It Hasn't Even Been Two Months...

I really wish I could write you all a happy, up-beat post about how things are going just swimmingly.  I mean, well, they are going well.  But...they aren't.  Nothing is the same now, and it is so hard to wrap my head around that fact.  Why can't things just be the same?  But, my father's death has colored everything...mostly for the better.  I so appreciate the relationships that I have in my life.  I don't let myself get bogged down by bullshit.  Family is much more central in my life.  But then I remember WHY those things are so much more centered and balanced, and I just crumble to pieces.

It's like a lightening bolt when I remember that he is gone.  My brain plays back the highlights reel of losing him, and I'm shocked all over again.  It doesn't happen all the time, and when you're a semi-trained, aspiring clinician like myself, you start worrying if this grieving is passing over into depression.  But then you remind yourself that you've never grieved like this...you've never lost like this...and so, you don't really know what is appropriate.  Or how to do it.  How to deal.  There really isn't a handbook on how this is supposed to be (and if there is, would I really trust it?).

Everything is splitting into this convenient dichotomy.  A little bit of bad with the good.  A little bit of good with the bad.  Time flying by/time standing still.  Which is evidenced by the title of this post.  My dear daddy hasn't even been gone two months, but it feels like an eternity has passed.  Yet, I feel that just yesterday, I was talking to him about life and listening to that big booming laughter as I told him about my antics.

I don't wish the pain that I am experiencing on even my worst enemy.  Grief...the great uniter that no one can escape.

I do have the best friends and family ever.  Even just the sweet messages along the way from people I haven't talked to in years puts a little bit of light into my world.  I am in awe of how good people can be.  And I think that is a special gift that my father has given to me.  I sure was getting hopeless.  And he sure does keep teaching me things, even though he is not physically here.  So, here's to my daddy, a force and a power bigger and better than I ever knew.  I love you so much.