when knowing the "why" doesn't make it any easier

i have been in a mood for the past, oh, 36 hours or so. bitchy, angry, depressed, sad, emo...whatever you wanna call it, i have probably experienced some variation of it since yesterday afternoon. i tweeted last night that i wanted to call off from work today because i was angry and i hated people and i just wanted to drink and make bad decisions.

i still feel that way to a certain extent, really. i would be more than happy to drink all of the drinks and leave someone else in charge of decision-making. i'm tired of being responsible and i would just like at least one day where i can just sit in relative peace and quiet and do as much or as little as i would like, preferably without pants. i miss having a place of my own where i could be as moody as i want to be and not have to justify it or talk about it or put on a happy mask.

work tonight wasn't terrible, but i still found myself wanting to be snippy when situations didn't really call for it. there have been a few anti-epiphanies floating through my head (part of why i kept waking up every 2-3 hours last night, which was as fun as you think it was) since this mood came on, but they weren't fleshed out enough for me to have a "aha!" moment about them.

it really didn't come to me until work was almost over. i am self-aware enough to know that a part of me is still in denial about lori's death. part of this mood is me dealing with that. the other part of this mood, though, is doing the math and remembering once again why february and march are so difficult for me at times.

the last time i saw my father alive was on his birthday, february 18, 1997. he died less than 2 weeks later. my mother died in march. james died in march. and now i can add lori's death date to the february calendar. this wasn't an "aha!" moment per se, but it damn sure helped me pinpoint why the hell i'm in such a mood. funny thing is, i was pondering booking a massage because holy shit the stress tension is real right now, but then i realized i might start sobbing on the massage table and that would be all kinds of uncomfortable.

instead, i will try to make sense of my thoughts and try to curb the urge to punch people in the face and try to make it through each day without dissolving into a puddle (well, in public, anyway) and we will see what happens. maybe one of these days, i will have a day off from adulting. i swear i would love nothing more than to relinquish my throne for a day and let someone else deal with all of this shit.

on: saying goodbye

hands down, this was the most difficult funeral i've been to since james died. in some ways, james' funeral was easier for me b/c some of y'all were there and troy was there and i knew w/o any doubt that if i faltered or fell, someone would catch me.

february 4. a text from carol asking if i was at home. me saying i was about to leave work and, as the texts progressing, me asking if i needed to call her. i did, and i did, and she told me lori was gone. luckily i was sitting down (and luckily carol asked if i was sitting just in case before she told me) b/c i might've hit the floor.

see, lori was gonna be invincible in my eyes. anyone who'd beaten the medical odds the way she had was bound to outlive us all. lori was the reason i coined the phrase "crazy faith and angry prayers," b/c when she was in the hospital for weeks on end for reasons that couldn't really be explained, i was crazy enough to believe she'd pull through, and angry enough to yell at god and shake my fist in his direction b/c this wasn't how shit was supposed to go down.

but it did, and she survived, and she kept us laughing and on our toes. we all knew she lost her legs, but lori never lost her spirit. her smile. her ability to make us double over at the most inane thing. it's one of the things i loved most about her.

fuck. i just typed "loved" right there and i'm not gonna lie, it kinda hurt.

anyway...from february 4 until this afternoon, i'd done a decent job, imo, of not falling apart. i kept telling myself that i could weep all of the tears at her funeral. that i would be able to say good-bye. that my family, and our church family, could say good-bye. i needed it. we needed it. lori was there to hold me up when daddy died. when james died. i really dislike attending funerals b/c of [reasons], but dammit, i was gonna be there for her and for her family. it was only right.

it wasn't until i was combing my hair while getting ready to head out this afternoon that it hit me. lori was there on my wedding day. she was in that inner sanctum helping me get ready.

and now i had to go to the same church that holds so many wonderful memories for me and say goodbye to my "play" auntie. i put that in quotes b/c really, lori was family. i mean, yeah, we called her "auntie lori," but that was more a term of endearment than any actual establishment of connection. she was there, and then she wasn't, and it is still difficult for me to deal with this. 

apropos of nothing, i found this pic of me & james, also from my wedding day, while i was looking for the above pic. it's one of my favorites. i missed "uncle james" something fierce today. i felt, if not heard him, during the service tonight, which was helpful in moments but totally broke me in others. i can tell y'all this b/c you're removed enough and you won't be broken by it. 

anyway, the picture of me & james: 

and now i need to try to catch up on sleep. i have totes magotes lost my viking status this week.

what a difference a few years can make

throughout today, i have been reminding myself that no matter how horrible the day was, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as things were three years ago.

no, seriously. this was me on valentine's day 2012. the hottest of messes. actually, that's not quite accurate. what's worse than a hot mess? b/c i'm pretty sure that's what i was this time 3 years ago.

today? i went to work and almost everyone on my crew today remembered to bring candy and/or snacks. one of our co-workers really loves valentine's day and we knew it'd mean a lot to her if we celebrated it somehow. it was pretty sweet.

also i have plenty of chocolate on hand, so i don't have to worry about my stash approaching dangerously low levels. which is good, b/c the wind chill is getting ridiculous and i don't wanna go outside until i absolutely have to.

compared to 2012, the fact that i'm back in chicago full-time and have a part-time job still amazes me sometimes. honestly, there were times when i really wasn't sure how i was going to claw my way back. there are still times when i'm not sure how i'm gonna make this all work, but at least i'm in the city i love and in close proximity to my wonderful circle of friends and yes i'm being a bit sappy about it. i'm entitled.

i hope y'all had a great day, or at least a day that didn't completely suck. :-)

on: a week full of feelings

omg you guys it's friday. if friday was an actual person, i might give it a hug or buy it a drink or something. holy christ. i remember being happy that january was over b/c january really was on some fuckshit for a lot of people i know and i was glad to see it go.

monday was lab work at the hospital before work. i schedule these tests right before work so i only have to make one trip up to evanston and not "lose" one of my days off. the problem, though, is that hospitals make me claustrophobic if i'm in one for longer than, say, 2 hours. luckily, i got to the hospital early (on the day after a blizzard, no less) and got in and out before i hit that threshold, but i totally felt myself on the verge of losing my shit. it also helped that i'd built in enough time between my appointment and when i needed to be at work to grab a late lunch and try to regain some semblance of normalcy.

tuesday was pretty productive, actually. i applied for jobs and filed my taxes (yay for making just enough to owe the government $10) and made an appointment to get my hair cut next week (i may or may not be considering cutting a significant amount of my hair, but i'm a wuss and who knows what i'll actually do). i also attempted to re-enroll in a health insurance plan (thank you, president obama!) but my doctor only accepts a plan that i'm not qualified for. at least i have the option of finding out if another doctor in the practice accepts one of my alternative plans.

wednesday. wednesday about broke me. first it was work-related stuff - my schedule might be changing a bit b/c of management [reasons]. then i found out that one of my nearest and dearest family friends died on wednesday. i know enough to know that i am still kind of in shock and/or denial about this news. i don't know when the funeral is yet, but i know i need to go and say my goodbyes and have all the feelings with my family, both of the blood relations and of the church variety. i also found out on wednesday that a bar in my neighborhood is closing and when i went there with a girlfriend wednesday night, the feelings kinda hit me out of nowhere. i realized that a lot of ladybrunches happened there right around the time that my life was going through all of the changes, so that bar was kind of a safe haven of sorts and now it's closing and omg feels.

yesterday my phone decided to stop functioning and verizon was nice enough to offer me an "upgrade" that would cost me more per month for half the data i'm getting now. yeah...no. at least i got my phone to work, thanks to all the experience i had resetting it back in november.

today was pretty solid, though, b/c i won free shoes from dsw. it's nice to be a winner. :-)

so, yeah. all of the feelings this week. at some point i will have some sort of meltdown (more than likely at the funeral) but until then, i'm relying on my ability to compartmentalize and i'll just keep swimming, just keep swimming...:P