Do the thing. Just do it.

Some days are better than others.  Today was decent.  I had another Krav Maga class - and I'm still excited.  After talking with my instructor, and one of my fellow students, after class I realized that I've been working on that list subconsciously.  You know - that list I posted forever ago, about redefining yourself?

RECAP!!

1.  List new qualities - DONE

2.  Break one bad habit - DONE - Quit smoking - boom!

3.  Reinforce friendships, make new friends - Still working on this one, it should be continuous

4.  Decide what defines you - Still working on this one too

5.  Follow one old passion - broke out my crochet hooks the other day.  It's gonna happen.

6.  List what you love - My person, my friends, my family, my books, art, music, movement.

7.  Be realistic - We'll get into that below

8.  Be positive - this one is tough sometimes, but I'm working on being Positive Fucking Patty

9.  Make a visual - More below

10.  Ignore what others think - got this one down.

So - decide what defines you.  I don't know that it's something that people actively think about, unless and until it changes.  If you had asked me what defined me a couple of years ago, I probably would have given you some inane answer involving reading, learning, etc.  In reality, I have found that while those things HELP to define me, they did not define me.  The things I did every day defined me.  Taking care of mom defined me.  Dealing with nurses defined me.  Clearing catheters, making soft foods, talking and reading to mom defined me.  Working every day, and having that almost second life at the office defined me.  Reading to escape what I did every day - defined me.

Those things no longer define me.  They no longer exist really.  Mom is gone, and although when I'm home I catch myself thinking I need to go check on her - I don't.

Taking these classes help to define me.  I guess more of a shaded outline - if that makes sense.  It's the broad sweeps that *I've* decided will be my outline.  I've made the conscious decision to do something completely new, and a little frightening, but exciting all at the same time.

I dunno - maybe it's easier because these awesome people are new?  They didn't know me from before.  They didn't see the caterpillar - they're just kind of seeing the cocoon.  Whoa, buddy - that's a lot of damn cliches but what the hell.

Ok, moving on to the whole being realistic.  So.  I am a klutz.  I jacked up my ankle.  It's not BAD hurt or anything, and I am aware that you're supposed to rest it, elevate it, etc.  But really, who has time for that??  Well... this girl now has to make time for that.  I was really worried that when I went back to class I would be in trouble, or I don't know, feel dumb because I managed to hurt myself.  Instead, my instructor was again fabulous - and showed me how to work around it and to take care of it.  I'm learning.  I'm stubborn as shit, but I am learning.

I'm sure there was something else I was supposed to mention here, but goddamn man, I am SORE, super hungry, and sleepy.  So eff that.

I love you, Mom.  I'm doing it.  I'm gonna finish it too.

Looking back, looking close, looking up

*waves*  Hey!  Yeah, I know - two months off.  And damn, there was a lot in those two months.  A short version of the past couple months could be:

-Don't assume you know how a person is grieving - even if they're family.  You're probably wrong.
-Kindness from anyone is a good thing, soak it up when it happens
-Don't compare your own grieving process to anyone else's - even if they're family.  You're not doing things the same way, and that's ok.


I mean, there was more - but for the purposes of this blog, that about sums things up.  In the meantime.. my best friend has been telling me about her kids going to karate.  She had nothing but glowing things to say about the family that ran the studio.  I finally had a chance to get out there, and I was present for their belt ceremonies.  It was awesome.  It was *so* awesome, that I - Super Anxiety Girl - went back, for a class.  That class was so awesome that I actually paid to continue taking classes.  So yeah, twice a week I'm basically getting my ass kicked by a room full of super nice strangers while learning Krav Maga.

Couple things here - I haven't gone out much at all since Mom died.  In the beginning that was fairly normal I guess, but then it got pretty bad.  My doctor suggested some anti-depressants, I accepted, and made an appointment with a shrink.  Being that I *am* Super Anxiety Girl, I was freaking myself out over the fact that I was freaking out over the fact that mom died.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, I saw said shrink - who was *amazing* and he was like, yeah - no big deal, we'll probably take you off of these around April.  You just need some help getting over the hump of your bereavement.  That made sense to me.  I take anti-anxiety meds every day, but depression isn't really my issue.  This all happened in January - and lo and behold there was light from above, and roughly two weeks into medication Dani was seen outside her home.  Fanfuckingtastic!  Seriously - baby steps in the right direction.

Anyway - all that drivel to lead up to the fact that while I have been getting OUT more regularly, signing up for regular Krav Maga classes is a little out of my norm... even before Mom's death.  Yet, I really like it.  I'll be coming off of these "new" meds, and I have something to do - regularly - after work that makes strange sense to me.  One of my sisters was surprised that I was going through with it.  I guess that makes sense.  But it makes me feel more in control.  And for me?  That's amazing ;)

Oh, and I quit smoking too.  Right?  I mean, why?  Although, I gotta say, breathing easier is nice when random nice strangers are kicking your ass twice a week.

Love!!

Holes, light, love, and bullshit.

I really have to get over not wanting to write things out because it does help.  I think I put it off because I know someone is going to read it.  But if I were to write it, and hide it, then what's the point?  I've been hiding my emotions for years.  I'm good at it.  Mostly. Gotta break that mold a little bit.

Christmas.  That pretty well sucked.  It was mostly ok because it was my nephew Joey's first Christmas.  We went a little crazy with his gifts - he's not even a year old so it's not like he really "gets" it.  Watching him pass up all the cool toys to play with the wrapping paper and the boxes was pretty fabulous.

New Year's Eve.  It actually was nice.  I did what I wanted.  I spent time with someone special to me, got dressed up, drank too much wine, and laughed a lot.  I called my sister in Japan, even though the time difference is retarded.  I didn't call the others - or Dad - I didn't even think about it.  It wasn't some slight that was done on purpose, I was just having a good time.  Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't call Dad because we aren't really getting along right now.  I don't feel like there's much I can say about that though.  Putting my business out there is one thing - putting my business as it entwines with other people (family or not) is another.  He just needs to find his way I guess.

I knew, intellectually, that the holidays were going to suck.  Totally different than having it all just kind of happen.  I'm a thinker.  I spend a lot of time in my head - analyzing, over-analyzing, tearing apart, figuring out, etc.  I realized another thing that people don't tell you about grief.

It changes everything.  Every family dynamic.  Your perspective.  Everything.

You might think I'm exaggerating, but I promise you, I'm not.  I saw some evidence of it when my Grandpa passed away.  I loved that man so much.  He was basically the glue for Mom's side of the family though.  When he passed away, the aunts kind of drifted apart - the cousins ceased to really know each other, and the relationships that were there from summers together just kind of... withered and faded out.  I remember thinking how crazy it was - and that we should do more to get together, and that Gramps would want us to do that, etc.  Guess what?  Now, now I know.

Mom is our glue.  Her presence, whether it was when she was sick, or not, defined how we treated each other.

"You girls need to take care of each other, you're sisters and sisters are forever."
"Don't talk back to your father!  He works very hard to make sure this family has what it needs."
"Don't judge - unless and until you are willing to walk in that person's shoes.  I know I taught you better."
"You don't turn your back on family.  Ever.  In the end, family is all that you will have."
"Be nice munchkin, even if they aren't - they probably need the niceness just as much as you do."

Mom brought us together for holidays.  She opened the door to the myriad teenagers that I (and my sisters) tramped through the house.  She always had an extra plate ready. "There's always enough.  Just add water."  She decorated for the holidays in crazy gaudy ways and made them fun.  We did presents for each other on Valentine's Day - not just Christmas and birthdays.  Now?  It feels like we're making the motions because we should be, but it's hollow.  It's hollow in all of us because that space that she left can't really be filled.  So finally, I get it.  I get why the aunts drifted away.  I get why each of them, my mother included, chose to focus so fiercely on their own families.  Because they had to fill that hole with *something*.

When you have had a love that is so beautiful, pure, bright, and generous - and suddenly it's gone, what do you do?  When that person leaves, and it literally makes you feel like the world just got darker - the whole way round?  WHAT DO YOU DO?

You try to fill that hole.  You could drink.  You could start doing drugs.  You could sleep around.  You could become bitter.  You could start shoveling every thing you possibly can into that wound - even the mostly good stuff, like loving your kids, or your friends, or you know.. good stuff.  Even that good stuff though, isn't going to be so good if you force it into a spot it doesn't belong to.  Does that make sense?  The shape of that hole is the size of a specific person, what they mean to you, and how much you miss them.  So basically - I have no fucking idea what I'm doing.  I just don't think that anything I try to put there will work.  (Quit freaking out - none of us have suddenly become 'ho's and drug addicts).  I am seeing the results of trying to force fill that hole though.

I guess it's just a matter of letting the edges of that space get a little less raw?  Maybe I can just let that spot be where the light goes.  The light that Mom made sure each of us had.  I just have to figure out a way to nurture it.  I don't think I'm quite there yet - I'll have to ponder that one for a while.

And now I have that damn song stuck in my head.  This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...

Just get over this hill

Christmas is in four days.  It's cold outside.  There was frost on the ground this morning.  The plants on my porch are all dead.  Some of them I could have saved I guess, but there were a few funeral plants out there.  I think I didn't want to keep them, so I subconsciously "forgot" them.  Isn't that horrible?

I'm at work. The office Christmas party is today.  I dressed up - ish.  Put makeup on my face. Am in a funk.  We're doing a potluck.  I brought nothing (isn't that horrible?).  I need to go to the store and get some candy to share I guess.  There were spontaneous tears today for some reason.  Haven't done that in a while.  Thankfully, I have people I talk to during the day that remind me that it's OK to have that happen every now and again. And to remind me that rescue meds are there for a reason haha.  Countdown to sanity begins now.  Gods bless pharmaceuticals.  Now, to just get over this hill.

I have to get home and wrap presents, put away the detritus from painting, etc and do laundry.  Oh, and perhaps start writing my research paper on mariology that's due on Sunday.  You know, like a fully functional adult human.  We'll see how that goes.

I did remember to bring my Christmas cards in - only now I'm afraid that some of my work people are going to be all offended by them.  This is the month of feeling like I can't win.  I know it will pass - but it certainly sucks while it's happening.

Distracting myself by discussing politics on FB isn't working very well - but hey, I gave it the old college try, right??  This is another one that I wasn't going to post.  I made a promise though, in the beginning, that I would be honest.  So it all needed to come out.

Honesty - dammit man.  I'm enjoying getting gifts for other folks - though, I think I would rather just drop them off than do the whole gather 'round the tree stuff.  It's Joey's first Christmas though, so we need to do that.  I have people that are all stressed out about what to buy, or not being able to buy, etc.  None of that matters.  None of it.  I don't *need* anything, and the things that *I* bought were neither extravagant nor expensive.  I did it because it makes me feel good - so in a sense, it's totally selfish.  You know what I want?  Some quiet hours in your company.  I want to relax with the people I care about - and just kind of BE.  Maybe make some dinner.  Or watch a ridiculous movie.  Make me laugh.

I want to make sure that the people I surround myself with know, without a doubt, how much they are loved.  Because you are.  Even when I'm all jacked up and emotionally retarded - you are loved.  Wholly, beautifully, illuminatingly loved.

Much more Krampus than Kringle

I haven't posted in a bit, and quite frankly, I wasn't going to.  Then I had some folks ask me if I had blogged recently.  Well... no, no I have not.

I've stopped myself because this is the season of joy, and family, and giving and ALL of that bullshit.  Yep.  Not feeling festive.  Like at all.

Yet, I'm cognizant of the fact that everyone else is.  So. I've just been quiet.  Well - except for Christmas cards.  I love my strange Christmas cards.

I'm not sure if things are falling apart because they ARE or if it just feels that way because it's December.  Does that make sense?  (Oh, and for you family people reading this - do not freak out on me and come swooping down on Georgia. Trust me when I say I need less crazy, not more. Love you though)  My father is jacked up.  I'm jacked up.  My sisters are - wait for it - jacked up.  Mom loved the holidays - she always over decorated for Christmas, and made things gaudy and bright.

I've had folks be like, "You need to keep up the tradition for her!"  My response is always, "We'll see" when in my head I'm really saying, "Eff off."  I know people mean well - I really do, which is why I keep those responses in my head.  But really - unless and until you lose someone vitally important to you, and then less than six months later have to get through the holidays - please don't say you understand, or that you know what I need to do.  You don't.  Is it coming from a good place?  Absolutely - and I know that.  But a huge black coal filled part of me just doesn't give a fuck.  Which sounds awful - but what the hell - it's honest.  One thing I promised myself was that I would always be honest here.

Apathy, thy name is Dani.  I'm psyching myself up by getting presents for people I care about.  I love giving gifts.  I just kind of want to drop them off on their porches though, instead of doing the whole "Fa-la-la-la" Christmas tree crap.  Why?  I can't bring myself to care.  I don't particularly want to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  I don't want to celebrate Yule.  I don't want to praise and rejoice.  That fucker stole my mom.  Hell no.

And my religious friends (and family) - you don't get to freak out on me either, mmmmmkay?  ;)  I am absolutely allowed to feel how I feel.

I'm going to see my local family, the couple of people that I can tolerate (honesty again - and who can tolerate me right now), and call it done.  I'm going to celebrate the people I have, not Christmas.  I'll probably put out the tree, because Mom would have, but dammit - if I don't do anything else, don't tell me I have to, or I should.  We'll be OK.  Probably just not this particular holiday season.

You're goddamned right!

A couple weeks ago, when the new windows were being installed, I asked Dad if I could paint.  I mean, we have to change some things.  He said that I could.  I got super excited and went out right away - got my colors, my brushes and pans, everything.

I still haven't painted.

Today, I finally got off my ass and started doing some of the prep work.  You know, before you paint you have to clean the walls, make sure you get any cobwebs, etc.  Especially if you have dogs.  This also meant general cleaning.  Which meant that I had to deal with the bags of clothes that have been sitting behind the couch since about a week after Mom died.  Hrm.... I'm pretty dense sometimes, but that might be why I haven't painted.

Tacky, right?  You would think that since they were RIGHT THERE that either Dad or I would have just dealt with them already.  Nope.  I am a master of ignoring something if I choose to.  So I walked past those bags, every day, multiple times a day for a couple of months.

I managed to ignore them for the first part of the day.  I've been attempting to push myself into doing things by thinking, "You *have* to do this" but that doesn't work, because immediately the other half of my brain is like, "Eff you, I do what I want!"  It's a goddamned circus up in my head sometimes.  Anyway, I worked around them.  The washer was fixed, so I took the couch blankets down and started washing them.  Which meant that the couches needed to be vacuumed, etc.  I sorted a lot of my craft stuff that I had left laying about.  Put the couch blankets in the dryer, came back upstairs.

First thing I see are those fucking bags.  Well.  I guess it's time to do this.  I got a trash bag, and started going through everything.  Saved a few fuzzy socks that I'll wear, and a couple of old t-shirts that I know either myself or my sisters will want later.  Ran across several shirts with tags still on them - and so many pairs of sleeping pants.  I mean, an insane amount of sleeping pants - at least as compared to the number of shirts.

See, when Mom first got sick, she would wear lounge clothes around the house.  And if we got her anything to wear, we would get those cute sets.  You know what I'm talking about - the ones with the matchy matchy tops and bottoms.  As she started getting worse, she started losing movement.  Further down the line, she had muscle contracture in both her arms and her legs.  Dressing her in those pants was painful for her.  With her legs bent all the time, they made her sweaty and uncomfortable.  She hated them.  Therefore, she did not wear them.

I had a fight about it once with a nurse.  She copped an attitude with me about the fact that Mom didn't wear "diapers" (fuck you lady, we call them underwear, she can still hear you) regularly and that we didn't put pants on her.  I had to remind her again that Mom wasn't stupid, deaf, or dumb.  That the only reason Mom didn't talk to her is because she didn't like her.  That Mom said she didn't want to wear the freaking pants, and we were NOT going to make her.  I mean good christ on a crutch - leave the woman alone!

I know - sounds stupid and depressing - but a good memory came out of that one.  I finished my somewhat polite rant, the nurse had this look on her face, and Mom says, a little slurred, but very clear, "Damn right!"

I'm still grinning from that memory.  So now they're sorted.  I'll drop off these bags, and as it's just getting cold someone who needs them will have some warm fuzzy sleeping pants. And a few Eddie Bauer shirts that still have the tags on them haha.

You're goddamned right!!

Thank you, and fuck off.

This shit is bananas.  Just for the record - in case anyone was wondering, anywhere in the world.  Fuck. This. Noise.

The holidays are fast approaching.  This will be the first Thanksgiving in years that I haven't cooked.  We won't be at our house, we're going to my best friend's house.  Which is best in the end.  I don't know that Dad could handle being home.  Hell, I don't think I could handle being home.  Not without a giant bottle of wine. Or you know, vodka.  But that's just one hurtle.  Then we have to find a way to get through Christmas.  Then New Year's. Then then then.  It's never ending.

People ask me how I'm doing.  I tell them I'm fine.  I mean, I am really - as fine as I can be.  Though some days?  Some days I want to scream at them that my feelings are none of their business.  That I don't owe them any of my emotions.  I don't though because I can at least recognize that is an irrational reaction.  Then something else comes up, and I calm down.  And we start over.

There really have been many more good days than bad.  It's just this time of year.  "BE THANKFUL!"   How about fuck you?  I'm not feeling very thankful at the moment.  Probably not gonna happen tomorrow either.  Yeah, I'm sure I could wax poetic on the fact that I have my father, my sisters, and my friends.  And I do.  I don't ignore that.  I just can't be thankful.

Thankful for what?  The ONLY thing I am thankful for right now is that mom isn't in pain anymore.  Other than that?  I say again, Fuck You, Universe.  I am not thankful that one of the best women in the world was utterly destroyed by a freaking disease.  I'm not thankful that myself, and my family, spent the last 13 years watching her waste away.  I am not thankful that we had to watch her die. I refuse to be thankful for any of it.  I don't give a damn about your cliche's - or your religious platitudes.  I don't want to hear about god.  I don't want to hear about how I should look at the positive things and BE FUCKING THANKFUL.  I'm not thankful.  I am angry, sad, and perhaps - a little belligerent.

Nope.  Thanksgiving can suck it.  The universe can suck it.  This whole fucking season can suck it. At least for right now.