Somewhat belated 2013 post
I don't update and when I do it's about sad and/or bad things. Today is less sad and more reflective at the very least.
It's been 220 days since my dad killed himself. I'm doing alright but I've found that it's gotten more difficult over time. For a while, it was just like he was on a long vacation or a business trip. When I was younger he was often away because of work and I got used to not seeing him for short periods of time. As the months have added up though I really miss the man.
Tonight is the premiere of one of my favorite shows of all time, Justified, and while I can't watch it anyway because I don't have cable it made me think of him. I was going to tell him about it the next time I saw him so that maybe we could watch it together. It's got a "cool guy" protagonist in a rural southern setting, both of which were features he always liked. I think he would have really enjoyed it. We had drifted apart at the end with me focused on my ever-improving life and him being presumably mired in his own depression. Would the show have saved him somehow by miraculously bringing us together? I doubt it. But I've thought a great deal about what could have saved him. In the end I don't know and never will.
My Mom and sister are either doing extremely well or pretending that they are doing well so as to not bother me. I've not let them know about my own sadness. Overall, I think we all did the best that we could have. The biggest problem for me is that I never went to see a therapist and I really should have. I'm looking for one now but I have no idea how you're supposed to go about the process. I just need to find a healthy way to deal with the increasing stress in my life instead of the Male Parrish Way which is to pretend that there is no stress and go about business as usual. It's not a good way to live.
Work is going well in the sense that I am well-liked and respected at my job. I'm developing a reputation as someone that gets things done. I'm making contacts across the University. People know that I'm reliable. I am being given responsibilities above my pay grade and I'm being invited to important meetings. On the other hand, I haven't had a day off in over three months and I haven't found a way to completely leave work at the office when I head home for the day. The holidays were pretty brutal with me not only getting limited time off, but having to come in and work weekends and overtime as well. It should be better now that the new year is upon us but I have to do a better job of not trying to do everything and save everyone. It's exhausting and it makes me irritable and difficult to deal with and in the end the process leads me to sacrifice myself for people that I don't really care about. In doing so I can't save my best efforts for the people that need me most. I'm not really into New Years Resolutions but I would say this is the biggest thing I need to work on this coming year.
Life isn't all doom and gloom though. I have a strong and generally healthy mother and sister that I get to see somewhat regularly. I'm trying to support my mom as much as I can and I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it. We've had to make a lot of stressful financial decisions lately but overall we've done as well as two people can under the circumstances. We've already made mistakes but we're learning. We have unofficially divided up the duties once done by Dad and we're handling it well.
If I had to pick the real reason that I haven't had a completely breakdown though, it would be Katie.
Katie is the most wonderful human being in the solar system. I'm simply not as comfortable with anyone else nor can I be the silly, nonsensical nerd that I am around any other person. She deserves some kind of award for putting up with me over the past few months while she's had to deal with her own very real pressures regarding family, grad school, career, and personal issues. When I'm with her we can laugh and make Dinosaur Hands and talk about Vegeta. She is simply amazing.
This leads to the biggest positive news item of late- we are moving in together. I admit that the prospect of living with someone was scary given my own terrible experience with my ex ("she who will not be named"), but I am really excited about it now. We're moving into a great place thanks largely to Katie's insistence and we landed it thanks to our awesome teamwork. We were faced with a tricky hurdle since few apartment complexes will allow three cats (two from her and one from me), but we got through it. As my mom put it- "Katie is a really smart woman!" I filled in where I could and it was ours. We'll have to somehow prevent a massive cat war from taking place when we actually move in but I'm sure we can handle that.
I feel like the phases of my life thus far are as follows-
-birth
-early school
-middle school years/social awkwardness
-beginning of teenage years/meeting Joe
-Early College years/onset of adult maturity/beginning of relationship with The Evil One
-College/spending time with Tristan and Jabari
-grad school and living with The Evil One/The Dark Times/The Endless Despair/the final gracious end of the relationship
-post-grad school and post-Evil One rehabilitation/ the devastating knee injury
-the summer back with Joe/going out and trying to be a normal twentysomething/realizing it wasn't going to happen
-the move to Durham/the perils of Lionkingland/finally getting a full-time job again/the thrill of meeting Katie
-Dad's death/the ready-or-not-acceptance of my place in the family/ the devastating shoulder injury/the growth of my relationship with Katie
- And the next chapter appears to be living with the woman that I love.
My life isn't perfect but it's pretty damn good. I'm a lucky person and despite the difficulties of the past year I'm looking forward to 2013.
Yay, I made a post.
It's been 220 days since my dad killed himself. I'm doing alright but I've found that it's gotten more difficult over time. For a while, it was just like he was on a long vacation or a business trip. When I was younger he was often away because of work and I got used to not seeing him for short periods of time. As the months have added up though I really miss the man.
Tonight is the premiere of one of my favorite shows of all time, Justified, and while I can't watch it anyway because I don't have cable it made me think of him. I was going to tell him about it the next time I saw him so that maybe we could watch it together. It's got a "cool guy" protagonist in a rural southern setting, both of which were features he always liked. I think he would have really enjoyed it. We had drifted apart at the end with me focused on my ever-improving life and him being presumably mired in his own depression. Would the show have saved him somehow by miraculously bringing us together? I doubt it. But I've thought a great deal about what could have saved him. In the end I don't know and never will.
My Mom and sister are either doing extremely well or pretending that they are doing well so as to not bother me. I've not let them know about my own sadness. Overall, I think we all did the best that we could have. The biggest problem for me is that I never went to see a therapist and I really should have. I'm looking for one now but I have no idea how you're supposed to go about the process. I just need to find a healthy way to deal with the increasing stress in my life instead of the Male Parrish Way which is to pretend that there is no stress and go about business as usual. It's not a good way to live.
Work is going well in the sense that I am well-liked and respected at my job. I'm developing a reputation as someone that gets things done. I'm making contacts across the University. People know that I'm reliable. I am being given responsibilities above my pay grade and I'm being invited to important meetings. On the other hand, I haven't had a day off in over three months and I haven't found a way to completely leave work at the office when I head home for the day. The holidays were pretty brutal with me not only getting limited time off, but having to come in and work weekends and overtime as well. It should be better now that the new year is upon us but I have to do a better job of not trying to do everything and save everyone. It's exhausting and it makes me irritable and difficult to deal with and in the end the process leads me to sacrifice myself for people that I don't really care about. In doing so I can't save my best efforts for the people that need me most. I'm not really into New Years Resolutions but I would say this is the biggest thing I need to work on this coming year.
Life isn't all doom and gloom though. I have a strong and generally healthy mother and sister that I get to see somewhat regularly. I'm trying to support my mom as much as I can and I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it. We've had to make a lot of stressful financial decisions lately but overall we've done as well as two people can under the circumstances. We've already made mistakes but we're learning. We have unofficially divided up the duties once done by Dad and we're handling it well.
If I had to pick the real reason that I haven't had a completely breakdown though, it would be Katie.
Katie is the most wonderful human being in the solar system. I'm simply not as comfortable with anyone else nor can I be the silly, nonsensical nerd that I am around any other person. She deserves some kind of award for putting up with me over the past few months while she's had to deal with her own very real pressures regarding family, grad school, career, and personal issues. When I'm with her we can laugh and make Dinosaur Hands and talk about Vegeta. She is simply amazing.
This leads to the biggest positive news item of late- we are moving in together. I admit that the prospect of living with someone was scary given my own terrible experience with my ex ("she who will not be named"), but I am really excited about it now. We're moving into a great place thanks largely to Katie's insistence and we landed it thanks to our awesome teamwork. We were faced with a tricky hurdle since few apartment complexes will allow three cats (two from her and one from me), but we got through it. As my mom put it- "Katie is a really smart woman!" I filled in where I could and it was ours. We'll have to somehow prevent a massive cat war from taking place when we actually move in but I'm sure we can handle that.
I feel like the phases of my life thus far are as follows-
-birth
-early school
-middle school years/social awkwardness
-beginning of teenage years/meeting Joe
-Early College years/onset of adult maturity/beginning of relationship with The Evil One
-College/spending time with Tristan and Jabari
-grad school and living with The Evil One/The Dark Times/The Endless Despair/the final gracious end of the relationship
-post-grad school and post-Evil One rehabilitation/ the devastating knee injury
-the summer back with Joe/going out and trying to be a normal twentysomething/realizing it wasn't going to happen
-the move to Durham/the perils of Lionkingland/finally getting a full-time job again/the thrill of meeting Katie
-Dad's death/the ready-or-not-acceptance of my place in the family/ the devastating shoulder injury/the growth of my relationship with Katie
- And the next chapter appears to be living with the woman that I love.
My life isn't perfect but it's pretty damn good. I'm a lucky person and despite the difficulties of the past year I'm looking forward to 2013.
Yay, I made a post.