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Courage

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 Or something like it...  Today, for the first time since receiving the news that Dad's cance is Stage 4 and life-threatening, I began to entertain other possibilities.  I know that we all grieve and process in diffeent ways. And I have accepted that for me to be able to process and move through something, I need to plumb the depth of the worst case scenario . I need to get my mind and heart around what could happen, so that I won't be surprised. So that no matter what happens, I'll have already laid some plans for how to address it.  In no world could I possibly have wrapped my head around the idea that in 4-6 weeks, my one and only father could be going into hospice. Even as the words come out, they feel impossible.  But still...  I have at least been able to say the words outloud multiple times without completely shutting -or breaking- down; I was somehow able to sleep the last couple nights; I managed to laugh a couple times over the weekend.  It d...
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Remember

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 It's 6:42pm, I'm standing in my kitchen - arms dangling by my side, vacant expression on my face. Gabriel's face is quizzical.  I look around slowly and finally focus my eyes on his face.  "I can't tell if I've done enough today."  He reassures me that I most certainly have. But what I mean is... I can't remember what I meant to do today. I can't remember what I actually did today. I can't remember how many projects, meals, conversations, ideas, and tasks I've started - or if I completed any of them. I can't remember how it felt to not know. I can't remember what it felt like to remember. I wander slowly into the bedroom. The wall is covered in rows of neatly matted and framed family photos. So I did finish something today... Exhausted by the sheer act of remembering something, I collapse onto the bed.  Will I get back up tonight?  Do I need to? I want to...but what was I going to do? What was I in the middle of...  I wander slowly...
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Unfinished

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I find myself at a loss for words .  I find myself at a loss .   I find... I have lost myself.  When the sky caves in and the ground falls out from beneath your feet - when life as you have known it for 35 years disappears... I ask you, where do you go? What do you do?  And how, how do I  DO anything at all?  Nothing seems to have the same meaning it had a week ago. Nothing seems to be in the same place as it was a week ago. Nothing feels familiar in the way it did last Saturday. Nothing evokes the same feelings, the familiar mental roads seem to lead to diffeent places, even the routines that have sustained me for years fall flat as if they somehow understand their own futility to engage the massive upheaval I am facing.  Dreams left half dreamed - I wake up after only a few hours of sleep only to discover that this is still my waking reality.  Teeth left half brushed - I forgot which I've cleaned and which I haven't.  Conversations l...
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