Category Archives: About Me

Hello, friends! As I’m sure you’ve noticed, things have been a bit sparse around here lately. A lot has been going on, and I haven’t been sure how or if it was something I wanted to get into here. I keep things pretty real in this space, but I also try to keep them light and somewhat pleasant. Anyway, I wanted to give you guys an update and let you know that I am going to try to get things back on track as soon as I can.

First of all, yours truly let her acupuncturist talk her into stepping down her meds finally. We tried this right after I first started seeing her, with a certain amount of success. I went from full dose of two meds to a half dose of a single. We’ve spent the last year getting my body calibrated, and for two or three months now, she has been encouraging me to do another step down. I’ve resisted, things have been so busy, but with the new year offering up a long weekend, I decided to give it a try. The last two weeks have been absolutely miserable. I assumed that this round would be exactly like the first, but I’ve had every bad reaction/withdrawal symptom possible. I’ve had to make emergency trips to the acupuncturist just to keep the constant dizziness to a level that allows me to function. FINALLY the last couple days have been almost bearable, and I’ve been able to get more done than stumble through work and curl up on the couch as soon as I get home.

To top it all off, I am still trying to unravel all of the convoluted mess that is  left in the wake of losing my dad. He had no will, so no one will talk to me; I had to hire a lawyer to help me navigate the legal quagmire. Even still, things are daunting, and I feel like I am striding forward as quickly and purposefully as I can, only to look up and realized that somehow I’ve circled back to where I was before. Hours of work with nothing to show for it but frustration (and a few tears). All of the uncertainty and banging my head against the wall is really messing with the grieving process. I can’t move past where I am and I get mad at my dad for leaving me to figure everything out and then I feel guilty for getting mad. In the worst moments, I start worry about losing my mom and how I’ll be “alone” because all my immediate family will be gone. It’s crazy: I have Andy and loads of extended family not to mention all of his family, but I get in that place and sometimes chocolate can’t fix it.

Anyway, that is where I’ve been and what has been going on. I am going to try to get things back to normal, but I sincerely appreciate how patient you guys have been with me.

Image from here. 

Okay guys, I need to let you know about something that is going on with me right now. Two weeks ago, my mom and I drove down to Lake Wales to spend some time where we lived for so long. We got into town Wednesday afternoon, had an incredible afternoon tea, and then I started calling/texting my dad because we were supposed to be meeting for dinner. After not hearing back from him, I started to get annoyed, but frankly it wasn’t completely unexpected. My dad answers the phone when he is ready to answer the phone, and so to kill time, my mom and I headed out to do some Christmas shopping. All of a sudden my phone starts blowing up from my uncle and my aunt. It turns out there was a very good reason he wasn’t answering the phone. He was dead. Yeah, you read that right. I full on ugly cried right in the middle of TJ Maxx and made a panicked call to Andy; my mom got me out to the car and I managed to get it together to start making phone calls and piecing together what happened.

My dad has been battling a cold for a couple of months now. Turns out it was more than a cold, my uncle had taken him to hospital a couple of weeks ago where they’d given him fluids and meds. Then on Frida,y he’d been very sick at work, needing to sit and rest every half hour or so. Monday he called his boss to say he needed to go to the dentist to get a replacement for his dentures and that was the last anyone heard from him. After a day and a half of no call/no show, his coworkers started calling around to his usual haunts (since he had no “in case of emergency” contact) and realized no one had seen him. Finally the police were called and they went to his house. As far as we can tel,l he passed in his sleep sometime Monday afternoon/evening.

I am so angry right now. Angry at him for not taking care of himself. Angry at myself for not being a bigger pain in the ass about keeping in touch. Angry at the universe in general because he was only 64 and there is no way he should have been gone this soon. Saturday I met his friends at his favorite bar, and we had a last round in his honor. It was incredible connecting with these people I knew only from vague occasional reference. My dad kept everything so compartmentalized that I only was privy to a sliver of what his day to day world was like. I hugged the members of this second family, and I thanked them from the bottom of my heart for taking care of him when I couldn’t be there. He was so loved, and he was so much more complex than I knew. I hate that I didn’t push harder for a closer relationship, that I let myself be content with our couple times a month phone calls and semi-annual get together. As I sit here typing this, his ashes rest on my mantle, and his beloved cat is curled up on my couch. There is never a good time for something like this, but around the holidays is especially hard because this is when we would have been spending time together. So when I post gift guides and holiday fun, it’s because I am desperately in need of a way to step away from this for a bit. I hope you guys will indulge me and follow along, and I’ll do my best to be honest and open with you guys on this journey.