And my world is upside down.

The vague unease I felt being part of something big I wasn’t sure I deserved to be a part of is replaced by the vague unease that I am part of something I’m not sure deserves me.

But the truth is, on paper, if I push on I doubt anyone but myself will look back and think that.  Myself and the few others who are thinking the same thing right now.

I blink again.

A person who raised me and made sure I got exercise and ate my vegetables (I can only remember once hiding them underneath my booster seat), now relies on me to see the restroom signs, the street signs, the xs marks the spot.

She gave me metallic sticky stars for pooping when I was constipated at age four.  Now I look the other way and pretend I don’t understand when she mentions difficultly collecting a urine sample.

Blink.  Blink.

Is it all right side up again?  Have I won?

I mean, I don’t iron.  Not a bit.

I have, for most of my adult life, owned an iron.  The last time I remember using it was 2004.  Linen pants for first date.  On said date, I mentioned I had a confession.  And more important than pointing out I was still a court date, a truck title, and few signatures away from being not-married, I needed this man to know that I did not iron and it was the last time he’d see those pants unwrinkled.

Unsurprisingly, since he was more interested in getting the pants off me than whether I could compete with his mother (and indeed, I could not.  Damn that is a tough awesome woman), he did not care.

You might think that I just dry clean or send out, but I don’t.  I just basically run around wrinkled and don’t care.  I guess that more of my fancier work clothes did end up dry cleaned (or at least dryeled).  But even when I worked in an office, I was a software engineer working in an office.  The greatest work outfit I had included the “only 10 types of people” binary T-shirt.

Tom knew that I didn’t iron right off the bat.  He swore it didn’t bother him.  And true to his word, the few times we’ve had emergency ironing situations (the latest being chair covers), he’s stepped up.

But he doesn’t iron his work shirts.  And he recently received a promotion to the point that dress code is important.  So today I asked him if it ever comes up and he said he makes a point to slip it into conversation early.

“Then when I come in wrinkled they can just shake their heards and say, ‘well…it’s kinda like being a bachelor.’”

Which sums up our marriage nicely.

Yes, I suppose I could figure out how to de-program the feeders.  But that would require that I remember come morning to feed everyone else, and re-program the feeders tomorrow.  Plus, Tom has created the most insane and hilarious contraptions for these feeders to keep the smallest cats from sticking their paws up the chute and making these high-tech devices self-serve.  I think he might have included self-destruct c4 that could blow if I were to approach the feeders at the wrong angle.

The dogs are in here because they will whine and keep me up all night if I lock them out.  Opposed to how they will keep me up all night by changing spots 4,801 times in the bed.

If I survive the night without getting peed on, I will be looking over my shoulder all day tomorrow.  Fate cannot let me get by unscathed.

I started to login to write and then thought, “Does anyone even read here anymore?”  Then I remembered that handy sitemeter thingy I so dearly loved three years ago.  And yes.  Four people do still read here.  Assuming two of you are not exes who can get facebook updates on my current mental and Mafia Wars status, I figured I’d stop by.

I also figured with several posts about my grandparents, I’d pop back in here before that one really sad post.  Grandma’s health is deteriorating.  She could live a few more years and I’m not trying to shovel any dirt on her, but my grandparents were so active.  Two or three foreign trips a year.  Dinner out at least twice a week.  Houses in three different states for different seasons and connections.  Now if my grandmother gets “off campus” (the hip way to refer to leaving the retirement home grounds), it’s a major occassion.

I know she thinks life is pale and stupid without my grandfather.  That’s just not the kind of person who is looking to stretch her minutes here.  I don’t blame her, and I know she finds joy where and when she can.  I hope to be a help in this final journey of her life, as she was such a help in mine.

Tom and I are inching along.  In a few months, I will have been married to him longer than my first husband.  I still feel that tug.  I am not cut out for this marriage crap.  But he is still the king of awesome and inappropriateness and putting up with my sorry ass.  So I guess I’ll keep him around.

The sanctuary…has been through many changes.  And is continuing to change.  Something I love telling guests is how we never feel we’ve got it perfect - we’ll always searching for ways to make the lives of the animals better.  So, when you say shit like that you kinda have to shut your mouth when change occurs.  They are for the best, but damn do the growing pains hurt.

For me specifically, I feel comfortable enough to say that the IT portion of my position has grown and pushed every limit of my knowledge.  It’s difficult to balance it with animal care, volunteer coordinating, and the other more mundane aspects of my paycheck.  Some days I feel like nothing more than a gopher.  Some days I feel like a queen.  And some days I feel like a failure.

Today, I felt like a failure.  So I’m shooting for at least gopher tomorrow.  Sometimes, it’s all you can do.

On my one day off this week, I will go to Gainesville to discuss with my grandmother how she will live the rest of her life.  A life she doesn’t particularly want to live without my grandfather.

My father is fine with my deciding the fate of his mother’s laundry and eye drops.  Her bills and depends.  I am fine with him being fine.  My grandmother is fine with it too.

I am fine with it too.

I still wish I could turn back time.  I hated the insecurity Dashboard Confessional meant.  Hated the boy whom I so wanted to love because he caused the insecurity.  And as much as I wish I could go back knowing what I know now, I would gladly go back to a time when my insecurity was my biggest problem.

I was this age, but acted younger.  We were at my parent’s townhome, alone.  He was sleeping in their bedroom, except it looked like his and grandma’s bedroom.  She was dead, not him.

One of those dreams where you know everything’s wrong, but it feels so right.

He looked younger too.  Not as if I didn’t know him, but the grandpa that perhaps I felt I knew best.  The active grandfather who liked cookies and hiking.  Also the no-nonsense grandfather, although I suppose he was that at all ages.

I have forgotten the rest of the dream.  Even know, I recall him standing in their bedroom and it’s starting to look like their bedroom around him.  I see his face, slightly shiny, in profile.  I know that face is really from a picture of him at a graduation at some southwest state college where he was the keynote speaker.

But I dreamed we were together.  And I will not forget that.

I remember my grandmother making bread from scratch all summer long.  Only raisin bread.  I got to help put in the raisins.  Grandpa said the storebought kind didn’t have enough raisins.  She never made any other kind of bread, just raisin bread.

“A bread maker?  How nice.  I used to make your grandfather spice bread.”

“Yes, raisin bread.  With extra raisins.”

She shook her head, “Nooo…” slowly, like she was letting me down gently, “He didn’t like it with cinnamon…he wanted some other spice…cumin!  That’s it.  I made it with cumin.”

This conversation haunts me.

Am I remembering wrong?  Can I have such strong, specific feelings that are completely made up?

Can she be wrong?  Has all her joking about being an old woman finally come to pass?

Or worst, are we both right?  Is she thinking of a different time, a different bread.  If so, I’m missing out on one more story to cling to when she’s gone.

And then of course, we still have our house, can afford to stay in it, do not have to give our animals up because we can’t buy food, and loosely-speaking, still have our health.

Still.

I’ve been very unhappy with my schedule lately.  Doesn’t shock a lot of people.  10-14 hour days?  6-7 days a week?  How can you not love it?

Well, I do.  Usually.  I love feeling like I’m making a difference and getting dirty (and bloody) and being part of a solution.  I love helping people and animals and most days I feel like I’ve done both.

Lately though, Tom’s schedule has been just as much shit as mine - including shift work which means I end up not sleeping a full night either.  And our animal woes have not stopped.  Three, THREE, urinary tract infections.  One on a cat who’s been surgically altered to have much less tract to resolve this exact kind of thing.  One a cat who has to be sedated for the most simple of exams.  (The last is just on a plain ole regular cat.  Albeit a fat, old, and needy one.)

I’ve been really wishing I had a more 9-to-5 deal, so I could do a better job taking care of everyone.  And maybe some weekends off to catch up on everything else.

The thing is, I really hate wishing that.  I am not made to be selfish and me, me, me.  It pisses me off.  And I’m horrible at it.  My boss has even less time off than me - how do you ask for more?

I really hope this is a phase.  I really hope we get a handle on our pet and personal life and I go back to feeling gunho about my schedule.