Here's what is on my mind:
1) My dad is home in hospice care. He sleeps 23 hours a day and there is 24 hour nursing help in the house. My step mother is so distraught that she has gotten out of bed even less than he has. My brother flew down there today, comes back Tuesday, and then I go. It is generally agreed that these are "goodbye" visits.
2) I have about 30 papers to grade and they need to be posted by tomorrow. I could not care less. My students are ignorant, irresponsible and with a few exceptions, ineducable. But I have to grade their shit about "How being a teenageder mom is difficultest than just being a single." It's my job and that's that.
3) I am expected by all and every person in my family to return from SC and the last visit I am likely to ever have with my dad - and board a flight for Africa and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and go on safari and laze about Zanzibar as if no one is 97% likely to be dead by the time I get back - least of all the person I love most in the world.
4) No one - and I mean NO ONE - in my circle of online or real-life friends is happy right now. Lisa at Clusterfook is getting beat all up by cancer. LAS has issues she has not authorized me to disclose, but they suck. Last time I checked in with Julie, she'd lost a car. Cath at SeventhNotebook is in a low spot, Bibi just ended it with her boyfriend. Sri is so anxious about her boyfriend that she isn't even finding it fun to have one.
5) And I have about 9000 things to do before I supposedly leave on this trip and every single one of those chores I know full well to be futile since if my dad's condition is not greatly improved, in, say, three days time? I don't care who I piss off. I won't be able to make myself get on that plane next weekend.
How am I dealing with all this? How might I be coping?
Well, I'll tell you. I spent all day in bed yesterday watching season 4 of The Sopranos. Today I am making good progress on season 5. Tomorrow I will face the music with my job. And pack for both trips, knowing I'd really not have to make either one.
Oh look! Tony Soprano is about the kick someone's teeth out! So... very... interesting!
I gotta go. Compelling shit going on here.
Love,
Nina
10 comments:
I am so very sorry to hear about your dad. So very sorry. I wish I could say something magical to make it all better but I don't have anything I can think of to make it better. Know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.
I'll grade papers if that would help...I could use the entertainment and I love to critique, except I'm kind of harsh. Still, I'll help ;)
XOXO
So very sorry.
Sweet girl I am so very sorry. I'm still praying...
And about the Kili trip, do what feels right for you. Don't worry about what anyone else feels or thinks. If you don't want to go, don't go. xo
So sorry. You do what you feel to do and that is that.Big hugs.
I agree with Lisa. If you want to outsource some papers, the wife and I were both english majors and come from a long line of teachers.
thinking and praying hard
Sending a big hug. I had to make that dreaded good bye trip in 2001. It hurts, and is hard, but when I lost my best friend to an accident, I wished so much for even a few minutes. Know that good, loving thoughts are being sent your way.
I bet your favorite person in the whole world would want you to go climb a mountain and see the world - nothing would probably make him happier.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry hon. And I just want you to know that I miss you.
Prayers. Hugs. All that stuff.
Really.
If worse comes to worst, then he will meet you at the summit and be the first to give you a hug. If not, then he will be here to greet you when you get back, fresh from triumph.
And in any case, you have friends who love you.
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