So that happened...

Hello everyone, I am sorry that I have been so distant, again.  Here is the whole story, submitted for your judgement, advice and information. 

At the start of this year I lost my job.  I was laid off, it was just something that happened.  It feels odd to go to job interviews and tell them I was laid off from a company that has been in a few publications as a "growing company".  They all kinda look at me as if I am lying or covering up being fired.

Beyond that though something far more critical happened, on Feb. 12 at six am my father passed away.  It is very hard to type, even now.  There will not be a memorial service until Memorial day weekend.  I am devestated and think I am far more down than I thought I would be. 

So now I need a reboot and I am not sure how to find the "start" button to reset.  I need to find a schedule again, I need a pattern behavior.  The biggest problem seems to be consistancy, every time I find it I end up having something throw me off.  In my past I have always been an all or nothing type of gal but that is failing me and I feel stuck.

Confessions of a Scared Child

I am a scared little girl most days, trying my best to fill each moment with noise and activity.  I am not sure people understand exactly what it feels like to be confused and impotent.  I find myself taking odd little personal habits to keep myself in a false place of obliviousness.  I stop talking to people I love, I cocoon myself inside of myself, and most of all I lose patience for most people quickly.  It seems to me that most people do not really understand what it is like to live with a gun pointed at them. 

One of the things I do and I am so ashamed of is hide.  I don’t call or text my family because if I am distant I do not have to deal with it.  It is not something I have to think about if I keep my distance; it is extraordinarily cruel to both my father and to myself.  We both deserve better treatment.  Some days my head is so filled with the past that I am terrified if I spoke with my dad I would shatter into tiny pieces.  So rather than face my demons and do the honorable thing, I act out in pure cowardice.

It is in that cowardice that I find the bitterness I have towards some people and their behavior.  I understand that the holidays bum a lot of people out.  It is bothersome and horrible to feel alone, to not have a job, or just to miss the sun.  I understand but I have little sympathy for most people who are down right now, part of it is that I don’t have any emotional space left to give a damn.  The other part is that I almost feel like the show of it all is more important than the emotions the person goes through, if that makes sense. Let’s be clear, there are a few people who can get away with emotional cutting in my eyes right now, people who truly are going through the worst life can give you.  I think it is being a bad friend to shake a friend yelling “If your dad/mom was healthy and with you through the holidays, take your bitching elsewhere!”

I hope the people in my life will understand what I am going through, and be there on the other side.  I carry my phone religiously just hoping and praying that if it rings it will read “Daddy”.  It leaves me so raw that I fight tears back at anything slightly sentimental.  Hell I cried during the Macy’s Parade because of the song about fishing with dad.  I sleep well some nights but increasingly I wake up thinking that it’s too late and in that moment I am haunted….

I am sorry; I am a scared little girl

Happy Holidays!

School is done!  I am the proud owner of 2 As and a B!  I am just now feeling the strain of so much stress leaving my body and the semester has been over for a week.  I have to give major props to my love because he has been the rock who has done nothing but support my every move.  He has made sure I had the time and space to do my homework and has made this feel so effortlessly added to my life.  He is the perfect boyfriend.  Every time I started to get stressed he calmed me down and stepped up to help me out.  I am neurotic and he has kept me from feeling too crazy or completely out of control.

In the same vein, my friends and GMs have been so accommodating.  They all have been so nice about letting me miss sessions or miss casual gaming nights so I can study.  They have also put up with me consistently falling asleep on their couches constantly, even once through a party.  Yes, I fell asleep on a couch in the middle of a Rock Band party.

Now that the semester is done, I want to spend the next 3 weeks recouping and trying to work out.  God I do miss the feeling of working out, getting sweaty and being able to just let go of the world during a workout.  It is the only thing I have missing from my life, I think that working out again will make me into the super woman I want to be.  I am working on a vision in my head of myself and I am so close to achieving it that I am excited.

One thing that going back to school has taught me is that I deserve to take care of myself and no one will think poorly of me for trying to do it all.  I also realize that my physical self is as important as my mental self and so I think I want to try and make it so.  I want to dance, run, walk, and be strong.  There is a semester under my belt so now I know what to expect I can make time into my schedule to work out, even if it is just 25 sit ups between assignments.  I kind of wish that I had access to a professional time management person who can help me get even closer to what I want to be.  I know that I can have the time to do school, work, game and still have time to sit momentarily and do nothing.  It is not impossible, there are 16 hours a day to work with (I am assuming I will get 8 hours of sleep, seriously stop laughing, it might happen).

Still, the year is almost done and now is the time to enjoy friends and family.  I am looking forward to having doors open for me with my associate’s degree and continuing on to my BS degree.  Be well everyone, and thank you for still checking this blog even if I do not post like I should!

Love You!

Whoa! What a Whirlwind!

So I know I have been gone for a while but despite all the warnings you never really know how much work going back to school can take.  I am working full time, taking 3 classes and all the rest of my life has not slowed down.  I am making good grades and if everything goes according to plan, I will be able to graduate with my AAS after the spring semester.  Then it will be on to get my BS. 

Where I have fallen down is on my eating and exercise.  It has both gone to crap, well my eating is just keeping me from gaining.  I miss exercise, now it is not even the lack of motivation I was facing before, now I just don’t have the time.  It is so hard to say, you know that 40 pages I need to read can wait.  I have been stopping my reading/home work every 30 mins to stretch and do simple body weight exercises.  My body is craving cardio like I can not explain.  I know I matter so I am trying to work into a pattern that gives me 45 mins of cardio like I used to do.

This is the most I can post right now…lol…I swear I will be back soon!  I love you guys.

My Apologies

My life has been crazy lately.  I have had so much on my plate that in my free time I don’t want to do anything for that I am very sorry.  Instead of spending so much time apologizing I give you a run down of some of the big, the stressful and just eventful things that have happened to me in the past few months.  So with out further ado…

My father has cancer, I know I have talked about it before but it is something that is hitting me very hard.  It is not a fun thing to think about but some how it seeps into everything I do.  He went through radiation but it seems he is not going to go through chemo.  He is choosing to stop the course of treatment for various reasons all of which my rational mind accepts.  He deserves to have a happy life, to eat drink and be merry.  I will be visiting him shortly and that might be the hardest thing I will ever do.  My father has always been a physical representation of all that is life, I don’t want to see him sick.  Of course all of this makes one reflect back on their life and grapple with mortality.  The reality of life is you get one life to live, remember only the good and let go of the bad.

I am heading back to Texas for the first time in 4 years.  It fills me with all sorts of mixed feelings that I am having issues dealing with.  I want to see my family (and hopefully friends) but by the same token I am apathetic.  I have said multiple times that the roads and planes go both ways.  No one and I repeat; neither a friend nor family has made even an attempt to come see the life I have made here.  It makes me feel inferior, like they don’t even acknowledge that I choose to start a life, like they can not grasp that some one thinks there is a life 1500 miles away from them.  

I have been diligently working on getting stuff ready for school.  I have been accepted, signed my loan paperwork and the books are on my desk ready for my online classes to start on September 4^th (the day I get back from visiting my father).  I must say I fluctuate between complete and total fear and unparalleled excitement.  I feel like I need to prove I am smart.  I am proud that I am finally taking my future into my own hands.  I deserve to take strides to better my life and that is a hard concept to deal with.  But orientation has started and classes will start so soon I can feel it.

I also have all my other obligations, games, friends, and such that are all pressing on me.  I have friends who are getting engaged, having babies, and even a few with grand babies. 

Falling off my good habits has hit my self-esteem in the gut but I take comfort in the fact that I can and have changed my life and will continue to do that.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, I hate to think I blog faded and am now screaming into the emptiness that can be the internet.  I am also thinking about using Pintrest to inspire myself, any thoughts?

Hate Filled People

We are hateful hate filled people right now in Wisconsin.  Regardless of who won this past election, it just proves that the state is legitimately divided.  Just because one side won does not mean that the other side lost or is marginalized.  The whole idea of recalls seemed to be just as divisive as the candidates themselves.  This morning as the state woke up we realized that nothing happened.  Nothing changed and it seems that people hate others more than ever.
I don’t know about anyone else but I was worn out by this tension months ago,  I don’t want to be mad at people because they say things I disagree with and I don’t want to become a person who thinks that if you disagree with me you are an idiot, you can be an idiot and agree with me.  When some one says something that in my core I feel is wrong, I want my first instinct to be “Hmmmm” not “Ugh” but I think politics is ruining me.  

I am a passionate person but I have always felt that I did not take myself too seriously.  I never have thought of myself as one who was unwilling to work for a common goal on common ground but I feel that is lost.  Last night I saw no common ground, even among friends.  In speeches last night I never heard any words of healing but more gloating.  When did compromising and sharing become bad things, this whole thing could have been solved if people on the left took a step right and people on the right took a step left.  Is anything so important it deserves to divide families and friends?

It upsets me that instead of people conceding that this whole thing might have been ill advised or that Walker could have avoided it entirely had he been more willing to bend but rather you come to my desk with a smile saying it’s a beautiful day in Wisconsin, justice prevailed.  First elections are not about justice but rather about voices of the people being heard and had anyone bothered to listen last night they would have heard the division not unison. 

Back to the title though, we have become a hate filled state in some ways.  Why is there gloating?  Are we electing 5 year olds?  Why are people whining that there was some sort of fraud?  Nothing happened last night that should evoke hate, Hitler was not elected.  Nothing that happened should make jokes suddenly sinister disrespect.  The only thing that we learned last night is that this state is almost divided in half and both halves have let go of any dream of working together. 

In some ways I feel betrayed by the whole thing because it actually did not accomplish anything I think most of the State would actually be happier if last night had not happened but rather we learn how to communicate to reach common ground.  What was supposed to be decisive and telling actually just muddied the water to the point where we might mistake it for tar and get stuck in it for a long time.  The funny thing about tar is the more you struggle the more you lose of yourself.

I fear that the worst is yet to come.  Maybe I am naive to think that we can get along at all.  I sit here wondering if I have it in me to keep caring about politics at all, maybe I should give up until we all grow up and realize that the world is not black and white but grey.  We are really yin-yang people, there is always a little bit of the opposite in us.  We as a whole would do well to remember that little factoid that as black or white as you think you are there is always a bit of the other side in you.

Maybe we should learn to get along or maybe I should just shut up and stop caring...hmmmm

Cancer and Family

My father was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, he had 17 inches of his colon removed and on Saturday I was told he was finally termed “Cancer Free” and “Cured”.  Monday he went in for a hernia repair, a fairly mundane procedure and they found cancer and this time they could not simply remove it.
I am broken hearted.  In a perfect world I could fly down and be there as they figure out what the next step is.  It is not a perfect world, in fact while I can fly down I have no time off and if I took time off with no pay it would put us in a bad place.  The fact is I can either take time off or afford the plane ticket, not both.

It also brings up all the issues I have with my family anyway.  I don’t find myself often wanting to reach out to speak with my Mom or Brother.  It is not because I don’t care but rather because it is never really about talking to me it is about them telling me all about themselves and any thing I say is twisted right back to them. 

Make no mistake, I moved to Wisconsin because I am in love.  I felt and still feel like this is the best place for me, I am happy.  There is a point in your life where you have to stand up and do what you have to take care of yourself, to live your dreams.  I choose to be happy and in love.  I knew it was a giant leap of faith but everyone stands on that ledge, I got to jump. 

In this vein, I can say that regardless of what is currently happening in my life NO ONE has even made a real attempt to come and visit me.  The roads that would take me to Texas also takes anyone from Texas to Wisconsin and those plane things, fly both ways.  Sometimes I feel like no one respects the life I have made or they think this is a phase and I will come home when I am tired of this game.  I don’t think they care or are willing to accept that I left and it actually worked out.  My mom always says she doesn’t worry about me because I will always land on my feet, it’s funny that when that played out they did not seem to be there.

Regardless of my issues with my family it makes me so sad that my father has to deal with this and I am not easily accessible to him.  This reoccurrence makes me uneasy and I feel like a nervous cat.  Any stress will make me break into tears, I am searching for distraction.  I am throwing myself into games, and raising my new kitten.  This is real life and it’s my life. 

I am walking in Relay for Life again and I am taking donations though I am not the captain.  If you feel compelled please click the link below

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/Shrinking_geek