Back in the Saddle

It's been a long time since I sat down and wrote a blog.  The last entry I wrote was the night that my dad died.  It's now been almost two years since his passing and I guess I'm finally ready to start opening up about the last few years.  There has been so much that has happened, that I have learned and grown and done.  There is absolutely no way that I'll be able to capture the last few years in a single entry, but the goal today is to let the words go.   

Sometimes the words get stuck inside, desperate to be let out but because the feelings are so close to the surface, I literally can't let them go because it would mean that I have to feel them.  I would have to address them and that is just too painful.  No one wants to rip off the bandage that they are using to keep the wounds from bleeding everywhere and just creating a gigantic mess for everyone.  Then, you get you used to bandage being there and it doesn’t matter how completely smelly and disgusting it is, you’d rather keep it on because you’ve gotten used to it.  You don’t want to see the scar underneath, because you’re afraid of what will be waiting for you. 

That’s how I’ve been for a long time.  Keeping the bandage of loneliness on, afraid to see just how raw the scars underneath are.  I’ve used a variety of excuses from being in school, to needing to be home for my kids.  I’ve even used the excuse that I was in love with someone, even though that person had absolutely no idea.  It was easier to have an unrequited love and it was easier than opening myself up to the potential that my heart could be ripped to shreds and there would be nothing left of me.

I think a lot of my hesitation was the fact that there were a lot of things that I was still dealing with when it came to the end of my marriage.  Even though I was the one that finally called it quits, there was a lot of psychological damage that was done that took a long time for me to come to grips.  That’s why I moved to Florida.  I needed a fresh start.  There were a multitude of ups and downs, but the distance helped me.  I just was never felt confident in anything about myself for me to really put myself out there.

I got back to Utah and the roller coaster ride continued.  Between job struggles and some pretty severe depression, I was in no place to even think about tackling a relationship.  It was all I could do to barely take care of myself and my two munchkins. 

It’s not been till the last couple of years, really after my dad’s death, that I decided that I was able to maybe even think about putting myself out into the dating world. 

Nothing like losing someone close to you to make you readjust your priorities.  I’ve always had this philosophy of living my life to the fullest and having no regrets.  For the most part, I was pretty good at this.  I’d do all kinds of stuff with my kids and kept myself busy, but there was also part of me that had become numb.  I’d joke that I was happily divorced and couldn’t fathom the idea of dating anyone.  Just more excuses. 

The kids would spend their weekends at their dad’s house and I would have weekends to myself.  I’d stay home and clean my house.  After a while that got really old and occasionally I’d go out with friends.  It took time, but things were finally happening and I was finally feeling in control of my life.  It’s amazing how having a steady job and income that will allow you pay your bills will help one’s outlook on life. 

I started getting back to the happy version of my life.

I shot my web series and while I’m still trying to get that finished up, I kept plugging away.

I wrote another script.

I planned my first vacation in years that was a year in the making and just got back from a freaking awesome trip to the Pacific Northwest with my kids and best friend.

I got a promotion and a raise.

I applied to and got into grad school for film. 

I also dealt with what would have been my 20^th wedding anniversary and 10^th anniversary of my divorce becoming final.

I think that was what finally clicked in my brain.  I’d been alone for TEN years.  Well not alone, alone.  I have my kids, other family and friends. Unfortunately, when you’re laying alone in bed, fighting back tears, it’s really hard to fight the all-consuming loneliness that can completely overtake you.  It’s hard to tell your friends and impossible to tell you kids.

Finally, it was time to take off the bandage and believe me, it needed it.  It was soooo gross, but I was shocked to find out that the scar wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it had been. Sure, it was still pink and sensitive to the touch, but it wasn’t the gaping wound that I’d thought it would be.

I decided to jump back in with the sharks.  Needless to say, the first experience was a bit challenging.  I started talking to someone and was flattered by the attention, but there were red flags going off in the background.  

It took me about a week and then I learned that I could reverse image search and discovered that I was talking to a scammer and they’d stolen someone’s identity. Because I am who I am, I went looking and found the real guy who’s life was stolen and solidified a new screenplay idea that had been floating around in my brain for years.  I wrote 15 pages in 3 days.  I hit a minor road block with the story, but I really want to work on that script when I start grad school. 

Okay, so one down.  Time for the next at bat.  

It was at this time, I got into the 2^nd of 3 car accidents in about 4 months.  I got backed into while picking up my munchkin and it required they replace my rear passenger door.  Super annoying, but it came with the side effect of me texting the guy that hit me.  We seemed to hit it off and I thought things were getting interesting, but he was off on a three week National Guard drill.  Just a couple of days before he got back, he suddenly stopped texting me. 

Crap.  Oh well, next!

I thought my luck was changing when I met up with someone for coffee.  We hit it off and I had a great make out session.  It was so nice to feel wanted for a change.

Suddenly there were three all at once.   For a few weeks, I went out several different times, with several different guys but ultimately, all of those fizzled out. 

Next! Became my mantra, but there was no time to dwell on the negatives.  It was vacation time!

I got to hang out with my kids and do some awesome stuff and even had one phone call with someone who sounded interesting.

He was.  We met a few days after I got back from vacation, the day after the 3^rd car accident that I’d had.  This accident, while it did less damage to my car, was significantly more damaging to me.  I was feeling completely depressed and remarkably grumpy when he brightened my day.

We met up and hit it off.  There was even a great make out session involved.  And then we went out a several more times.  I found myself starting to fall for him, but in the back of my mind, I knew that things probably weren’t going to work out and just a few days before my birthday, I found myself getting the whole, “let’s just be friends”. 

To say I wasn’t a bit crushed would be an understatement, but I was classy and cool. 

I’d known that there were going to be some challenges, not the least of which was our age difference and the fact that I knew that he was going to want kids.  I don’t.  I only have a few short years left and then my relationship with my kids will change. 

It took a few days and listening to lots of relationship videos – from trying to get him back to letting him go to how to be a better date.  My YouTube history is quite the graveyard of videos that I’ve watched over the last few weeks.

I finally came to the conclusion that it was okay and that if we could still be friends, I’d like that.  There were just too many other things that we had in common (having more filmmaking friends is always a good thing).  We’ll just have to see with that one, things are still a little too close to the surface emotionally, because rejection sucks.  I do have to hand it to him though, he didn’t drag it out and I really appreciate that.

I also decided to brush myself off and work on getting back out into the dating field, which leads me to tonight.

I had a date scheduled, but he got off work late and we needed to reschedule.  Again, super sucky, but life happens.  That’s when I listened to a video that just was able to put everything into perspective for me.

Yes, rejection sucks and it hurts and makes you feel about 2 inches tall.  Acknowledge the rejection and realize that it’s okay to feel that pain.  It means that I’m being brave and putting myself out there and allowing myself to love again.  Not a bad thing.

So… here I am.  Looking back at my life the last few years.  Really, truly, my life has lots of amazing things happening in it.  Certainly, more wear and tear on the joints.  Seriously, my knees suck, but I’m still alive in spite of everything. 

I’m still capable of love and while it would be nice if I was numb again, I don’t want to go back there.  Numb is bad.  Numb means that I’m going to miss the warning signs of something being wrong but it also means that I’m going to miss it if someone is going really well.

Time really does heal all wounds, just some take longer than others.  So here’s to a few more bruises and scrapes.  It just comes with the territory.  This time, no more leaving a super gross bandage on something that no longer needs it. 

I’m facing my life…  All of my life.

Life happens...

The title of this blog can't nearly contain all of the craziness and insanity, but at the same time, it sums it up perfectly.

The crazy thing about life is that you can go from extremes in just a few minutes.  For example, hot to cold or dry to wet, blissfully happy to completely devastated.

That's where I am, completely devastated, but just a few hours ago, I was happy and life was great.  My sister and brother-in-law adopted 3 little boys and it was official on Thursday.  On Friday was the party, and it was a blast.  Saturday morning, they went through the temple and were sealed together as a forever family.

Now as I write this, I'm just coming home from the hospital where I just watched my dad die.

Words cannot explain the complete and total shock that I'm feeling right now.

Last night, I got to hang out with my dad and step mom at the party, today we had lunch together and then he came over to check out my apartment and chat, then he went over to my sister's house for a few hours.

Suddenly I'm getting a call that he passed out and is on his way to the hospital.  While I waited to hear which hospital, I really wasn't thinking this could happen.  A few minutes later, I got the call and headed over.  I just figured that he'd had a complication with his oxygen tank.  While I was sitting in the waiting room with my stepmom, sister and brother-in-law, we talked about what to do next, but we could only wait till we had news.

The first time the doctor came out he told us that there had been a heart attack and he'd gone into cardiac arrest but that they had been able to get his heart going again.  Fifteen minutes later they came back and said they it had stopped again and things weren't looking good so they brought us back.

I will never forget watching the extremely dedicated nurses and doctors do everything they could to save him.  There were several nurses and techs rotating doing chest compressions, trying to get his heart started. As I watched them and looked at my dad, everything was so surreal.  On TV shows they always show the hospital staff as frantic and I don't know how they were acting then, but by the time I saw them, they were calm and collected and very professional.

With my dad intubated and hooked up to all kinds of machines, he looked so small.  Part of me kept thinking, "he's only sleeping, he'll wake up any moment and we can go home, everything will be okay" while the other part of me was watching the staff and knowing that they knew he wasn't going to make it.

Surreal is the only way I can explain the feeling.

The doctor called his death at 12:01 this morning.

I'm not ready to be without my dad.

After he passed, they took us to another room for a few minutes and they cleaned him up and put him in another room so we could spend some time with him.  It was hard seeing him like that.  They hadn't been able to take the intubation out, so it was in him when we got into the room.

I touched his hand and arm and realized how smooth they felt, he did have really good skin.

It reminded me of when my brother passed away.  I never saw him until the funeral, after he had already been embalmed.  His skin was really hard, but there were two spots, one on his arm and one on his face where the skin was still soft.

I made one of the worst calls of my life, I had to tell my aunt that my dad, her brother was dead.  I've had a few of those calls, the ones that come in the middle of the night, waking you up from a perfectly good dream. I hadn't ever planned on me behing the one to make that call.  She was in shock and couldn't even understand what I was saying.  I know exactly how she felt.

21 years ago, when my brother died, I received that same call.

The call that you're life will never be the same.

How do you go on when all you feel is such complete sorry?  How do you get up each day and move forward?

Right now, I'm about out of tears for the moment, but I know there will be a lot of tears over the next little while.

I know that he wasn't a perfect dad, but since I don't know of any, he was in pretty good company.  I know that he loved me and I know that his last day was good.  He spent it with his family and got to hang out with all of his grandkids.

I don't know how I'm going to tell them that he's dead.

Life goes on and I know that I will be okay as I come out on the other side of this, but for right now I'm numb and in shock.

I was able to spend a few minutes in the room alone with him after everyone left and I got to say goodbye.  Leaving him alone in the room was the one of the hardest things I've ever done.  I'm just glad that I was there and able to say goodbye.  I know that he's having a great reunion on the other side right now and that someday, I'll see all of my family that waiting for me too.

Already October???

I seriously can't believe that it is already October,  not sure when that happened.  While I wasn't as productive as I wanted when it came to my writing, I did reread a lot of my writing, in particular the script I wrote for school, and I realized that I can cut it up and I'll be putting the scenes into the cards for my story outline that I'm working on. There was a lot of good stuff, it just needs to be a novel/ tv series, not movie, it's just too dense storywise. The other nice thing is that in a novel, I can add all kinds of detail to it and really fill out the scenes and motivations. I'm getting psyched up to write. I'm trying to come up with some good ideas for the gladiator games. As I've been researching, I think a combination of modern and primitive weapons will be a good. Oh I how wish I could just download my brain straight to a hard drive. I think my story has a lot of potential,  I just need to not be scared and just push through all of the anxiety and get over myself. There is no reason my story can't become a best seller and I think it's okay that I want to be the female George RR Martin.  :) time to head to my cardiovascular class. I just need to zone and focus on my story, do some daydreaming and figure out my love story 'cause I'm feeling particularly romantic today.

Letting go of perfection

In yoga today I was feeling discouraged because there were poses that I used to be able to do but currently can't and beating myself up about it, but then I was reminded that I'm healing both my body and soul and my journey is far from over.  Everyday I'm getting stronger and I can see how far I've come since the beginning of the semester.  I'm going in the right direction and even if I'm slow, I'll still get there. 

I've never really considered myself a perfectionist, though I do have my moments, but in yoga that's what we were talking about today, and I was totally guilty of it when it comes to exercising and eating healthy. If I messed up, I would beat myself up and completely fall apart.  Take for example this morning. It wasn't even that I was hungry, but while I was getting gas, I had the kids buy donuts, and when I ate it, it didn't even taste all that great. It was just habit, and my habits are slowly changing. I think because I've been trying to make better choices my body is noticing. So, I'm going to pick myself up off the floor and not wallow in self pity and make better choices today and keep going.

So it's been a while...

Things got crazy busy for a while but nothing really exciting was happening.  Certainly nothing I really wanted to write about.  This weekend however was awesome and I wasn't a hermit.  Friday I went over to a good friend's house and hang out for a game night.  I didn't get home till after 2am, which was great.  It was just very chill and I got to be myself.  I love hanging out with gay guys, they are just awesome and make me feel good about myself.  Saturday, I did all kinds of errands and then had a friend come over and we played catch up till 1am. Girl time was very much needed.  This weekend reminded me that I'm a social butterfly and I need to get out more. Sometimes I get too much in my head.

This semester I'm taking some free classes at SLCC, which is one of the benefits of working for a college. Because of by unique schedule right now, and my sincerest desire to lose weight, I chose to take 4 gym classes instead of the photography class that I really wanted to take.  It is for my mental and physical well being that I am taking yoga and cardio M/W and Tai Chi and strength training T/H. It's a good mix of core and full body workouts that will also help me with my flexibility.  After just one week I've already started to see some improvement in my flexibility which is good because with my knee as messed up as it is, I walk with a limp and my body is all kinds of out of whack.  But what really nice is that at lunch today, I went for a walk at work and did 2 small laps.  That is a HUGE improvement over what I've been able to do lately. Rehabilitation is hard work.

Usually when I start a healthy living routine, I feel like part of it is always missing.  I can either get the fitness part or the nutrition part, not together.  But I decided to change that, and I just bought a nice big freezer that I plan to fill with healthy and cheap meals that I prepare a head of time. I'm really just trying to change my life overall and each of these steps is moving me in the right direction.

On the flip side, when it comes to my writing endeavors, those have ground to a halt and I'm really struggling.  I'm sure it's because I can feel a depressive episode coming.  I'm trying to ward it off, but that's easier said than done.  If I can't get it under control, I'll go back on my meds.  In the meantime, I'm wasting a ridiculous amount of time. It's bad that I can get away with being able to have Netflix on at work.  I just need to make a concerted effort to stop this cycle of procrastination and take some time everyday, even if it's 15 minutes, because those baby steps will get me closer than I am right now.  Hopefully, being able to go to comic con this weekend will fill me up creatively.  Both the kids bought their own 3 day tickets. I didn't think I was going to be able to go, but I managed to score a free ticket for Friday.  Very exciting stuff for sure.

I'm trying to figure out how to keep all aspects of my life moving forward.  It's like if I've got one going in a good direction, everything else falls apart.  At least I'm now recognizing this and can do something about it.  I'm just going to keep moving forward one step at a time.