July 29, 2010

the morning after

Thanks for all your comments on my last post.

Yeah, things aren't going well. Not sure how else to put it. I guess it's just a waiting game, which is what it always has been. It seems that every dad update I get just kind of chips away at my soul. Right now I just feel empty. The "D" word hasn't been spoken, but I know it's there waiting, as it is for all of us. I'm not ready to say it yet. I do keep practicing it in my head.

All I ever wanted for him was some dignity and some grace. I don't want to hear that my dad has to use a walker all the time, that he can barely get from sitting to standing any more, that sometimes he can't make it to the bathroom in time, that he has lost so much weight that his dentures don't even fit. I don't want to think about him suffering. I don't want to think of him alone in his bed in his depressing room in that godawful nursing home. I don't want to think that he could be sad or scared or lonely. I don't want to think about never seeing him again. I don't want to think of him not having that dignity that he deserves so much.

I feel so powerless and just busted up and sad. I'm not sure what else to say on the matter.

On another note, I'm not a big fan of myself these days. I've been working on those posts about how my depression changed my life and has made me see the world differently. But in all reality I am still the same old weirdo who feels kind of isolated and like she'll never fit in with the world. It's like I reach a moment of pure enlightenment, and then poof, it's gone and there I am back in the trenches. Not to say that I have reverted back into depression, but life these days is really making me anxious. I did have a rather Zen-like attitude toward our financial situation until the other night, when I saw how much money we really don't have, and then I burst into tears. It's hard to be Zen about it. About anything.

Yes, "it will all be okay." But what does that even mean?