Beginning 2016

Guess it's been awhile since I wrote here. Guess it's been awhile since I've written anywhere. I write everyday all day long inside my head, but for some reason never get it down on paper. Afraid, I suppose... afraid that I'll write something that hurts or offends someone, afraid that I'll write stuff that others disagree with, more fearful that they will disagree with me out loud. I don't want to have to further explain or defend what being me in like.

I'm struggling again. I hadn't been so much last spring and summer, but I am again... I'm tired... tired of being stronger than I really feel. Tired of not feeling like its correct or safe to express how hard this really is... this time since Mandy died.

I don't even know what I've posted already and since I doubt this will be read it doesn't matter. Maybe it's okay if I repeat myself a dozen times. Maybe it's okay if I say the same thing a dozen different ways or if sometimes I even contradict myself. Yeah, maybe it's all okay. Well, it won't be by everyone, but not everyone cares to read this crap so it won't matter now will it?

I got in trouble with my Dr. last week. My beloved Dr. B. My legs are really bad. My A1C was 8.0 and I was at my heaviest weight. she want's me to have by-pass. That's a long and painful thought process for me. It's so simple for her. It's simple for those who just want to lose weight - a means to an end. but for me, it means losing... more loss... and more and more losses...

I don't want to lose food and in particular I don't want to lose soda... I have switched over to diet coke. I don't like the after taste, but I'll get used to it rather than go without soda again... that is a huge part of why all my plans fail... because I can only go so long without soda. Maybe many weeks or even a few months, but eventually, it's a deal breaker and I end up back in trouble over and over!

the other day Marlene pointed out that maybe it was just too much to lose and sometimes it does feel that way, like how much am I supposed to lose in this lifetime?

I know I can't do anything about the people I already love and care about. I know that I might lose them and I can't do anything about that, but I don't have to form all kinds of new attachments. Brigid and Onyx died a couple years after Mandy - Brigid first in the back bedroom. I heard her fall and got there just in time to watch her take three last breaths, then silence... death. Less than two weeks later Onyx had to be taken to the vets... something was wrong, horribly wrong. Sure enough Ted had to leave him there and at seven that evening I got the call... "Massive tumor in his stomach area, did  I want xrays and blood tests even though he was sure it was cancer. He had lost half his body weight in less than three weeks - cancer is the thing that does that."

So I said, "is it time to let him go?"

He replied, "I believe so."

I said, "Go ahead."

"I can put him on an IV and try to keep him alive until morning so you can be with him."

I cried, "Goodness no! Why would I want him stuck with needles and left in a cage all night. No, just do it and I'll have Ted pick him up in the morning and pay the bill."

And so, both of them died in November... just a few days before Marlene dying of cancer moved into the back bedroom.

It's been three years and I still don't want any pets. I don't want a cat or a dog or even a goldfish. there are different reasons depending on the day you ask me, but really the deeper truth is that I just don't want to face any more losses right now.

I know I can't help that I still have parents and siblings and a husband and a son and that I could lose any one of them anytime, but I'm not setting myself up to lose another pet.

I don't even know how to think about the twins. The loss of them. I'm angry about that. I'm angry because they don't deserve anything that has happened to them including being taken from me/us without notice or closure or care for what is in their best interest. It hurts. It hurts like loss does. It sucks the air right out of me if I think about it for more than a second at a time.

I don't feel like I can talk about these things to the people in my life. I think they just don't know how to listen and be okay with how I am.