I’m sorry I haven’t been around much lately. It’s not fair to people I care very much about to be silent! The long story short is that life hits you very fast and all at once sometimes on many levels, and my unfortunate tendency in hectic mode is to shut out and focus on just getting to the next day. It’s no excuse, of course, but I do hope you understand—and I hope you all are hanging in there as well.
I’m not sure when I can return to writing again, but I hope to. It always seems like I’m waiting to have some time and energy, but I think I’m just going to have to intentionally build a block for the creative things important to me among everything. Even if I’m not publishing anything, I am always thinking about it in one part of my mind. I love those stories, and I’m so glad to share them with you.
Thank you to anyone who was checking in! I love you all always, even if I don’t have the words to reply—and I’m always going to try to better show that.
Tl;dr below the cut: details of life been going on.
Thanks for being curious! I’ll try to be as brief as I can, but I have traditionally failed at every attempt at that in these posts. To be honest, the past year or two has been a bit of a blur, so I’ll just talk in generalities rather than a specific timeline.
Everything at work changed at the organizational level. Unfortunately I can’t say much about it—for personal reasons, which I know is odd to say. My work is mixed in with family ties, justices and beliefs I advocate for, etc, so I can’t talk too much about it—but boy is that lasagna layered. That dynamic alone is both a hugely important but often very stressful to navigate in of itself.
Among the organizational change, my position drastically changed—I went from clinician to a manager of the sizeable department I worked for—and then a couple months later inherited a second, nearly double the size department to manage on top of it when my fellow manager left.
Right as my position was changing for the first time, my dad—living states away—got sick with some still undiagnosed illness. Bizarre body movements, signs of a stroke but no evidence found—not Parkinson’s, though the symptoms seem somewhere between it and a slow rolling dementia. If you’d like to read a small loving rant about my dad: My father is the most wonderful, kindest, politest, humblest human who is also a literal unrecognized hero twice over—he dedicated his entire life his two jobs. One was his role as an assistant Harbormaster—not infrequently rescuing people, lost in dark seas in the dead winter nights (among much grimmer tales)—a job which got paid pennies for, with decades-old resources and, if he was lucky, his name might be pages deep in the local paper. The second job was as a teacher in the worst school in the city next door—and he taught the “behavioral needs” kids. He was stabbed multiple times—the final time was in the stomach, shortly after he had come back from his leave after battling prostate cancer. He understood the kids were sick, or needed help. In addition to being a great teacher (I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but my dad often help walk us through homework to ensure we knew it—requested or not), my dad would take his students to different places— the beach for a wildlife lesson, or the local laser tag place just for fun they often couldn’t afford)—on his own dime. He tried to give them an education about the world and life, and not just books they had given up trying to read. Jeeze, sorry, I need to be able to do a cut under this cut. I could go on for days.
After that attack, my dad has had much random issues, landing him in the hospital and my family in crisis mode one time after another. We find (but never confirm) that the neurological attack might be from an infection in his knee—a botched or failing knee replacement (his third—standing on a choppy boat or at a chalkboard all day is murder on your knees). The infection has spread terribly. We nearly lose him. He continues to show cognitive decline. He improves. He gets pneumonia, we nearly lose him again. He comes back to us for a while. A random night a few weeks later, the mesh in his stomach from his prostate cancer a decade ago has failed and is suddenly twisted around his intestine (they guess related to the coughing/pneumonia). We nearly lose him again. He survives. He needs a knee replacement surgery now, but they don’t know if he can handle it or the risk of infection. He survives. Theyve noticed something wrong with his heart. He has heart surgery, survives. Another heart surgery, survives again. All the while continuing to cognitively decline. He’s a brilliant man—it’s heartbreaking to see, but I know he’s still in there all the while.
I know I missed some things above. As all of this is going on, I’m flying back and forth between states, trying to manage two departments that were previously handled by two incredibly competent, incredibly busy people that is now just me. The work is important, there’s pressures of family legacy involved, it’s nonprofit and clinical and complex and often dealing with very serious physical, mental health, ethical or even legal matters.
And, of course, trying to balance the normal things of life—making time for friends and family, trying to maintain (and sustain) my home, dating and now maintaining a beloved partnership… These things are also important. And then my parents were here for just the summer, so I’m trying to spend each moment I can stand to spare with them, in that horrid phase where it’s in your face of how little time may be left. And of course, there are the other things—other loved ones lost, trying to do what you can and pay attention to the important things in the world, trying to enjoy sitting holding my cat’s paw while marathoning YouTube and a phone game after a long day at work.
Again, I hope to be back to things someday. In my free time I write snippets, dream scenarios. I miss the writing—and the people—and it’s hard to find a pinhole to carve out for any time for myself. I’m trying, I’m trying, and I love you all.
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