When god gives you lemons you FIND A NEW GOD.
^ That's my new motto for life, yo.
I wrote this (obviously) the week after but instead of posting it I just kept adding and adding and adding to it and I know I'd keep on adding and adding and adding to it unless I actually posted it, soooooo I'm finally throwing this up here to...get rid of it, basically XD I'm back online, but not back just yet :) My older brother was named executor of the will, which means - as always happens whenever he is given any sort of responsibility - I'm doing all of the grunt work D: So, um. Busy busy busy, especially since I know next to nothing about law, and finances, and...well, any of it, lol. I tried skimming through the f-list this morning and...had no idea what you guys were talking about XDD My last hit of fandom was You Can See (which: asldgasodgulsjadg♥♥♥) nearly a month ago, wow. Well I might be around, but I'll be an even worse commenter than usual, and I'm not even going to attempt to catch up on all of the Koi no ABO promotion and all the other shit I missed until June or so, when things have hopefully calmed down some.
Buttttttttt basically I'm alive and well and given the horrible circumstances that got me here this might be a really, really strange thing to say right now, but I feel very lucky at the moment and genuinely love my life :)
'Thank you' still feels terribly inadequate, so! I'm just going to say it a bunch of times to see if that helps XD
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you--
(Ahh, it doesn't~)
But thank you, thank you, thank you anyway, f-list ♥ For commenting (even if you didn't know what to say - no worries, I totally get that). For the advice, for the follow-up messages, for the emails, for the kickass Arashi cards. It meant a lot and really, really helped, seriously. I love you all ♥
The shittiest week of my life in point form (it's scary how efficient the whole death process is these days):
My dad died Thursday (April 16th).
Drivers had been dispatched by Friday morning so I was home by 4 AM Saturday.
Grandparents, aunts and uncles and older brother arrived that afternoon. My eldest uncle was in from Calgary by suppertime.
We found the will that night. I really wish I hadn't read it.
Saw the body Sunday.
Cremated Monday.
Had the funeral service shindig (?) Tuesday.
Sprinkling of the ashes...at some vague point in the future.
My mom kept pushing for us to go out and spread the ashes on Wednesday, too, while everyone was still here, but I kept fighting back with really stupid reasons as to why we shouldn't do it now. Like how it was too cold and slushy outside and it'd just be depressing.
I want to hurry up and get it over with too, but...not yet. It's just too fucking fast, I'm sorry. I don't know why I couldn't just say that straight out, though :\
Ultimately - though they really shouldn't have listened to me because I was being such an insufferable twat about it - I got my way and we didn't.
I really hate that you can be alive and living one second and just...non-existent within a week.
Anyway, I'm...fine, I guess. I don't really have much experience with grief. The only other close death I've had is my grandpa...and I was 9, so I didn't really get it anyway. So my dad was a big one. A really big one.
So I always thought I'd be one of those shut down and shut the world out types. But I'm surprisingly all right after a week. After bawling my eyes out all night after getting the news I've been pretty stable all over the place since. I panicked panicked panicked all night until Nat and Marianne arrived to pick me up, figuring I'd break down for real once I'd seen faces from home...but nope, they acted pretty normally, so I just followed suit. I conquered getting horribly offended at any and all mentions of death/dying/father figures in 5 seconds, got all the immature 'how DARE the rest of the world be happy when I'm in so much pain!' shenanigans out of the way in about 3 minutes, raged for half a day, drowned in guilt for another, did the snippety bitch thing the day of the service, and since then it's like my brain's been on autopilot. My grieving process is surprisingly efficient! There are a ton of things I hate about this situation, and my list of regrets is still a mile long, but...there's nothing I can do to change it now.
At his funeral this woman came up and pulled me aside saying she wanted to talk to me specifically. She said she worked at the bank and my dad had been there a few days before, and he had talked about how proud he was of me, because after graduation I stayed where I was and seemed to be happy trying to figure my life out.
Up to that point I was doing okay; I'd managed to get through all the eulogies and stuff without breaking down completely, but that just...fucking broke me, I guess. I immediately burst into tears, and I hate hate HATE crying in front of people (even family and friends). And there I am sobbing in the arms of some total stranger...
All my dad wanted for me was to grow a backbone, to be assertive and confident and comfortable in my own skin, because he was a painfully shy kid, too. And all I ever wanted was for my dad to be proud of me, for him to know that all his hard work and sacrifice had amounted to something, that I'd come out the other side at least a half-decent human being. I think what hurt the most in the immediate aftermath was thinking that we weren't there yet, and now we'd never get to be.
And then some complete stranger comes up and tells me everything I wanted to hear.
I think that was the turning point. Even more so than seeing his body. That was hard, but at the end of the day it didn't really change anything. I already knew he was dead, seeing him cold and still and lifeless didn't make it any better or worse. What this woman told me just...kind of destroyed everything, I guess. All the defense mechanisms I'd unconsciously put in place, all the misconceptions I had about this whole situation and my relationship with my dad. A totally objective viewpoint, you know? That's when this whole deal went from feeling terrifying and suffocating and infuriatingly out of my control, to...just...not okay, necessarily, but manageable. That's when I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I get that he's dead. I still don't understand that he's never coming back.
I still don't like not knowing where his soul or spirit has gone, and get really upset thinking that it's just floating around listlessly somewhere.
I hate that I'm still totally stuck in the 'you're my parent first and your own person second' mindset and that I'll never properly get to know my dad as an adult.
But that's when I realized that instead of counting and recounting all of the regrets I have, or stressing about all of the unknown variables left in this equation (did he even realize he was dying at the time, or did it happen way too fast? If he did, what was he thinking about? etcetcetc), that there's some things I just can't change and just can't know.
So I'm letting them go.
I don't mean suck it up and move on, or try to purge all these feelings and forget everything, or ignore it til it goes away, just...let things run their course. It'll be hard but...of course it'll be. Whenever people have asked me how I am this week I've answered with "fine" or "good" and to be honest, I haven't felt that immediate pang of guilt that means I'm lying. Because the massive suck of this week has been countered by a lot of good times as well, whether it's spending hours youtubing stupid shit with my older brother, or cruising around town with my younger brother going 60km/h in a school zone while screaming along to oldies on the radio, or Jor and I purposely sending our Miis into a spaz fit during Wii Tennis and rolling around on the floor in hysterics during the slow-mo replays, or one of my best friends who mysteriously disappeared after high school calling and after 5 years picking up right where we'd left off.
Falling asleep with the sunset shining through our living room window while the Yankees-Red Sox game blared in the background. Jean - the greatest Polish woman in existence - bringing over several kilos of her legendary perogies. The epic awkward of hugging my old high school, middle school, and elementary school teachers. Kjell and Ama coming all the way back from Sweden. Expecting a few dozen people to show up to the service then being unable to get in because hundreds of people were crammed in there; then my old Girl Guides leader grabbing my wrist and bellowing "LET THE KIDS THROUGH" and watching the masses magically part. My mom and I plowing through thank-you cards for five days straight and still only being 15% done. Having quiche and couscous and chicken wings and chocolate milk for dinner because questionable hodgepodge is always the best kind of hodgepodge. My uncle calling me the sister from hell and no one standing up to defend me XD Getting my older brother to admit that Jason Spezza really IS a douche (since he's a Sens fan, and I'm a Leafs fan, this means I win forever). The nightly frisbee parties that started with me and E having nothing better to do somehow pulling in all of the kids and half the adults in the neighbourhood. Playing with sidewalk chalk in the rain. The constant "Oh hay thar, miss biology graduate, hows about explaining that there swine flu thinger to me?" Getting sunburnt after 20 whole minutes outside (white girl is white, yo). Managing to sneak all the $20s that my grandma kept giving me back into her purse before she left. The pity honks and random rib-crushing hug attacks I get walking around town. Getting lost in Burlington, nearly steamrolling a poor little rabbit on one of the sidestreets, and trying to spell out 'Guelph' to an exasperated OnStar rep while laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Bernard ending his eulogy in Afrikaans, and after being hounded by my mom all night for a translation, finally explaining it meant "Fuck it, my friend, I'm gonna miss you something fierce."
Stupid things. Little things. I've cried a lot this week. But I've also laughed a lot harder than I have in a really long time.
I just have to remember that there will be some points, whether it's tomorrow or 30 years from now, when it won't be fine or good, and that it's perfectly okay to be angry, or sad, or feeling really fucked up over this. That I don't have to get over it and that it's kind of unrealistic to expect myself to. Not completely.
I'm not okay but I know that I will be, someday. And right now, that's enough.
Blue skies, clouds up.
Frisbee calls me, yo~
I wrote this (obviously) the week after but instead of posting it I just kept adding and adding and adding to it and I know I'd keep on adding and adding and adding to it unless I actually posted it, soooooo I'm finally throwing this up here to...get rid of it, basically XD I'm back online, but not back just yet :) My older brother was named executor of the will, which means - as always happens whenever he is given any sort of responsibility - I'm doing all of the grunt work D: So, um. Busy busy busy, especially since I know next to nothing about law, and finances, and...well, any of it, lol. I tried skimming through the f-list this morning and...had no idea what you guys were talking about XDD My last hit of fandom was You Can See (which: asldgasodgulsjadg♥♥♥) nearly a month ago, wow. Well I might be around, but I'll be an even worse commenter than usual, and I'm not even going to attempt to catch up on all of the Koi no ABO promotion and all the other shit I missed until June or so, when things have hopefully calmed down some.
Buttttttttt basically I'm alive and well and given the horrible circumstances that got me here this might be a really, really strange thing to say right now, but I feel very lucky at the moment and genuinely love my life :)
'Thank you' still feels terribly inadequate, so! I'm just going to say it a bunch of times to see if that helps XD
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you--
(Ahh, it doesn't~)
But thank you, thank you, thank you anyway, f-list ♥ For commenting (even if you didn't know what to say - no worries, I totally get that). For the advice, for the follow-up messages, for the emails, for the kickass Arashi cards. It meant a lot and really, really helped, seriously. I love you all ♥
The shittiest week of my life in point form (it's scary how efficient the whole death process is these days):
My dad died Thursday (April 16th).
Drivers had been dispatched by Friday morning so I was home by 4 AM Saturday.
Grandparents, aunts and uncles and older brother arrived that afternoon. My eldest uncle was in from Calgary by suppertime.
We found the will that night. I really wish I hadn't read it.
Saw the body Sunday.
Cremated Monday.
Had the funeral service shindig (?) Tuesday.
Sprinkling of the ashes...at some vague point in the future.
My mom kept pushing for us to go out and spread the ashes on Wednesday, too, while everyone was still here, but I kept fighting back with really stupid reasons as to why we shouldn't do it now. Like how it was too cold and slushy outside and it'd just be depressing.
I want to hurry up and get it over with too, but...not yet. It's just too fucking fast, I'm sorry. I don't know why I couldn't just say that straight out, though :\
Ultimately - though they really shouldn't have listened to me because I was being such an insufferable twat about it - I got my way and we didn't.
I really hate that you can be alive and living one second and just...non-existent within a week.
Anyway, I'm...fine, I guess. I don't really have much experience with grief. The only other close death I've had is my grandpa...and I was 9, so I didn't really get it anyway. So my dad was a big one. A really big one.
So I always thought I'd be one of those shut down and shut the world out types. But I'm surprisingly all right after a week. After bawling my eyes out all night after getting the news I've been pretty stable all over the place since. I panicked panicked panicked all night until Nat and Marianne arrived to pick me up, figuring I'd break down for real once I'd seen faces from home...but nope, they acted pretty normally, so I just followed suit. I conquered getting horribly offended at any and all mentions of death/dying/father figures in 5 seconds, got all the immature 'how DARE the rest of the world be happy when I'm in so much pain!' shenanigans out of the way in about 3 minutes, raged for half a day, drowned in guilt for another, did the snippety bitch thing the day of the service, and since then it's like my brain's been on autopilot. My grieving process is surprisingly efficient! There are a ton of things I hate about this situation, and my list of regrets is still a mile long, but...there's nothing I can do to change it now.
At his funeral this woman came up and pulled me aside saying she wanted to talk to me specifically. She said she worked at the bank and my dad had been there a few days before, and he had talked about how proud he was of me, because after graduation I stayed where I was and seemed to be happy trying to figure my life out.
Up to that point I was doing okay; I'd managed to get through all the eulogies and stuff without breaking down completely, but that just...fucking broke me, I guess. I immediately burst into tears, and I hate hate HATE crying in front of people (even family and friends). And there I am sobbing in the arms of some total stranger...
All my dad wanted for me was to grow a backbone, to be assertive and confident and comfortable in my own skin, because he was a painfully shy kid, too. And all I ever wanted was for my dad to be proud of me, for him to know that all his hard work and sacrifice had amounted to something, that I'd come out the other side at least a half-decent human being. I think what hurt the most in the immediate aftermath was thinking that we weren't there yet, and now we'd never get to be.
And then some complete stranger comes up and tells me everything I wanted to hear.
I think that was the turning point. Even more so than seeing his body. That was hard, but at the end of the day it didn't really change anything. I already knew he was dead, seeing him cold and still and lifeless didn't make it any better or worse. What this woman told me just...kind of destroyed everything, I guess. All the defense mechanisms I'd unconsciously put in place, all the misconceptions I had about this whole situation and my relationship with my dad. A totally objective viewpoint, you know? That's when this whole deal went from feeling terrifying and suffocating and infuriatingly out of my control, to...just...not okay, necessarily, but manageable. That's when I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I get that he's dead. I still don't understand that he's never coming back.
I still don't like not knowing where his soul or spirit has gone, and get really upset thinking that it's just floating around listlessly somewhere.
I hate that I'm still totally stuck in the 'you're my parent first and your own person second' mindset and that I'll never properly get to know my dad as an adult.
But that's when I realized that instead of counting and recounting all of the regrets I have, or stressing about all of the unknown variables left in this equation (did he even realize he was dying at the time, or did it happen way too fast? If he did, what was he thinking about? etcetcetc), that there's some things I just can't change and just can't know.
So I'm letting them go.
I don't mean suck it up and move on, or try to purge all these feelings and forget everything, or ignore it til it goes away, just...let things run their course. It'll be hard but...of course it'll be. Whenever people have asked me how I am this week I've answered with "fine" or "good" and to be honest, I haven't felt that immediate pang of guilt that means I'm lying. Because the massive suck of this week has been countered by a lot of good times as well, whether it's spending hours youtubing stupid shit with my older brother, or cruising around town with my younger brother going 60km/h in a school zone while screaming along to oldies on the radio, or Jor and I purposely sending our Miis into a spaz fit during Wii Tennis and rolling around on the floor in hysterics during the slow-mo replays, or one of my best friends who mysteriously disappeared after high school calling and after 5 years picking up right where we'd left off.
Falling asleep with the sunset shining through our living room window while the Yankees-Red Sox game blared in the background. Jean - the greatest Polish woman in existence - bringing over several kilos of her legendary perogies. The epic awkward of hugging my old high school, middle school, and elementary school teachers. Kjell and Ama coming all the way back from Sweden. Expecting a few dozen people to show up to the service then being unable to get in because hundreds of people were crammed in there; then my old Girl Guides leader grabbing my wrist and bellowing "LET THE KIDS THROUGH" and watching the masses magically part. My mom and I plowing through thank-you cards for five days straight and still only being 15% done. Having quiche and couscous and chicken wings and chocolate milk for dinner because questionable hodgepodge is always the best kind of hodgepodge. My uncle calling me the sister from hell and no one standing up to defend me XD Getting my older brother to admit that Jason Spezza really IS a douche (since he's a Sens fan, and I'm a Leafs fan, this means I win forever). The nightly frisbee parties that started with me and E having nothing better to do somehow pulling in all of the kids and half the adults in the neighbourhood. Playing with sidewalk chalk in the rain. The constant "Oh hay thar, miss biology graduate, hows about explaining that there swine flu thinger to me?" Getting sunburnt after 20 whole minutes outside (white girl is white, yo). Managing to sneak all the $20s that my grandma kept giving me back into her purse before she left. The pity honks and random rib-crushing hug attacks I get walking around town. Getting lost in Burlington, nearly steamrolling a poor little rabbit on one of the sidestreets, and trying to spell out 'Guelph' to an exasperated OnStar rep while laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Bernard ending his eulogy in Afrikaans, and after being hounded by my mom all night for a translation, finally explaining it meant "Fuck it, my friend, I'm gonna miss you something fierce."
Stupid things. Little things. I've cried a lot this week. But I've also laughed a lot harder than I have in a really long time.
I just have to remember that there will be some points, whether it's tomorrow or 30 years from now, when it won't be fine or good, and that it's perfectly okay to be angry, or sad, or feeling really fucked up over this. That I don't have to get over it and that it's kind of unrealistic to expect myself to. Not completely.
I'm not okay but I know that I will be, someday. And right now, that's enough.
Blue skies, clouds up.
Frisbee calls me, yo~