More of the same, or is it?

A year ago, I buried my Dad.

It wasn't something that was unexpected, it was something that we had prepared for. Dad had pancreatic cancer, and he wasted away in front of us, in constant pain, and was in the end reduced to being unable to get out of bed.

I've often commented since then that it is a fate I could not, would not, wish upon my worst enemy. It's something that I honestly feel I can't express in words the utter feeling of hopelessness and helplessness that comes over you. Even a year and some change later, it hurts as fresh in some ways as the June day we found out he had Pancreatic Cancer.

I have often tried to put up the front that I'm unchanged, but I have changed. In the last year, I've become less forgiving to myself and others, and whether my friends truly understand, know, or acknowledge, it's one of those things where I hadn't really had to 'grow up' until that moment, and while I knew loss, I didn't have to watch it.

I guess I was lucky in a lot of ways. Hoyt was a good man, and he taught me a lot of things I needed to learn. I didn't get everything I needed, but I got enough, and that was fine in the end. I was unable to truly express how things affected me until recently, and it is one of those things that I'm uncertain if I can ever truly understand.

Since then, all new fears and stresses have crowded me. There are choices on the horizon which will affect not only me, but others as well. I'm going to have to make them, and ultimately, I'm going to have to tell people what I feel and how I feel it. I'm not keeping things, I don't want people to think that, I'm just going to have to deal with conflicted ideas of what I feel is right and wrong for me as a human being. Part of it is that I need to get out from the stress I'm under supporting family, part of it is I need to be able to get to a point where I'm not stressed out about my future and what's going to be in it.

I feel like there are no breaks, and maybe that is true, but I can take it. I think people forget that....I'm more than capable of dealing with it.

More later

- M-