I hate that I had to make my blog private. I did so because of the office politics that are current putting my husband under undue stress. However I wish I hadn’t, but I understand why it needs to be done for the time being. And it isn’t forever. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

In “going dark” it has revealed to me that I do enjoy the telling of my own tale. I like laying bare my secrets in a digital space and not caring who knows, as long as someone “listens.” My blog is kind of like that woman in the supermarket who starts telling the cashier clerk all about the drama between her sister and her mother because the checker happened to scan the apple she purchased.

This (and other things) has weighed heavily on my mind lately and my first instinct is to run to the blog and lay everything on the table. Yet, knowing it will just be solely for me has made it where I don’t care. Well, not that I don’t care, more than I don’t see the point if I’m the only one who would ever see it. I’m not writing for myself. I like to write so that other people can read what I wrote. Plus… I’m sick of my own fucking thoughts, let someone else take them for awhile.

The block will exist here and on twitter until my husband is either hired or fired from his current position. And in the mean time I just need to remind myself that I am doing this for his own safety and peace of mind.

I’ve tried to write this particular post multiple times already, and for the life of me I can’t get it right. I want to it to be pensive and inspiring but it won’t be that. It’ll be another post from a person who’s lost a loved one.

The previous attempts had all the stereotypical tropes. I claimed that it didn’t feel real. (Which it doesn’t.) And that he would be back any day. (Which he won’t.) but right as I got to talking about my doubled responsibilities my brain shuts off and I am incapable of forming thoughts. Ill take the hint, brain. It’s too much.

Regardless, today is/was my pops birthday. He would have been 67, which to me is entirely too young. Some of the most influential women in my life lived to be 80 and 95. So 66 is far too young to pass. Especially since he wasn’t ready to die.

My father fell and hit his head. In a matter of hours he was gone and left behind a body that could only stay alive by assistance. Once that help was removed (by my request) he was gone in less than a minute.

He wasn’t old enough to die.

The thing I battle with the most is do I miss my father or do I miss that my father cared for my failing mother? The second feels so cheap and selfish and if that is the case I hate that person. But it is very possible. Since his passing the burden of caring for my mother has fallen to me. And only me. And I don’t want it.

Today though… it is very real that I miss my dad. I miss his trademark laugh and sigh I could get him to do. (I loved making him laugh.) I miss that I won’t be getting him a birthday card. I miss that he won’t get to go to Red Lobster for the all you can eat shrimp and only getting one additional order, which he would take to go. (This is genuinely making me laugh by the way.)

I wrote on twitter the weird pattern of my patriarchal line of poetry… I am the age that my father was when I was born. And I am also the age he was when he lost his father. The same amount of time existed in our hello and goodbye. (I suppose it always does though.)

Life right now seems impossibly hopeless. At one point in time I was not concerned with current affairs or about politics in the slightest and now I cannot stop myself from devouring everything I come across. And all it does is make me feel more hopeless than the thing before. I want to believe that sanity will be restored and we will return to the rule of law but I don’t think it ever will. This crazy train is heading straight for hell and it won’t end until we’ve all been annihilated.

I hate to sound so bleak but it’s all I can think about. Everyday more shit happens, worse than the day before, and nothing is done. It’s like everyone that has any power just throws up their hands and go “what am I supposed to do?” Almost like a parent whose child is throwing an epic tantrum in the super market.

This year has truly been the biggest shit show and I’m 100% certain that it isn’t done dropping steaming pile after like onto me and the world.

All I can think about is the speech Samwise recites at the end of Two Towers and the hope he speaks about even when everything seems lost.

I need a Samwise. I want A chubby, gorgeous man, who loves potatoes, and doesn’t like to dance to come to me when I’m at my lowest, and tell me it’ll be alright.

Right now feels like darkest of times. And what’s unfortunate is it can only get worse.

I genuinely feel as if I am going insane. Last night I got into what I have now coined a “thought hurricane.” Everything I could be worried or concerned about started swirling into a category 5 storm in my head. It started out as panic to why my aunt hasn’t answered my two messages about my mom staying with her, to which spun in the possibility of my mother’s care taker trying to take advantage of her financially (although she has not given me any reason to believe so.) All of these thoughts swirled around so much that I was doubting everything that was real.

To add to the chaos (for whatever reason) I decided to shave off all the hair on my face and torso. (I left the hair below the waist, I am a lady after all.) What I can gather from that little episode is trying to take control of things in my life I otherwise do not feel I have any real grasp.

This morning the storm had somewhat subsided, but I got a text from my mother’s caretaker that she had left the gas on last night and when she came for her morning visit, to check on her, it reeked of it. It had been just slightly on all night. I had to take a trip to the house and tell her to not cook, to which she responded by giving me a shitty expression. She refuses to accept her new reality and is fighting against any effort I set forth.

I don’t want to put my mother into care because it’s not what she wants. And I respect that. But at what point do I stop listening to her and just do “what is right?”

This past Friday evening the husband and I took her to the ER. She has been complaining about bad stomach pains any time she eats. When I arrived to take her she was happy as a clam. She even rated her pain as a 1 to the attending nurse. (Shoot me.) The trip was almost a waste of time. It turns out she has a UTI and then I got further confirmation from the doctor and nurse when they said “she lives at home?” Even they were perplexed why she wasn’t in a facility.

All of this is my personal hell. I am left holding all the responsibility. And I am the one who ultimately has to make the choice when I cannot. I take too many voices into account and give equal weight to each. Which in the end just makes the scales even with no real conclusion.