Old journal entries.
I have been tagging old journal entries, and as I look back I realize patterns in my life that I don't think I would have ever observed without keeping a journal for these past seven years.
For example, right about the same time every winter - I get a sinus infection. Within a one week period or so of when I got it the previous year - yep, there it is. Like clockwork.
I also can trace things like my PTSD - which has, predictably, grown worse over the years through similar traumas. That also seems to ebb and flow at certain times of the year. One of the peak times seems to be around the holidays - there's a lot of extra stress around this time of year, and I react very poorly to situations that are loud/noisy/overstimulating.
I also discovered something that I'd forgotten entirely - though my father died in March 2002, he was dying during the holiday season of 2001. When I look back in my journal, I read about what was possibly the last holiday I really enjoyed - Halloween 2001. We took the kids around and dressed in costumes ourselves - myself, Aus, my niece Jolene and her boyfriend at the time. The kids were still young, and enthralled with the holiday and we all had a wonderful time. My father is in Florida, having taken a sudden unplanned trip to see his sister. We are all glad he is gone - because he's been extra grumpy and yelling at everyone lately. Thanksgiving of that year sees us eating dinner out on a holiday for the first time - at a restaurant close to the hospital where my father is lying and suffering of pneumonia. In a few days, we will also learn that he has cancer. We stop to shop for presents after his biopsy a few weeks later. He buys things for the household- a stove, a new kitchen table. No one tells him he is dying, but these are signs that he knows. He doesn't tell us he knows, either. No one speaks of it. We wrap presents, I take him to doctors to have the fluid drained from his belly that swells like he is pregnant. At Christmas dinner, he screams when the turkey isn't done when he's ready to eat and calls myself and my mother bitches. My brother Joe leaves. My brother Ron and I sit outside, and wonder if this is the last Christmas we will have with him, and if this is the memory we will have. The New Year and hospice comes, bringing with them a hospital bed. My father takes up residence in the living room, in the space recently vacated by the Christmas tree. On St. Patrick's day, my niece comes over to make him his favorite ham and cabbage meal. He is too sick to eat it. He is dead less than a week later. Easter is early that year, the baskets are by his funeral collage.
I can trace a lot of my current lack of enthusiasm for holidays to that cycle of events. Things were somewhat better this year - the family came to the house instead of going out as they have every year since my father's death. I didn't go with them ever, preferring instead to just stay at home with Aus. But this year, they pretty much thrust their company upon me - and drug me out into the living room to play Wii with them and so on. And it wasn't entirely unpleasant. In fact, it was quite nice. I got this little stomach flu thing after Christmas - but even that wasn't bad. Instead of going out for our anniversary/New Years, Aus and I stayed home and played games and watched the mummer's day parade. It also helped that I pushed myself to do a holiday special for Soundtracking. With having to write cheerful columns on the history of Christmas carols, Christmas movies, and so forth - I couldn't avoid all the trappings of the season. I listened to carols. I watched movies - and remembered how much I really love some of those (Christmas Carol in its many forms!) I can't say I entirely enjoyed the season as much as I did as a child, but I certainly didn't dislike it as much as I did other years.
I also noticed that I've done a lot of growing as a person in the past seven years. The things I think and write about aren't as entirely self-centered. I read better books. I watch less prime time tv and more documentaries. I am a kinder and less angry at the world.
I wonder if I will still have this journal seven years from now, and how I will look back on this entry?
For example, right about the same time every winter - I get a sinus infection. Within a one week period or so of when I got it the previous year - yep, there it is. Like clockwork.
I also can trace things like my PTSD - which has, predictably, grown worse over the years through similar traumas. That also seems to ebb and flow at certain times of the year. One of the peak times seems to be around the holidays - there's a lot of extra stress around this time of year, and I react very poorly to situations that are loud/noisy/overstimulating.
I also discovered something that I'd forgotten entirely - though my father died in March 2002, he was dying during the holiday season of 2001. When I look back in my journal, I read about what was possibly the last holiday I really enjoyed - Halloween 2001. We took the kids around and dressed in costumes ourselves - myself, Aus, my niece Jolene and her boyfriend at the time. The kids were still young, and enthralled with the holiday and we all had a wonderful time. My father is in Florida, having taken a sudden unplanned trip to see his sister. We are all glad he is gone - because he's been extra grumpy and yelling at everyone lately. Thanksgiving of that year sees us eating dinner out on a holiday for the first time - at a restaurant close to the hospital where my father is lying and suffering of pneumonia. In a few days, we will also learn that he has cancer. We stop to shop for presents after his biopsy a few weeks later. He buys things for the household- a stove, a new kitchen table. No one tells him he is dying, but these are signs that he knows. He doesn't tell us he knows, either. No one speaks of it. We wrap presents, I take him to doctors to have the fluid drained from his belly that swells like he is pregnant. At Christmas dinner, he screams when the turkey isn't done when he's ready to eat and calls myself and my mother bitches. My brother Joe leaves. My brother Ron and I sit outside, and wonder if this is the last Christmas we will have with him, and if this is the memory we will have. The New Year and hospice comes, bringing with them a hospital bed. My father takes up residence in the living room, in the space recently vacated by the Christmas tree. On St. Patrick's day, my niece comes over to make him his favorite ham and cabbage meal. He is too sick to eat it. He is dead less than a week later. Easter is early that year, the baskets are by his funeral collage.
I can trace a lot of my current lack of enthusiasm for holidays to that cycle of events. Things were somewhat better this year - the family came to the house instead of going out as they have every year since my father's death. I didn't go with them ever, preferring instead to just stay at home with Aus. But this year, they pretty much thrust their company upon me - and drug me out into the living room to play Wii with them and so on. And it wasn't entirely unpleasant. In fact, it was quite nice. I got this little stomach flu thing after Christmas - but even that wasn't bad. Instead of going out for our anniversary/New Years, Aus and I stayed home and played games and watched the mummer's day parade. It also helped that I pushed myself to do a holiday special for Soundtracking. With having to write cheerful columns on the history of Christmas carols, Christmas movies, and so forth - I couldn't avoid all the trappings of the season. I listened to carols. I watched movies - and remembered how much I really love some of those (Christmas Carol in its many forms!) I can't say I entirely enjoyed the season as much as I did as a child, but I certainly didn't dislike it as much as I did other years.
I also noticed that I've done a lot of growing as a person in the past seven years. The things I think and write about aren't as entirely self-centered. I read better books. I watch less prime time tv and more documentaries. I am a kinder and less angry at the world.
I wonder if I will still have this journal seven years from now, and how I will look back on this entry?