Seconds

My plan to start writing again constantly gets thwarted by life.  School, schedules, brain blocks and just everything in between.  Then suddenly, life changes and I'm thrown a curve ball that I never expected and I suddenly feel that the only way I can cope with this crippling, life-changing circumstance is to write.

On January 24th, my Dad passed away.  It was totally unexpected and sudden.  From what can be surmised, it was a massive and sudden heart attack.  He was literally gone in seconds.  He was walking one moment and the very next, he was gone.  Just like that.  In a matter of mere seconds, I went from getting ready to fix lunch to not having my Dad in my life anymore.  It's ironic that it was life that kept me from writing and now it is death that prompts me to once again write.

In the week and a half that has passed since his death I have cried, mourned, cried, laughed, been angry, been anxious and scared, and then cried some more.  Experiencing the death of a parent is debilitating and agonizing.  It's a loss that cannot be explained.

My dad was always my "go to" person whenever I was at a loss on how to handle something.  Sometimes, even when I knew the answer, I'd go to him anyway just to get confirmation on whether I was making the right choice in life.  We didn't always get along but it never kept him from always helping to bail me out of situations in life where I had screwed up and found myself in dire straights.  It always involved a lecture but I knew that along with that lecture was unconditional love and support.  He was a staunch conservative and I am quite the liberal.  He was a devout Christian, a pastor and a missionary.  I, on the other hand, rebel against organized religion and haven't set foot in a church in nearly ten years.  This saddened him but it didn't ever stop him from loving me despite my choices.

I'm not sure how to live life without a father.  I was expecting to be much older in life before I had to deal with this kind of grief.  I always expected that there would be more time to prepare for it.  Clearly, time is not something that anyone is promised.  My dad wasn't even promised the very next second in his life. 

There are still many days in the near future that I am dreading beyond all belief.  Everything of his is still in place right where he left it.  Nothing has been moved.  Not yet.  There will also be all of the "firsts"without him that will have to be dealt with as each one arises.  The first Easter Dinner.  The first Father's Day.  Birthdays.  Thanksgiving.  Christmas.  My parent's anniversary, and his birthday.  I dread each and every one of those days that will creep up on me throughout 2013. 

I know that death is a part of life, but honestly, it had always happened to someone else before and the only part I played in it was offering up my condolences.  Now I'm the one receiving the condolences and the sympathy cards and the comfort in the loss of my father.  I'm the one that is having to speak of him in the past tense.  I don't know how to think of my father as a "was" instead of an "is".  The realness has settled in and the surreal feelings are beginning to fade.  I know that none of this is a dream and my dad is, in fact, never going to speak to me again.  He's never going to laugh or tell some corny joke again.  He'll never call me by my sister's name or ask me what I'm cooking for dinner.  He'll never fight with me over politics or religion again and he'll never say "I love you doll" again. 

I know the pain is going to ease and I know that life won't necessarily get easier but that it will become different.  I know that there will be a new normal for me and his death won't be the focus of every single moment of my day.  For now though, in this moment, it consumes me.  Not one second of one day since he died have I not thought about him and missed him with such fervency and consumption.   For now, I just want my Daddy back.

Baby steps

I really want to get back into the swing of blogging again but I think it's going to prove to be more difficult than I originally thought.  I used to have all of these ideas that would just float around in my head of what I felt would be interesting blog posts and I would have crazy things happen in my day that would lead me to say "I so need to blog this"!  That's not happening anymore.

These days my thoughts are consumed with the analysis of literature and writing huge papers and meeting deadlines and trying to keep my GPA up to an acceptable level.  Hell, I don't even know what an acceptable GPA is for a 42 year old junior in college.  I've got a 3.5.  Is that acceptable?  Probably but I don't think it would get me into some amazing grad student program for my Masters.  Who knows.  Who cares?

I finally finished up my two year degree in Psychology and two weeks after that I started working on my BA in English with a minor in History.  So four more years and I'll have that Masters in English that I've been craving for some 25 or more years.  It's killing me.  Seriously.  I am tired and there are so many days that I want to give in and quit.  Thankfully, my inner bitch kicks in and gives me a swift kick in the ass and I get right back at it.  After all, we are usually our own best motivators. 

So yeah, this would be the part of the blog post where I would wrap things up with some witty anecdote or have some awesome line that would be just hilarious and would leave readers in tears.  However, I don't have any readers and I'm not as witty as I once was so I guess I'll just say...until the next time!  Tot Ziens!

That Bitchy Chick Redux

Blogging used to be such a release for me.  It was something I did every day for me.  I'll be honest, I had a steady stream of people who read my verbose ramblings.  I had fun.  I blogged about my days and I blogged random stupid shit.  It kept me sane.  It kept me from wanting to stab certain people through the forehead with an icepick.

Then blogging went all commercial and it became very competitive and everyone was concerned about page views and page ranking and SEO and readers and comments and I said to hell with it all and I gave up something that I really enjoyed and wow, that's one helluva a run-on sentence.  Even English majors have their grammatical moments.

To make a long story short, I need to blog again.  Writing is my sanity.  It always has been.  I'm not great with random and creative writing.  I'm more the academic style of writing.  I don't often know how to come across as funny but I can analyze an ancient piece of literature with the best of them.  Maybe blogging will help me branch out on my writing styles.  Maybe I can end up like many other bloggers and finish that book I've wanted to write since I was somewhere between 20 and 42.  Maybe.

I'm going to regain my identity and get back to my blogging roots.  I'm also going to try to clean out my closet and donate all of my unworn clothes to Goodwill.  We shall see which task I'm more successful with when all is said and done.  I'm betting blogging wins.