Tears are streaming down my face and I need to hold on to furniture as I walk around the house.

Four days ago, we put Frisco to sleep.  The cancer was to the point he had stopped eating.

Besides a few tears when his eyes closed for the last time, I have been dry until now.

I am known for delayed grief.  I did not feel any push or desire to hasten myself from denile.  I even thought I might hold on until this weekend, when our vacation starts and I am in the Wisconsin cabin where I know I can be healed of anything.

But, events and stress and hormones being what they are, I just broke down.  And now I realize why I wanted to put off this particular cry.

Frisco, for 16 years, would come find me when I was crying.  Even when I was sad or sick, he could tell.  His fur soaked up more of my tears than anything, or anyone, else.

Now, I sat on the couch and looked around.  The dog, the other cats, kept their distance.

I feel empty of everything.

I know this feeling will pass.  And come again.  It’s part of being human. 

But the feeling that I have failed my grandmother is painful.  I want to cry, run out of this apartment, and never come back.

After seeing my brother’s Kindle and not finding it easy to read, grandma and I had both discussed the idea of the iPad.  After taking her to appointment after appointment where her eyesight did not seem to improve, but she could consistently read dark, jet black text on bright paper (the minutes from her living complex were printed like this), I really thought an iPad would solve her reading problems.

And they might, but not right now.

I convinced Tom a few weeks ago that we should buy one.  Just let grandma, um, borrow it.  Indefinitely.  We could afford it, would both enjoy one, but wouldn’t find any real need for it unless traveling.

The iPad came last Friday and Tom was hooked in 5 minutes.  I think it really pained him to leave it at home when he left for work this week, despite having a PDA and a laptop in his carryon luggage.

I knew better than to spring it on grandma first thing when I got here this week.  I’d seen what happened when I had an agenda from the the get-go.  Too much information overloaded her and nothing productive occurred.

So I waited till we had got settled, gone out for lunch, and done the regular back-at-home routine.  She was on the couch when I proferred it, ready with a book (and the book icon being the only one on that desktop, and the screen saver turned off so it wouldn’t change appearance on her, and the screen rotate locked so it didn’t confuse her).

Wow.

I expected she wouldn’t be thrilled.  It would confuse her.  It would be foreign.  But I did hope I could leave it somewhere easy to access for the week and it would grow on her.  Certainly with all the complaining she has done with how hard it is to read she would enjoy the bright, big font.

Instead she had a complete meltdown.  I mean losing train of thought and hyperventilating and needing to go lie down. 

And about things I guess I should have expected, but didn’t. 

She is completely flummoxed by the idea the book is just “in there”.  She wants to understand it and I can’t explain it in words she recognizes.  And quite frankly, if I put aside how devestated I am to make my grandmother so upset, I myself am completely flummoxed as to this need to understand technology like the computer when she cannot explain or fully understand cable tv or wireless phones yet enjoys using them.

This is the biggest step I’ve tried to make in helping her.  I often leave here, week in and week out, feeling like I have accomplished nothing.  She still has the same complaints.  She’s still resistent to letting me take control of any facet of her life regardless of how tired of it she may be.

I know I make a difference by just being here.  I know that.  But this seemed like something so small and innocent - she didn’t have to make a decision to purchase one, or give up her regular print books, or even sell her soul to the devil.

I am used to doing good.  Not well, as in, excelling at something.  I mean doning the cape and walking off into the sunset having made the world a better place.  I do it all the time with animals.  I can’t…

Sigh.  I was about to write that I can’t remember the last time I felt I made such an error in judgement.  But then I remembered.  And it was worse than this.  Damn it.  I guess that means my pity party is over and I need to dust myself off and try again.

…It still sucks though.

Dear Rascal Flatts,

I was never a huge fan, although I didn’t find you noxious enough to earn a Oh-Hell-No-Change-That-Damn-Station-NOW verdict.

And I am so glad for that.  Because your song? satire?  corny pick up lines? “Summer Nights” has the ability to make me bob to the melody and LOL.

I just ask in the future that you try timing the comedy a bit better.  I am not quite done giggling over the line “Everybody’s feeling sexy” in the first chorus when you hit me with sage advice to the ladies: “Ya’ll keep doing ya’lls thing” and I break out in peals of laughter.

You don’t want to know where I’d place my igloo cooler,

Jessica in Progress

ps.  You are also educational on top of it all!  In writing this letter, I learned the proper apostrophe placement in “ya’ll”.  Could a nobel prize be in the works for you guys?  Indeed.

I have to say, this is the longest I’ve ever tried to be healthy with so little to show for it.

Granted, making Pakora over the weekend may not be *entirely* healthy, but it’s veggies, right?

While my diet may take a step or two down the wayward path, one thing that hasn’t faltered is my new commitment to working out.  The scale numbers may not be moving down that quickly, but the blood pressure ones are and I am loving it.  I can go to the doctor without fear of being put on medication now.  Not that I am exactly sure why I fear BP meds so much.  Except that someone who takes BP meds is old.  Very, very old.  And I am young.  YOUNG DAMNIT.  Now where is my anti-inflamitory?  If I don’t take it, I can’t get out of bed in the morning.

About two weeks ago, determined to get out of this one-hundred-mumble-mumble-five pound rut, I started swimming.  We have a pool as part of the condo, it’s warm enough here in FL now, and I have always been a bit of a water child.  Plus, Tom suggested it.  After suggesting several times we go and lay by the pool.  (Which, I am physically incapable of doing.  If you want me to just lay around in the sun, get me very drunk first.)  All of this suggesting made me think Tom might actually come to the pool with me.  Which…not so much.

But since he’s involved in only 2/7 of my life anymore, that hardly matters.  The first time I went, I was stunned by how breathless I got.  It was obviously an exercise challenge to me.  It was also an exercise where if I sweated buckets, it didn’t stick to me.  Score.

I am now completely addicted.  Not so much to the joy of the water, the challenge of more laps, or even the feeling that I have started the day on the right foot.

I am absolutely in love with the complete, utter, exhaustion I feel afterwards.  It is like the all those I-get-it-now cliches coming true at once and I understand the joy of just doing nothing.  Remember how drunk you have to get me to stay still?  Screw that.  Just make me swim a few laps.

I am relieved that my biopsy came back Not Cancer. 

As a pale girl who loves outdoors but won’t buy lotions or soap unless in a pump bottle because unscrewing caps is just too much of a hassle in my hygiene routine, I am pretty gobsmacked at the result.  And of course I have resolved to slather myself diligently.

In more goodish news, there is a wee chance that my weight problems stem from a hormone unbalance.  Yes, the excuse that everyone has used may actually be true in my case.  After upping my exercise by a galgillion, the scale refused to budge.  While I do feel better than I have in a long time, it would be nice to actually fit into more than 3 outfits in my closet.  So, fingers crossed that the medicine works.

(Side Note:  several other symptoms besides weight issues are things I have lived with for so long I just assume they were my “normal” - joint pain and trouble sleeping being two of them.  Dare I hope?)

But not all results were good.  Frisco, my sweet boy, my first pet on my own, had different test results.  He has cancer, which has metastasized.   He hopefully has several months left with us, but we will appreciate each day. 

After two months of medical round-abouts which were hinting in this direction, I admit it is nice to know something for sure.  It means we can stop rushing to the vet with each episode and focus on making him comfy. 

Frisco would like everyone to know that Comfy = Bacon.

The past two weeks have been, in one word, unsatisfying.

But since when do I stop at one word?

These weeks have been about straws - grasping for them and also breaking backs of camels. 

Reaching, arms outstretched, into thin air.  Offerings on a silver plate being unappreciated.  Hard work not paying off.

Phone calls answered by text or email.  Emails not answered period.  Helping hands that become a stranglehold. 

My helping hands, by the way.  My hands reaching, grasping at straws, offering plates.

As a helping hands kind of person, it hits me hard when I am not wanted, not needed, not helpful.  And these hands don’t really know what else to do.  I try to keep them sitting in my lap, patiently clasped around each other to give them something to do.  But it’s inevitable.  I see a situation and can’t help but to think that I can do something.

I suppose I am technically doing something.  It just doesn’t seem to be helpful to anyone in general, irritates a few specifically, and bruises my ego once again.

I am waiting on lab results for both myself and a pet.  I don’t know what outcome scares me more. That they will be inclusive and both myself and my feline will be left adrift in a sea of shrugs, we’ll sees, try this or that and we’ll re-test in a few weeks.  Or that they will be definite and earth shattering and life altering.  Or that they will say we are both absolutely fine except for getting older and they haven’t made a pill for that yet.

While waiting, I reach out to touch and manipulate and alter those things I can.  And if I took a step back, I could see that I am really way more caught up in my own shit to comprehend something else.

And I have taken that step.  See: the last sentence.  But what to do when knowing is not half the battle won?  When you dish out seconds, well aware they are sloppy?

The truth is, it sometimes gets lonely waiting.  Whether it’s for a bus, test results or the one.  So could I just curl up on your monitor for a few minutes?  Thanks.

More than once I’ve been questioned why I’m friends with exes.  Sometimes it’s from a well-meaning friend who sees romantic encounters as so separate from friendships.  (Which, by the way, I believe is a philosophy that dooms you.)

But a few times it was from current beaus.  And looking back, I think even at the time I knew they were asking because they were concerned about holding up the inevitable friendship end of the bargain I felt they had struck with me from the first inappropriate groping in a piano bar or bookstore.

I stand by my decision.  I don’t date losers.  Or marry them for that matter.  Or spend time with them on a voluntary basis.  I find myself way too entertaining to bother with the messy social stuff with those I deem unworthy.

And it’s also the loyal nature of my personality.  Once I let you in, you’re in.

Not to say it’s always been easy.  An ex can hurt you just by their very existence.  As I believe almost the last single one of mine is slipping from bachelorhood to something less solo (I knew the days were numbered when he committed to a rescue dog), there is ALWAYS the question of why her and not me.  I don’t think any of my exes are even half as suited for me as Tom, but every time one of them finds someone special, it still hurts my pride that I did indeed not rock their world to the core.

Save Skip.  My first ex to do an 180 on me.  On a road trip back from visiting my family unannounced because he still pined for me (Dad: “We gave him pie.  We weren’t sure what else to do.”), he stopped to visit a friend who became his wife and mother of his child.  While it was my first shock of how transient even the most visceral feeling can be, it was also a sweet relief that he found someone else.

So why do it?  Why keep someone in your life who’s presence reminds you of something you lost or were missing or messed up or threw away?

For my 35th birthday, I received an email from the gentleman who took me to my senior prom.  We had a fun run of a relationship, although it was deeply marred by his attraction to one of my school classmates.  An attraction that blossomed in fact at said prom.  For years we ran hot and cold with each other, but for the most part remained civil.  When he moved away, he quickly found “the one”, and our friendship has strengthened despite the distance.

The email was a continuation of a thread started with some of the other changes going on in my life.  And in this particular email, in discussing my strength of taking chances in life in order to be happy, he said, “You’re a hero to me in this regard and I won’t have you wearing out.”

Oh.

I understand some exes are not worthy of another thought.  And in all this worship of past loves, I have a few who have escaped unfriended.  But just as an ex can hurt by having been a person close to your heart, they can heal.  They can revel in your triumphs, understand your wounds, and remind you why you put up with them in the first place.

That just about sums it up.

In an argument I started with our condo association regarding fees, Tom stepped in.  And he not only was more gracious than me, he stepped in after I won the real battle.  I gave the evidence that righted our wrong. 

And now?  The person on their side is all, “Why, Tom was ever so nice and since he thinks it’s resolved, that’s that.”

As a woman who made her mark in several male-dominated fields, who bought this condo with her own money, bought her own car, paid for her own vacations, and has been a meal-ticket for more than one gentleman in her lifetime, I am beyond furious when slapped in the face with how patriarchal the world still is.

The reality is, most of the time I let the guy do the talking.   I have in many ways given up on dealing with societies gender roles.  Tom may call the cable company, book the hotel, and arrange for the mechanic. 

But this is my condo.  My baby.  I am proud I was able to be a single homeowner and it is the one thing I hold on to.

And it’s my fight.  My IQ.  I went into this with a certain manner, a certain directness.  A certain bitch to me, some might say.  Tom smoothed right over it all with that southern politeness.  I was a force to be reckoned with.  Now I’m just a force to be side-stepped.

I’m even madder about the fact that I’m upset by it at all.  That I can’t just let it roll off me.  That I’m sitting here, fuming, crying like a little girl, because someone treated me like one.

This weekend, Tom got older.  He gets older every weekend, but this one was the anniversary of when he started the whole process.

Some year we are going to have to take advantage of our birthdays so close together and use it as an excuse for an extravagantly long vacation.  But this year, we just ate a lot of good food and played video games.

I don’t think I’m alone here in the concept that shopping for others is more fun than shopping for yourself.  With unlimited funds, time, and someone else getting all the tedious chores done while you’re out - I suppose I could be persuaded that shopping for myself isn’t torture.  But the reality is, I never know what I need, where to buy it, what looks good on me, and if it fits in our shrinking closet space.

On the other hand, I can think of a dozen things that Tom would like.  Especially since we purchased a PS3 this holiday season.  So I was completely prepared with Harmony Remotes, adapters, and other gizmos/games to suggest to family and friends looking to gift him a little something in recognition of making it another year alive.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how freaking cool I would find everything as well.  And now that Tom has left for the airport for another week of travel, I have it ALL TO MYSELF.  It’s like getting a second birthday, but without the navel-gazing and life assessment.

If only there was some cake left…

I guess I really should update more than once a month, huh?  At the very least, my frugality should kick in and decide paying for this site means I actually use it.

I miss writing daily.  Like many things, it’s habit.  Once broken, hard to fix.  I have the time now to do so - I no longer work at the sanctuary and Tom travels for work every week so I have my evenings to myself.  But somehow I never think to write.

I turned 35 this month.  It happened with little fanfare, as I wished.  I guess I might have wanted a bit more trumpet blowing if I thought I were healthier, wealthier, and wiser than I was at 30.  But alas, I don’t think that’s the case.

I’m getting there though.  Before fixing this writing habit, I’m trying to fix a few healthy habits that fell by the wayside.  Hate to throw him under the bus, but it is so much easier with Tom gone most of the time.  As someone who was paid for physical labor over half his life, he has a hard time convincing himself to sweat without dollar signs attached.  He also had a HUGE change in his eating habits when we merged - no red meat?  What’s this green stuff?  And while that was great for him, it was a step backwards for me and my 8-a-day.

The wealthier is a bit harder to manage.  I am currently drawing a small salary from my grandmother.  It became evident last fall that she needed extra help around the house.  I couldn’t provide more support without making her my “job”, and so we agreed that’s what was best for now.  I drive up to Gainesville once a week to spend 2 days with her.  I also do things for her throughout the week that don’t require her presence - buying a toaster, getting rid of old items we’ve stashed in my trunk, etc.

I am enjoying this extra time with her immensely.  Thankfully, Tom comes from a large, tight-knit family.  He’s incredibly supportive of this departure from my having a “real job”.

While leaving the sanctuary as the IT Manager wasn’t something I was seriously considering at the time, several changes happened that made this decision easy for me.  My “boss”, GM, (aka friend, mentor, big brother, hero, cohort who made the impossible challenges of working there bearable) had/has some pretty awesome opportunities in the works for him.  Whether higher ups felt threatened by that, or were making a premptive strike on his leaving, he wasn’t being treated well.

I wasn’t being treated well either, come to think of it.  Several of us that helped build up much of the infrastructure were put down and negated on many changes that started to happen.

Since then, changes having been occurring at a rapid fire pace.  I am still a volunteer, and still a volunteer coordinator.  I hope that things will slow down and the dust will settle.  But there are a lot of hurt feelings and I’m not sure the outcome of that yet - even for myself (take note: do not do most of your correspondance via email if you slander people whose help you still need/want).

And the wiser part?  Well, perhaps leaving the paid position at the sanctuary and returning to volunteer-only status is a big step in that direction.  It gives me freedom and distance from some of the people out there while allowing me more time with the cats.

Other than that, I kind of feel like I’m back where I was when I left my software engineering job.  Blank slate.  It feels a bit silly to be here yet again.  But I’d rather be here than stuck in another unhappy situation.  I can only move forward from here.