the trip i dreaded

I woke up on Thursday morning to my alarm.
I went to my first class at 8am. British Literature.
I couldn’t focus. Talking about love and romance and death.
I didn’t make it to my other class. An e-mail was sent to the professor.
I ran into my old roommate in the coffee shop. Light-hearted talking.
I worked from noon to three in the afternoon. Lots of acting.
I started feeling sick. It started to sink in why I was leaving.
I went back to my apartment to pack for the trip. Black dress, shoes, Cardinal shirt.
I got food to get my mind off things. Checked the e-mail and blog.
I hit the road at four pm. Arrived at Lewis Funeral Chapel at six pm.
I met up with a friend, Misty and cousin, Emily. An aunt I haven’t seen in years was in the parking lot.
I visited with friends of family, people I don’t know. Happy tears, bittersweet tears, sad tears.
I came back to the house. The house…
I found out that several people were staying here. Someone had claimed my old room already.
I slept in her room. It feels so natural to be in here.
I woke up Friday morning. Slipped on a new black dress and heels.
I wore a light pink ribbon pinned to my left side. It matched my tattoo on my ankle.
I arrived at the church about 9:40am. Tissues in hand.
I walked in and saw a mass of people. Familiar faces mixed with unfamiliar.
I sat down in the pew just in front of the one she did. Direct view of her this morning.
I heard music over the people. A song that perfectly described her.
I listened to the beautiful words of a good friend. Showing a side of her that not many saw.
I laughed at the memories he brought up. She would have liked the atmosphere.
I cried when the pallbearers took the casket away. Held my dad’s hand as we walked out.

Wednesday September 17, 2008

Unknown time – the world got a whole lot darker

6:50am – “Hello?”
“Good morning! Wake up!”
“…I don’t want to get up. Do I have to go to school?”
“No. You can sleep. I’ve been up for an hour. Gotta open today…”
“…yeah, I’ve got to take a shower.”
“Alright. I’ll talk to you later.”

7:08am – Missed call from mother.
Voicemail “Hey, Kristin….uh, just give me a call when you’re done with class. Love you…”

7:20am – “Hey, baby.”
“Hey. What’d you need?”
“Are you done with classes? Where are you?”
“No, I’m just about to head out. What’s up?”
“Honey, I don’t know how to tell you this….grandma passed away this morning….”
“…..”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah….I’m fine.”
“All I can say….is she’s in a better place. She’s not suffering anymore….”
“I know….I know.”
“I’ll call you when we have the funeral arrangements.”
“Have you told Amber yet?”
“Yeah, I just got off the phone with her….”
“Okay…I-I’ve got to get to class….”
“Are you going to be okay driving? If you need one of us to come get you…Daddy said he would. Miranda offered too…”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”
“I love you too.”

*************************************************************

For those who don’t know my grandmother…or didn’t, I should say, she was the most amazing person I knew. It’s not fair.

….I wish you were here, too.

for the time being…

…I will not be myself. I got word last night that my grandmother isn’t doing well.
My mother sent me a text. Upon first receiving and reading the contents, I was appalled. What nerve she has, telling me something so magnanimous in a text message. I had to have some stress relief. I went to smoke hookah with a friend. The world disappeared for those two hours.
I got back to the apartment and went to sleep. I had a headache and was going on little sleep anyway. I didn’t do my homework. I didn’t care. I wanted the world to stop spinning. I wanted to cease to be.
I woke up this morning and went to school. Two classes. I received and missed a call from my sister. Voice mail. She wanted to know if I was going to make it back to Arkansas for the Labor Day Weekend. I have work. We started talking about my previous night with my mother. My sister had also spoken with her.
Things are bad. My grandmother hasn’t eaten in days. She is starting to mottle. (For those who don’t know what that is, it is when blood stops circulating. Starts in the lower extremities and works its way up.) Her end is near. I know now why my mother didn’t call to tell me. She’s been crying. According to my sister, she hasn’t been at work either. Things are falling apart without my grandmother to hold them together.
I have tried to figure out why she’s holding on. I have racked my brain with different reasons as to why she would remain in such a lifeless life…and I come up with nothing. I know she cares about us. I know she realizes we’ll hurt when she’s gone. I know she knows we love her. But we don’t want her to be in pain. No one here would ask her to stay in this pain, both physically and emotionally, to be near us when we make it back to her room.

All that said, I’ve lost the person I would go to about this. I have no one to turn to anymore for comfort. I’ve never been able to go to someone and be able to just cry. I’ve been the strong one. People called me to ask them for comfort, a shoulder to cry on, a friend. I finally found someone that could be that for me…and they aren’t here anymore. I feel so lost without them.

A new job responsibility…

And it’s gonna be the death of me. I am now working from 7am to 4pm. And I have a pager. That can start alerting me at 3am. 3 AM! I am not looking forward to it. I received my first page at 6:04. In the morning. I was fresh out of the shower. I didn’t even have a chance to put on a shirt! And the page wasn’t useful to me. It was for a company in another town. It was a pointless page! And then barely 5 minutes later, I received 4 pages at once. FOUR! I had to call a person and talk to them. AT 6 AM! ARGH!

So, a lot has happened since I posted last. I’ve had a couple strange days. I’ve been depressed and no one but those who care about me at work knew. I hid it from everyone else. I’m so tired of feeling like that. It sucks beyond all reason. But I’m out of it again. I get those valleys occasionally, so I don’t worry too much about it. I know it all passes. I’ve also had days where I was on the highest of hills. I loved it. Nothing was going wrong, everything was so…perfect. (Save a few things I won’t delve into here.) I was seeing my bank account grow, I got a raise at work, I was spending time doing things I wanted…it was pure bliss. Then I woke up. Reality hit. I really do hate my job, and most of those I work with, my mother still thinks I’m stupid for going on my trip (31 DAYS!!!), my sister still disgusts me with her racial attitude, my family is still the most retarded group of people I have yet to come in contact with (and I see some “special” people daily).

I came back to the house one day after work and spending a little time by myself, and found my mother on the couch talking on the phone. I could tell she wasn’t happy, but I didn’t really want to hear about how work sucked, I know that much already, so I just laid down to rest. The next thing I hear is my grandmother over the intercom. She is having one of those bad days. Nothing we do can help, so I stop trying to help. It’s all pointless, she doesn’t even know what would help. My mother gave her 4 hydromorphones and 1 adivan. That’s enough to nearly kill someone. She should have been out cold, but she was still in so much pain. I hate seeing her like that, I hate hearing about her like that, I hate hearing her scream in pain.
And no one else in the family knows how bad it is. The hospital scare was barely a scratch on the surface of what hell my household family goes through. No one realizes what it’s like to LIVE with that. EVERY FREAKING DAY. And who can blame them? It’s like when my aunt freaked out when my father asked if she could stay over for the day on Memorial day so my mother and he could go out. She flipped. Not in front of my grandmother, of course not. She stormed out of the room first. She was appalled that he would have the audacity to ask her to witness something like that. She is living in this fantasy world where her mother isn’t really that sick. And who can blame her? Why would you willingly put yourself through that? Why wake up from some dream where life isn’t that bad for someone you love? They aren’t as stupid as my parents like to make them out to be. They see how miserable my mother is. Why would they subject themselves to that torture?

So, work sucks. I hate waking up in the mornings. I get sick when I think about going back to that place. And now we have 2 new girls. One has been there all week. She’s a sweetheart. She needs to leave before she realizes how horrible it is to work there. The backstabbing hypocrites, two-faced bitches too. I hate it.

31 days…and I’ll be free of that place for at least 5 days…at least.

It’s just one of those days…

…and my last post wasn’t the best thing to leave up here. I’ve been going through some weird emotional fluxes. There is no telling which emotion will be the focus for my day. If I’m left alone for too long, I start to feel depressed-not sad, depressed-or angry. If I’m busy I begin to feel nothing. I am so focused on whatever I am doing to feel anything. I may get overwhelmed for a while and start to feel frustrated….but it’s a nice reprieve from what I feel when I have nothing to do.
I’m just so tired of feeling like this. I hate that I get so utterly depressed. I’m so tired of feeling this way. I wouldn’t describe myself as a depressed person, I never have, but I do get into these….valleys. I have the hills, too. High hills. I love that feeling. To feel like nothing can bring you down…ever.

I finally told my mother about my trip in July. She wasn’t too excited about it. In fact, she got mad at me.
“I used to think you were so smart. But some of the things you’ve been doing lately make me think differently….”
“I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“You say that.”
“I promise. I’ll be okay.”

So…she’s mad at me. I think she’s more scared than anything. To see her baby girl growing up…that’s got to be terrifying. I can’t imagine it. But she needs to understand that she didn’t raise an idiot. I am going to be fine. I will. I have to.

My grandmother is back at the house. She went straight from the ICU to the house. There was no room in the hospital for her. And they needed to move 7 people into the ICU from the ER, I believe. So, they sent her home. She gained 30 pounds in less than a week. She doesn’t even look the same. She just looks….miserable. She couldn’t even feed herself. Her hands were so shaky that she kept spilling the food or drink. Her arms are swollen from the crap the hospital pumped into her in massive amounts. She hasn’t been that big in years. It’s scary. 30 pounds in 6 days. It’s unhealthy.

So, I am going back to work. I am going to try to feel better. I am in one of those valleys today.