Painful healing

Though I've been planning to do this for ages, I've (finally) stopped smoking pot. I quit mostly for two main reasons: for the sake of my poor lungs & my social life. While we had some good times, pot & I, it's become an unhealthy relationship. After the emotionally stressful year I've had, pot became a crutch I relied upon too heavily.

In fact, I meant to stop smoking last year. I remember saying to myself around the time of my 25th birthday that "25 was the year I would stop." Well shortly after my birthday, in fact almost a year ago from today, my Grandma's health started to decline to the point that we knew the end was near. She died at the end of April.

I kept telling myself that I could keep smoking for various reasons, but once my Grandpa started to go, I fell back into the bad smoking habits I thought I was done with. I hate to admit this, but I was smoking almost every day for several months. After Grandpa died and I had my falling out with my sister, I gave into my weak side and smoked every night. I knew what I was doing was bad and recognized it for the emotion crutch that it was. But I was hurting too bad to stop.

When I first decided to live with Ry & Alletta, I promised them I wouldn't keep smoking when we lived together. I did end up smoking for a bit in the new place, but that was mostly due to the fact we moved in sooner than I expected. March 28th was the last day I smoked pot.

Now, well into my 2nd week of being pot free, my lungs are in that painful healing stage. I remember from previous attempts to quit that after the 1st week my lungs would start hurting a bit as I healed from the damage previously done. This morning when I woke up it felt like I had been inhaling smoke all night. My breath feels short & it almost hurts when I breathe in deeply. The only reason I'm not freaking out about this is the memory of being in this stage before. It sucks right now, but with time I will heal.

Already I've been seeing the benefits of not smoking.

• Food tastes better.
• I'm dreaming again.
• Increased energy.
• Feeling like my old self.

That last point might be more than just not smoking. I didnt' realize how miserable I used to be in my old house till after a few weeks of living with Ry & Alletta. Before, I did have a feeling like I was losing myself. But now I really feel more grounded and well, happy. I still have lingering issues about my sister that I will eventually have to deal with. But for now, I'm just relieved that I'm finally get my life back on track.

Pause & Resume

The new year started for much later than everyone else, by almost a week in fact. The reason for this was that before only a few days ago, the aftermath of the past few months had dragged me down into a deep depression. It was only last Friday that I began to feel like myself again.

Since my last post, I have lost my grandfather. Unlike Grandma's death, I wasn't there the day he died and I've been told that this was a "good thing" by my mother and brother. Unlike Grandma, Grandpa was lucid till the end, and unfortunately in a lot of pain. Perhaps they were right. Seeing him in pain like that would have been horrible (I am still haunted by the image of Grandma before she died). Still, I cannot help but feel a stab of guilt for not being there for him like I was with Grandma.

On top of losing Grandpa, I've also lost the fragile relationship I had with my sister. We caught her stealing Grandpa's pain medication. Mom, my aunt Theresa, and I had a mini-intervention for her the next day, and at the time I thought we had helped her. She said it was just a relapse, that she had been totally sober before (well aside from pot & alcohol which she insists she can "handle"). She claimed that the stress at home and with Grandpa dying it had been just too much for her.

I wanted to believe her. Gods how I wants to believe her still. Yet my gut, my hear, my soul tells me that she's been using since Grandma died. Last August, I finally called her out after an eventual evening at the beach. And like now, she denied everything. Then she claimed that she just "accidentally" took too much medication. Then, like now, I couldn't shake the feeling that she was lying to me. All I had to do was look at her face to know that she was using again. Still, I think I wanted to believe that she was on the mend. Then Grandpa's health started to fail.

After I found out about how she stole pain medication from our dying grandfather, an anger began to develop inside of me. While Grandpa was still alive, I tried to swallow that anger. He passed away shortly before Thanksgiving, so I still kept it to myself since I didn't want to upset Nicole on a holiday. So the next week, I called her and tried to "calmly" explain to her that I was angry and need some space. Sometime the degree to which I'm a complete fool about my own emotions astonds me. Looking back I realize now that one cannot calmy explain angry while still feeling angry.

The phone call was a nightmare, once that has haunted me for over a month. Before I knew what was happening, I was yelling, no screaming, into the phone. Part of the reason that I lost control was that she was defensive after having talked to mom earlier that day, and despite my pleas to let me talk without inturruption, she went into a tirade about how we were "all making a big deal out of nothing."

Even as I type this, I feel that anger swell up in my throat. Stealing drugs from a dying man, let alone our own grandfather, is something I do consider a big deal. In many ways, I cannot quite forgive her for that yet. I hope with time I can, but right now.... the pain of losing Grandpa is too fresh. I still love my sister, and hope that someday in the future we can begin to rebuild our relationship. Yet the pain words she has thrown at me, on top of the anger I still feel, all of this has caused me to keep my distance.

Long story short, the past few months have been filled with a lot of pain and grief. Losing Grandpa has brought up all the lingering grief over losing Grandma. After the disastorous phone call with Nicole, I hid from both friends and family in my grief. I locked myself away in my room, indulged in my own bad vices and sulked in my anger and guilt. New Years Eve, when most were out having fun and celebrating, I stayed in my room, feeling miserable.

Around Thrusday evening last week, I started to snap out it. I've started to reconnect with my friends and have (finally) stopped indulging my weaker side. Tomorrow I also hope to resume bike commuting, something I had stopped right after things with Grandpa got really bad. Soon I think I'll even brave trying to write a letter to Nicole. It still tears at my heart that we aren't speaking to each other. At the same time, I need to take care of myself right now. I put my life on pause and now its time to it the resume button.

when it rains it pours

This has been a pretty bad day to say the least. Someone at work ripped into me (via the passive aggressive route of email) for reasons I did not deserve. Luckily for them I did not read this email till after they left because I was shaking with anger after I did. A big part of the reason I got so pissed off was because the stress of the busy season at work is getting to me. And the bad family news I had received the night before was only making me even more stressed out. I do know that this person is acting out in frustration over things that are beyond my control as well as theirs, however I did not appreciate having that frustration directed at me.

So I left work after pulling yet another long stressful day full of anger I didn't know how to release. Each time I get this stressed or angry all I can think about is how I should invest in a punching bag. Anyways I then rode over to the Dino house for dinner still pissed off but beginning to calm down a bit. Amanda had invited me for dinner so I felt better once I was able to talk with her and Sabrina. Then I made the mistake of checking my voicemail. While riding home I had missed two calls, one from my sister and one from my mother. My sister was calling to chat because she was sure that I had "heard the bad news about Grandpa."

The night before Mom had called me that my Grandpa had fallen over the weekend and no one found him for 3 hrs. He had been taken to a hospital but she didn't really know how bad anything was. She did know that he was going to be able to go home within a few days. When we talked last night, it seemed that his fall was more a sign that they needed someone to be with him at all times. A sign that the family was going to have look into hiring someone to help him when he falls like that. A week ago or so, they had found several tumors on my grandfathers spine and since then he has been undergoing radiation treatment to prevent them from making him paralyzed. He had been week before the radiation, but now he's even worse.

Well it now turns out that this fall was worse than my Mom realized. I called Mom instead of my sister back, because I knew in my heart that the news I was about to hear would not be good. Grandpa had not only fallen but had also somehow cut himself. Jim, my uncle found him apparently said it looked "like someone had been murdered." He had been laying there bleeding for 6 hrs before Jim found him. Right now I cannot remember the specifics of what Mom told me, but the "bad news about Grandpa" Nicole had been referring to was fact that hospice was now getting involved with Grandpa's medical care.

We don't have a time line, but the impression I got from Mom was that he is approaching the end. When I go off the phone with Mom I just sat on the stairs in Amanda's house silently cried my heart out. Right now this all feels like more than I can handle. I don't want to lose both of my grandparents in the same year. When I heard Mom say the word hospice, my heart broke and "not again" kept repeating in my head.

Watching Grandma die... it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I don't know if I can watch Grandpa die as well... but I know I can't also not be there.

Somber Friday News

Today my called me to tell me that my Grandpa, the husband of my Grandma who died in May, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Due to his age (86) and weak heart (had a heart attack back in 2002), treatment options for him are very limited. Luckily he seems in good spirits right now. The docs still need to figure out how aggressive this cancer is and if it has spread at all. Hopefully for Grandpa sake it hasn't spread since chemo is not an option.

The really weird thing about all of this is that on Wed, my mom had called me and left a voice mail. I when I listened to her voice mail (all she said was for me to call her when I got a chance), I had this sinking feeling in my gut that something was wrong. When I talked to her, she said nothing was wrong she just wanted to chat. They didn't find out about the cancer till yesterday, Thursday. The skeptical part of me chalks this up to a fluke, but part of me can't help but wonder if my intuition was picking up on something. I've usually taken some small degree of pride in how often my intuition is right. So after misreading Mom's message on Wed, I've been doubing myself. I was actually thinking about this on my morning ride to work.

Anyways, this is certainly bringing down my mood for this friday. I'm still dealing with losing Grandma... to think that Grandpa could go soon as well is still too much to deal with right now.

A Singular Solace

It's all happening too fast. The fact that I've been mentally preparing myself for this for over a year now provides no comfort. And the fact that today we have to admit Grandpa to the hospital on the same day we take Grandma to a hospice house has not even begun to register. I feel like I'm in suspension. Caught in the stillness of a premature grief.

Despite all of this that I cannot yet fully feel, I find a moment of comfort. The snow falling in the sky, this completely bizarre freak weather gives some peace.