camels and straws

Well, a trying time has been made more difficult by the sudden illness of my cat, Elvis.  The poor mite is off to the vet this evening, which should set him right.

However, it doesn't do much for my emotional stress right now. Today everything that might be slightly difficult has felt impossible and a sick cat has led my thoughts down the path of 'what if I have to put him to sleep?'. 

Probably over-reacting, but seriously...this day has just been the pits.

Tomorrow, Dad's race bike is going to be dropped off at Robert St and I'm doubtful that I'll be there. I never liked the stupid thing anyway.

26/03/2014

So last night in bed I was composing many of my thoughts and feelings.  I was down about my Dad, but this morning I don't feel so bad.

All the same, I was thinking things that could be beautiful and meaningful so I'll try to remember them so that they're down in words.  Just so that someone else can have a bit of an understanding, you know.   And maybe for me, I suppose.


What was I doing anyway?   I was lying in bed, trying my best to dissociate from the situation but constantly going back to how badly I was feeling.  My Dad's dead.  That means not coming back ever.  It's hard in this house, to reconcile that knowledge to the feeling I just can't shake that he's going to come back.  I expect his presence, his tread on the floorboards, the door to the computer cave opening, any moment.  Then of course, I have to tell myself that's not going to happen, and it hurts.

Last night I was angry too, angry at the universe for taking him away.  I told God I hated him, and prayed to the Goddess for healing. Somehow, I still managed to pray for someone else instead of myself. I felt sick, like there was something wrong with my stomach, and my head was sore. It was sort of a hot angry feeling, but heavy and sad too.  It was bloody awful!  In the middle of all these feelings it was after one o'clock in the morning and I wanted to just go to sleep so tomorrow would get here. So frustrating...tossing and turning (not just a literary cliche), hunching up under the covers, and still being uncomfortable and sleepless.

I cried, in little fits and as quietly as I could. (Poor Katie is a light sleeper, though she told me this morning she had as rough a night as I did.)  And I fretted over what will happen to us, to this house.  How much are they going to tax? How much is the mortgage? Can we pay it off with the cash of the estate or will Callum and I have to get the mortgage transferred? Can we even do that?  Oh, the questions just go on and on.  I don't know the answers - only that they'll probably vex me when I do find out.  All in good time.

Oh, and time.  I wanted to go back in time to the world where Dad was still here.  I wished so hard that time would reverse itself so that he was back with us and things were good. There were things to look forward to, only a few short weeks ago. It feels like so long ago that he was alive, and so much more recent and pressing that there was that ruined dead thing that wasn't really him at all in the living room...

I've been so cheated by all this, cheated out of the one big hope I had set for myself... I'm not an ambitious person, really.  And last night I was so anxious about the future, I felt ashamed of myself. I was thinking that nothing I do is ever going to be good enough - that my writing is crap, that I'll be rejected by the AFS so I don't get that internship... And the sickening truth that despite my decision to not have the death thing put inside my womb, I'll never get to plonk my child down in Dad's lap and tell him he's a grandfather. 

On the very fucking night before he died I decided against the IUD, and resolved to cancel the appointment I'd booked to have the horrible thing put inside me. Because, I reasoned, time was short with Dad and his racing, that he might kill himself in an accident before I'm thirty so better to just let it be. If I happened to get knocked up despite my usual precautions, at least Dad would see his grandchild.   How short that time was.


Is it ironic? A twist of fate?  Some kind of hamartia, maybe?  I wish that I knew that were was some kind of reason for all this. I wish I knew that the narrative of my life had a happy ending, that this is just the low before the triumph of the good. Maybe it is foolish and delusional (as bad as those religious kooks?) but the hope that there is a reason and a meaning to all this is what keeps me from going back to the dark place and shutting the door. Otherwise, the story is a tragedy, isn't it?  I don't want to be tragic. Or pitiful. I want the happy ending.

Maybe in time I'll know something more about why this has happened, but right know what I know boils down to this: I believe that I still need my Dad, but the universe has made it so that I have to learn to live without him.

An introduction

Hello, and welcome to my new blog.

I have no intention of making this blog spectacular to look at, or even to maintain it beyond the time that I need it.  It is simply here for me to record my thoughts and feelings as I deal with the sudden and unexpected death of my father.