I'm back home again. Dad died on March 7th. Funeral was on Tuesday this week and he is being buried in Utah this upcoming Tuesday. I can't be there for it, so I'm planning on visiting Char sometime this year and go out with her to see his grave.

I can't write about all of it now--it's only one of the hardest things I've ever gone through and I'm going to be processing it for a long, long time. Ripped open a lot of old wounds and made fresh ones too.

I'm going to bed now, I think. I'm already mentally/emotionally exhausted from writing that. Not that it will do a lot of good. Been having a really, really difficult time sleeping since I went down there.

Will be back to work on Monday and this school quarter finishes up next Friday---in other words, I'm doomed.

P.S. Made a playlist of some of Dad's favorites. Will be playing a lot of Moody Blues and Top Gun the next couple of weeks.

I just can't concentrate on this paper. We keep having phone conversations with my sisters down in Texas on what's going on with my dad.

I don't feel like going into all the details, but I'll try to summarize as best I can. He's starving to death. He looks like a Holocaust victim, sickly thin and gray. He barely gets any liquid down before he starts spitting it all up, thanks to his tumor in his throat. I don't know why he doesn't have a feeding tube or why he has to be so bullheaded and lie to everyone about what's going on with him, or why he fights and lies to his doctor, but since KJ and Nikki got down there, he has been deteriorating rapidly. He's hallucinating, he can barely stand, let alone walk, and he's angry. Yelling at my sisters, trying to throw stuff at them, refusing to even consider hospice care...I'm sure his doctors discussed these options with him long ago and I'm positive that he scorned their suggestions without pause. The idiot.

He's opted to do a procedure where a wire will be put in his throat to try to stretch his esophagus a bit, making room for food to get down...again, why not a feeding tube??!! It's risky procedure. They may puncture his esophagus and he'll die, they may puncture the tumor, resulting in him bleeding to death, and if it works, it buys him only a few more painful months. if that. It's scheduled for Monday. But since KJ and Nikki got down there on Wednesday, they've seen such deterioration in him that they think he may not last until Monday. Either way, it sounds like he'll be dead within a week.

His parents have offered to pay for his funeral, purchase a plot in Utah, and transport his body up there, which is a MAJOR relief to us. We thought we each would have to hand over a couple thousand dollars for a basic burial in Texas! Uncle Chris has legal power of attorney and has had his name placed on Dad's checking and savings accounts. Dad refused to make a will and never made a living will or assigned medical power of attorney.

It just doesn't seem real. But I saw the picture KJ took of him yesterday. I ended up crying a lot last night, couldn't sleep, then cried all the way to work. But then had a rather marvelous day at work, without getting bogged down, had lots of good energy...and a part of that is owed to the abrupt, irresistible friendliness of a certain person that just kills me since I can't let myself respond to that bright, warm, fatal draw of the heart. It's a combination of security and ANXIETY and serious, serious attraction. The smallest things trigger it and the smallest withdrawal opens up that vast abyss of "of course, it was impossible." Manic depressive, anyone?

I just keep thinking this one thought over and over. Wouldn't it be horribly ironic if my dad died tomorrow? I was born on my dad's birthday, and my dad dies on his father's 85th birthday, Feb 28. The grandfather I always thought as a kid I had a special bond with, for as long as I can remember, until they cut us off after the separation, when I was 15. I was constantly disillusioned as a kid, pre-programmed to never trust in a good thing or in anyone, really. And I'm alone, without friends. I end up saying too much to my co-workers just because I don't have anyone to talk to about this who is outside the situation! And it isn't a good thing to do that at work.

Okay. Feel a little bit better. Back to the paper due at midnight!

I know it's a good thing, I KNOW it's a good thing, but I can't deny that it still hurts. The glow is gone. IT'S A GOOD THING. He's irritating the hell out of me and it's a good thing to be angry rather than absolutely, pathetically seduced/silenced. But I'm also confused. Where did the basic layer of semi-friendliness go? Did he suddenly become intolerant of our chitchat, our incompetence? The dead robot tone, technical language, and blank face say it all. Poor, infallible know-it-all, having to try to clean up the mess made by Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. Grrrr. And to think I had once imagined there was a spark there (a small spark, aye, but a spark all the same). Always appreciate these wakeup calls. But it sure takes the tang out of life. 

Ended up crying at work a few times today over my dad! First, just the email I got from my manager regarding bereavement was so kind, it completely shocked me. I'm always undone by kindness. Had to go cry in a restroom stall for a little bit, right at the beginning of my shift. I guess that email made it more real, somehow. Then these random, rare, good memories with my dad kept creeping into my mind. They are so rare and so brief, it's ridiculous, and yet I started crying several times while at my desk and I really had to work to reign those emotions in. So unexpected! Almost as if the negative experiences had never happened. I've never ever felt like that before. It disappeared eventually, of course, but still, wow. 

Would write more, but homework calls. 

More news on my dad. He likes to play his stupid games of control and has this gigantic blind spot when it comes to interacting with people, especially his family. But he has finally told my sister that he has filed for disability with his work and then actually voiced aloud to Julie that he wants her to make his medical decisions if he is unable to, but made it clear that he does not want to be on life support. Of course, that doesn't mean he has anything in writing. He won't tell us if he has made a will, he won't tell us what he wants for burial...or does he want cremation? He won't say. He doesn't talk to any of his brothers, he doesn't tell his parents anything, we're all kept in the dark as far as what he actually wants for himself, which is strange, considering that the fact that he's soooo controlling--wouldn't having all his wishes set in stone legally be something that would give him a sort of sense of satisfaction or relief, even though it's morbid to think about? And maybe he does...he just won't tell us.

Julie says every time she sees him, which is every couple of days, he looks worse and worse. And he can hardly take care of himself, the house is a cesspool every time she goes over and cleans up. I don't know how he was working all this time! And Julie thinks that he's lied to her a bit--she thinks he's been on disability for a while and just has been hiding the fact, She has her reasons for this.

Kjerstie's flying down there this weekend to try to get some answers out of him and get a real look of his situation. We don't know anything about his health insurance, what could be covered, considering hospice, etc. And I don't want to go into the graphic details of what he's experiencing as told to me by Julie, but it sounds like he has weeks...not months.

I haven't seen him in two years, not since I left in Jan 2013 after living with him for six months, back when he first started treatment. I think I might take a Friday off in a week or two and fly down there for a weekend. Even though I'm in the midst of the projects and exams and stressing out to no end over school, this is just something that I need to do.

I wish I wasn't restrained by every aspect of who I am.

I can't talk coherently in social situations. I can't think of any thoughts. It's all a blank sponge, absorbing what's said and having nothing to add. Unless it's something ridiculously out of place, unrelated, or negative/offensive. Which isn't what I'm even feeling in the moment, but somehow, that's all that's there. Always so wrong.

I can't talk to the people I desperately want to talk to...because then it's too obvious. So, instead, I completely shut them out. He is so beyond me in every possible way. And yet, in the moment, I don't mind one bit, even as I try to stop the glow from sparking. Even though I still can barely manage a word, or make eye contact, it's okay. Until it's passed and all I can feel is the vast difference and how NOT okay it is to be so socially freakish. I chide myself constantly, trying to get the courage to say something commonplace, trying to reassure myself that it's okay to suddenly split the character I've assumed and be suddenly, desperately, friendly. And then I completely shut down. No one with intelligence or maturity could ever manage being with me. I'm too damn serious, too damn introspective, too god damn insecure, self-destructive, moody. I can't slice through all the crap in the blink of an eye and arrive on the other side, confident, balanced, secure, calm, all qualities I admire in this person. What is it like to be wired that way?

And Mom just walked in the door. I gotta get a new laptop sometime---using her computer. Sad face. Maybe I'll come back and edit later. Or maybe I'll leave it like this, raw.

And I changed the playlist again. Just wanted to acknowledge that.

I listen to these playlists while doing homework and really needed a change to something more conducive to studying. Ooooooh celloooo.

I changed the playlist back to what it was--a mix of awesome, with a splash of Daughter thrown in.

Working on an assignment right now and then I'm off to bed. Not much new to report. I'm still toying with the idea of looking for a new job and I know, rationally, that that is what I should be doing right now, to strike while the iron is hot. But for many irrational reasons (fear/dislike of change, the extra effort to make it happen when I struggle to get my butt to work every morning and come home and have to keeeeeeep wooooorrrking for school, just, AAAH!, and one very, very stupid other reason that would be too much info), I'm delaying that first step, for now. But, knowing me, I might have completely changed my mind this time tomorrow. So dumb. When can I get off this mood roller coaster?

I've discovered a new group and fallen head over heels. It's my typical airy, breathy, Sigur Rós type of love. They're pretty powerful, actually, and only one or two songs feel contrived. Love the lyrics and the atmosphere.

Check out Daughter on the new playlist!

I am so disturbed by my mom and her tenacious focus on how this country is doomed to fail. It's fine to think that politicians are awful and how certain trends in society aren't great, but I'm so tired of the doomsday talk. I don't care how intellectual she is or how many economic facts she can come up with or what's happening out in the world; nothing is going to happen, most likely, and if it does, it is all out of our hands. The way she twists all of these "facts" into her spirituality and "prophetic" dreams, her supposedly psychic sister who foresees all things terrible, the money she throws away on things she is never going to use, the strange certainty that all these supposed future events are tied so personally to herself in this narcissist way, god, it alarms me how she thrives on it.

I know I said I wouldn't blog, but the computer was right here and she just went to bed. 

Not much has changed, except for my job. It used to make me anxious, but I didn't outright hate it like I do now. I'm going to start looking for another position soon. I would have today but I've been sick since Tuesday and I literally slept all of last night and today. And I'm still exhausted, with a stuffy head. My ankle still hurts from when I wrenched it, last week on Friday at work. That one's a great story. Argh. 

Everyone in my family is unhappy. And crazy. As am I. 

I think I'm going to take a break from blogging. It may be faster to type things out, but I don't feel comfortable going into the details about more personal things on this blog; it will force me to write down everything in my actual journal, which is a good thing. Plus, posting on a blog gives me the faintest glimmer of a chance that someone out there gives a damn and I don't want that. It messes with my head.

So, this is me, signing off this blog. Don't know when I'll write on here again. I might sometime down the road, just not now.