February 2014 – Antisocial Darwinism

And I… am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all…
And I… will stumble and fall
I’m still learning to love
Just starting to crawl…

(Say something, I’m giving up on You…)

*Takes a deep breath… and just sighs*

It’s interesting to finally have things getting back to normal… ish. For those that didn’t know, my RL has kinda been a whirlwind since November when in less than a week I had packed everything I owned that could fit in a 12 foot Uhaul trailer, pitched the rest, and moved from Central Indiana to Southern Alabama to help my mother care for my dying grandfather. He held on for quite a long time… He had always been stubborn, though. On February 2nd, 2014, He finally let Himself rest and quit suffering. And so I spent a week, ass-deep in snow, helping my mother and grandmother deal with the arrangements and going through the viewing and the funeral. I came back home to Alabama only to end up sick… and now voila… here I am. The last 3 months of my life in a nutshell.

I’m pretty impressed the above paragraph is that short. But yes, that’s where I’ve been lately.

Not long ago… well, I say that, but it’s actually been like 2 months… even if there aren’t very many posts between then and now… but not long ago, I wrote a rather angry blog post that told a certain someone that I was sick of sacrificing myself and my own ability to be happy, just to make sure that they remain happy. I mean… they are the one who left me… they are the one that thought they couldn’t be what I needed and walked away… why should I be beating myself up about it and walking on eggshells in order to make sure that they remain happy, right?

I dunno. The logic… it just isn’t there, when it comes to this Man. I don’t think I’ve ever once been logical, when it came to Him. I mean… I left an abusive situation and immediately allowed Him to sorta… sweep me off my feet, into His arms, tell me I was safe… and from there our relationship began to grow. Logic would’ve told me to wait… become stable on my own… before turning to Him. But again, logic… just isn’t there. It never has been, with Him. And so I allowed myself to fall… I allowed Him to catch me… and almost a year afterwards, He walked away.

And I’ve pretty much been duct taping pieces back together ever since.

And ya know… silly me… I actually held on to hope. I really did. As pathetic as that makes me feel to admit, I really did continue to hold on to this small hope that maybe… some day… we would both grow… and we might grow… I dunno how to say it. Grow into each other? You know how when you were a kid and your parents would get you a sweater, or a pair of pants, or a pair of shoes… and it was just a little too big… and instead of returning it for a different size, they’d just laugh at the sleeves that were too long, or how much the shoes resembled clown shoes, and tell you, “You’ll grow into it.” I guess that’s how I felt when He left. Maybe one day we’ll just grow into it. Maybe it will still be ok.

Because the truth is, that Man taught me a lot about myself… and a lot of the growth that I made during the time that I was with Him, and in the time since being without Him… has been His ‘fault’, so to say. It’s been His prompting. Even steps that I’m taking now, to this day, even recently… they’ve been steps taken from seed He’d sewn so long ago.

And it wasn’t until the other night… I was reading a book… (yes, I was reading!) I came across a line…

“Except that there’s no happiness for me without my place at [His side]. And I will fight as hard as anyone to get back there and make [Him] proud of me. Because I love [Him], more than life itself. So I’m here to learn how to get back home.”

I changed the gender to be appropriate… but it’s like… it smacked me in the face. That’s what it feels like I’ve been doing all this time, subconsciously. I never did it intentionally, as I have had relationships since Him, including my current one… but it’s like everything from then until now has been my subconscious working to try and make HIM proud of me… when it seems, for lack of being able to speak to Him and know if it’s true or not, it seems that He doesn’t really care one way or the other anymore. He has what He wants. What is seems He always wanted. I felt like a placeholder then… and I still feel now like the time that I spent with Him then, I spent as a placeholder. I guess that’s why I get so mad when I see Him with her. There I was working hard at the one place I found happiness… and I was just simply holding a place, until the time was right for Him and her.

Again, without being able to speak with Him to know whether or not it’s true, there’s nothing to chance my mind. And it hurt. It still does.

But at the same time… I guess I can’t spend the rest of my life trying to make someone proud of me who doesn’t look at me anymore. I can’t spend the rest of my days trying to make Him proud of me, when I am not His to be proud of. I can’t keep flailing around in the darkness hoping He might shed some kind of light, when the lightbulb burned out a long time ago, and He’s off elsewhere, doing other things.

Hence the styling tonight. I guess I just feel like the butt of one big joke. Not His fault. Not anyone’s fault. None except my own.

I hope someone out there somewhere is laughing. Because I’m not.

*~* Anywhere, I Would’ve Followed You *~*

Shape: Mine
Skin: Kaelyn 09 (India) – Glam Affair
Eyes: Spectral Eyes (Field) – IKON (past FaMESHed release; now available in store)
Hair: KBO906 (Red) – Boon
Eyeshadow (Lower Layer): Insanity Plea (Green) – Madrid Solo
Eyeshadow (Design): Wild Abandon – Madrid Solo
Lipstick: Insanity Plea (Green) – Madrid Solo
Top: Hedwig (Lime) – Zibska *~*rigged mesh*~*
Hat: Hedwig (Lime) – Zibska *~*non-rigged mesh*~*
Necklace & Earrings: Zeta Deux Jewelry Set – Zibska (part of 50L closing sale!)

Blogging Tune: “Say Something” – Pentatonix (Cover)

[BLOGGING TUNE… cause WordPress wants to be ghey with videos…]

I guess it’s been a while since I’ve seen the sunshine
Since I have smiled
And me, who’s so well-versed
Is feeling so damned empty
Is at a loss for words

I’m so… angry.

And I’m not even angry at him for dying. Or anything related to him. I’m angry at my father, of all people… for dying first. I guess I just feel like… when your grandfather dies, you should be able to turn to your parents. And since grandpa is mom’s dad, I don’t want to lean to hard on her… but dad isn’t here.

I was sick earlier today… I was trying to get ready to go see mom and step-dad and grandma and grandpa… but every time I tried to stand upright long enough to get in the shower, I threw up. I had a migraine. The stress getting to me plus just the whole general ‘being sick’ thing… I texted my mother, because I didn’t know what else to do. For an hour, I’d been trying to get there, and I couldn’t settle my stomach. Grandma also doesn’t like sick people around grandpa. When mom texted back, she said something very simple:

“Grandpa probably will not make it thru the night.”

So I jumped in the shower, regardless, got sick a few more times, got out, put clothes on while I was still wet, brushed my hair back while it was still soaked, got in my car, and drove. I got there and mom pulled me aside saying again that she didn’t expect him to make it through the evening, let alone the night.

Then the waiting started.

Mom seemed to be getting sick so a couple hours after I got there, she took a hot shower and went to lay down. Step-dad finally went home to lay down. Grandma dozed off and on in her recliner. I sat in grandpa’s recliner behind the hospital bed that he was laying in and just… watched. It was all I could do. I paid half attention to what was on tv at the time and just… watched… and waited. Grandma woke up once or twice and tried to get me to go home and sleep. Right. Like that was going to happen. Scared me to death every time he would take a deep breath… and then stop for a moment… and then start again. I kept wondering which one was the last one.

Around 11pm my time, grandma woke up and we watched a bit. I’d told her that his gasping had slowed down… like… there was longer between breaths. When I’d first gotten there, he was asleep and huffing like he’d run a marathon… even with his oxygen on. But now it was gasping… and then a few seconds… and then gasping again. And the gasping was more shallow. We watched for another half hour-40 minutes and then grandma woke mom up. At 11:45 she called my step-dad saying that he’d probably better get dressed and come over.

Around this time, I’m actually chuckling, because I’m thinking the stubborn old man is actually going to prove us all wrong and make it past midnight. It would be just like him too. “Lose faith in me, will ya… I’ll show you.” But at 11:57pm, grandma was adjusting the blankets and feeling if he was clammy or not, and I saw him stop breathing. He didn’t make a noise, he didn’t struggle to start again. He just… stopped breathing. I didn’t say anything, cause I wanted grandma to be able to be in denial for a moment if she wanted to be. But after a minute she looked back at mom and said, “I think he’s gone.”

I think the most heartbreaking moment in my entire life happened next.

My mother has always said to me, “The Bible apparently says that God will never give you more than you can handle. I’m convinced that he has me confused with someone else.” She’s lost so many in the last 10 years or so, it’s just been ridiculous. All far too soon. I mean, grandpa was 79… but he was still only 79. But mom, who has lost so much already, just lost her father.

As the nurse in the family (grandma and I were only nurse’s aides), mom goes to grab the stethoscope and listens to his chest, like she normally did before he would take his inhaler. She felt around a few different places… and then her face just distorted, she broke down in tears, and half-collapsed over him, crying into his shoulder. It was… devastating to watch… and I couldn’t do so without crying myself… and I don’t cry quietly, so it just made mom cry harder.

At this point, my step-dad still hadn’t come in yet… and he didn’t until mom was already sitting back on the couch, still in tears. He walks in and because I’m the first face he can see, I can’t even tell him… I looked at him and just cried. The look of concern on his face, which I’d NEVER known him to really show… like… ever… was actually comforting… that he cared not only that mom was upset, but that I was too. He asks me, “Is he gone?” and grandma and I both can’t talk… we just nodded.

Then the moment was gone and he was on the couch comforting my mother.

We waited about an hour for hospice to get there… and of COURSE things were going to have to be complicated because we all live in Alabama, but his burial plot is in Indiana. So they have to call the coroner to take him to a local funeral home to do what they need to do in order to fly him to the funeral home in Indiana. Coroner takes about an hour and a half to show up, a half hour to transport him out, and we all finally left grandma’s house at, like, 3:30am.

It’s weird to call it just grandma’s house. But I guess now it is.

On Tuesday, we’re leaving to go back to Indiana. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, cause we have to plan services and stuff once we get there. And I know mom wants to have an extra day or two after we’re done to visit with her friends that we’ve not seen since we all moved.

I’m just… lost right now. And angry. So angry.

I guess anger has become my preferred coping mechanism. I’m sure that’s not healthy.

So yeah… this is why I’ve not been active in the last few months. Having a grandfather with Leukemia and a step-father with Prostate cancer while you’re fighting your own illnesses just doesn’t leave a lot of time to blog. Thank you for those that are hanging in with me during this difficult time. I really appreciate all the love and support I’ve received from friends in SL. It means so much more than I can ever say.

I hardly feel alive
I’m going through the motions
But I don’t feel like trying
The hole in my heart is growing bigger by the day
I wish that I could crawl inside
Hide away…

*~*I Don’t Wanna Do Anything But Cry… *~*

Shape: MINE!
Skin: Evon (Dark Tan) – Lara Hurley
Eyes: Spectral Eyes (Azure) – IKON
Hair: Genesis – Truth Hair
Eyeliner: Liner Pack I (3; Bold) – DAMNED Bodyshop
Lipgloss: Dailyn Lipgloss (Dark red) – Izzie’s
Tears & Redness: I’m Not Feeling Well – Izzie’s
Knee/Leg Bruises: Bruised Face & Body – Soedara (only lower layer worn)
Tunic/Camisk: Amara al Romana (Blue) – Soedara (includes anklets & Hairpiece)
Hands: Avatar Enhancement Hands (Flat) – Slink
Feet: Women’s Natural Barefeet – Slink
Fingernail/Toenail Polish: Dark Set – Nailed It (Slink Applier HUD & mesh nail capability!)
Circlet: Managarm Circlet (Gold) – Soedara
Collar: My Heart Is Caged Collar (Etched Fire) – Tethered BDSM
Pose (1st Picture): EverGlow
Pose (2nd Picture): Diesel Works