would rather have 40 or 50 great years knowing what lies ahead than no life at all. Daddy, please don't regret giving me life, because I am glad to have a life to live." Those wise words at nineteen are not reflected well at thirty-four. I  am  going to do my best to get back to that wise and grateful mindset.

My Crazy

I like to think I have a decent amount of friends for someone with my type of life situation (kids, husband, works from home). Sometimes though I feel utterly alone with no one to talk to. In those times, I unload a ton of information on someone that I barely know. This is my worst fear come to life.

I have been self aware and self conscious since I was very young. Most people  confuse my self deprecation as a ploy to get compliments. This common misconception is entirely valid considering how I portray myself to the majority of society. I act as though I am confident and outgoing when in reality most social situations fill me with anxiety and I always doubt my abilities.

I care what others think, but act as though I do not. Why? Because there is a thin line between caring enough and caring too much. The truth is I'm probably one that cares too much. I have been diversifying my personality and my life since elementary school, so as to not be too far on any one side or characteristic.

The only upside to this type of behavior is that I can connect with anyone about something. The downside is in every situation I am constantly running over am I being too talkative, too quiet, too enthusiastic, too dry, too self-centered, too closed off? This is my mind everyday pretty much all day.

Judging Others Grief or Maybe Not

Let me start by saying I've lost another person whom I love. In my thirty plus years, I've lost great grandparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, friends who were like grandparents and an unborn child. I have finally come to the conclusion that no two people grieve the same way. I have had this realization while reflecting on my own varied displays and ways of dealing with grief. Each time I lose a loved one my behaviors are different or the ordering of my series of behaviors is different.

I always cry at some point. When I learn of the death; the months leading to the death; when I experienced the miscarriage; what would be their birthday if they weren't in Heaven; when I'm feeling like no one understands me and miss the way they always got me, it's inevitable for me the tears always come.

At first, I thought this time my lack of tears at the funeral was because of my guilt for not being there to help care and nurture my loved one, but I was wrong. I had witnessed others physical and mental decline as they became ready to leave this world and I could but do it this time. Yes, you may call me selfish, but I'm the one that must decide what my mental health status will be. I decided that I would not force myself to see another loved one slipping away while it plunged me into a depression that I would hide from my family and friends. Hiding the depression just causes me to lash out at the slightest transgressions because I am emotionally distraught and no one realizes. Even the man I share my life with and my children do not know because I choose not to tell them. They see me cry when most do not, but I do not tell them the depth of my despair. Only a glimpse into the cause of my anguish that this time will be much shorter. In the past, I offered care; I sat at bedsides; I laughed with the one suffering to ease their pain. And it hurt me immensely to see their pain and be unable to make them better for months and even years during the decline. So, not this time. I chose me and my emotional well being over the one who had cared for me and helped make me who I am. I regret not being there, but I know myself and my immediate family are much happier because I kept at a distance.

Then I tried to blame it on the way I was raised. "Be strong. Don't cry. Be brave enough to take everything on by yourself." I cried as a little girl. I cried as a teen. I cry as an adult. In the last five years, I've probably quadrupled the number of people that have seen or heard me cry. I'd guess that other than family members fewer than fifteen people have witnessed my tears (Interestingly, I don't count people that may have seen me cry at other funerals. These are groups of mourners and I doubt they notice my tears.). The first time I recall my dad crying was when I experienced what I call sexual violation through voyeurism in a public restroom. Though I was physically unharmed and just made to show my body it rocked my dad to his core. It changed me too, in ways that I wouldn't realize until I had children of my own. Maybe I'll visit that another day. My mother cried at funerals and when she felt threatened. Surely, they were the cause of my lack of tears, but I looked over at my older brother and saw his tears. Then felt his shoulders heave up and down with his sobs as I rubbed his back in an attempt to comfort him. I realized he grew up in the same home with the same emotional displays from our parents and that it must be something wrong with me.

I looked around the room and noticed some of my cousins weren't crying. Ones that spent countless hours on the lap of our loved one many more than I had. Ones that spent their nights at sleepovers through out the years with them. Then and only then did I realize that there was nothing wrong with me, nor with them. I don't know if they spent every moment of solitude of the days after the death and before the final send off in tears as I had (my poor car and bathroom at home would have horrible soundtracks of my sobs if they had recording devices and replayed them). And if they didn't, I realized that was okay too.

I guess there is no real point to this entry other than my own self examination and journey, but it is now memorialized on the internet for others to find. Who knows, may be it will help someone heal or realize they're not the only one with dry cheeks at a funeral.