The Darkness of the Abyss...

Abyss - A deep immeasurable space, gulf or cavity; vast chasm

I think the whole point of this blog has always been for me to figure out my brain. It has always felt like an abyss to me. This thing that is deep and seems to go on forever, that has 30 million things going on inside it. When I make the time for it, I write in this blog to get my feelings out. Because I want to believe that the things I'm going through in my life, someone has either gone through, is going through, or at least is willing to attempt to understand what it's like to go through what I'm going through. I know this is not a blog that will make me any money, it won't be anything that will suddenly become popular and be talked about on a major morning show or something like that. At the end of the day, this blog is for, well, me. 

There's a lot going on in my life lately. A lot more than I was prepared to deal with. I figured I had a lot to deal with being a mom, a fiance, working, trying to find time to clean my house, hang out with my family and friends, put time into photography, trying to plan a wedding and find time to take care of myself. Shouldn't that be enough for any one person? I thought so. 

My dad has lung cancer. Saying it makes it real. It makes it hurt my heart. It is completely devastating news, and has not been handled well by any member of my family. Which is to be expected. It's not as bad as it could be. They caught it in the early stages and they are saying that with any amount of luck and treatment, they could give my dad an additional 15-20 years to live. That's good. That means he might get to see another grandkid, he may get to watch Eli graduate from high school. It means I get to keep my daddy. He's one of my important persons. But, this is still going to be hard, the treatment is going to be rough, there's no guarantee that his body will even be able to deal with it, so we are obviously still in the early stages of this and will have to figure out what's going to be done and what he'll decide to do. It's his life and every decision he makes now, he has to decide if it's going to be worth it. I mean, surgery guarantees that they'll get the cancer, but could leave him with 15% usage of his lungs, which means he'll have to be on oxygen for the rest of his life, which he does not want. Again, it's early, and he has more options than most for treatment, so it's a lot of browsing and deciding. He's better off than his sister...

His sister, my Aunt Pat, has cancer also. Her's has spread. Even with radiation, they are only giving her a year to live. Her only option is radiation and chemo and to go home and live out the rest of her life as best as she can. My dad's family is an optimistic one, so even in the face of those odds, my aunt is still ok with it all. She has 6 daughters, 14 grandkids and 6 great grandkids. She's traveled, enjoyed a wonderful life with her husband (who died about 15 years ago), spends time with her sisters, brother and daughters when she can, and makes the dirtiest jokes on the face of the earth. She is a literal laugh riot. I feel terrible that I have not been back to Pittsburgh since I've had Eli, so that she can meet him, so as long as all goes well with Dad, I'm hoping to make the trip sometime in the next few months or so. Hopefully. 

Anyways, all this turmoil is just making for insanity. My mom seems to be literally losing her mind, and her frustration with the cancer is turning into frustration towards me, because it's easier to take it out on me than on anyone else. I deal with it as best as I can, and then proceed to lose my own mind and freak out on her as to why she has to pick this time to yell at me. It's a nightmare, literally, my worse nightmare come true. I don't have the heart to take all this. I can't deal fighting with people as it is, so to have my mom get riled up just makes me an emotional wreck. Ray deals with all the fallout from this, loses his temper and threatens to tell everyone to go to hell. Anybody who makes me cry, immediately ends up on Ray's bad side. He doesn't seem to understand that I cry at the drop of a hat anyhow. It's fine. We argue, then we make up and everything is fine again, until my mom loses her mind again. Ray will probably be mad at her for a few weeks, and then he'll get over it too. 

Ray's cousin decided to pick this time to lose his job and need a place to stay. He has a little one year old, and I took pity on him, and agreed to allow him, his baby mama and their kid to live in our house for a couple weeks. (Until the first of August.) After his inability to be reliable and to understand that if he lives in my house and just plays video games, he shall be babysitting my kid, since my parents can't and we need help, he's getting out this week.  He was supposed to show up yesterday to babysit, I finally text messaged him and asked if he was coming, he said no, I threw my hands up in the air, called my friend Ashton, got lucky and she wasn't working, so she agreed to watch Eli. Called Ray and told him what was up, he lost his mind and said he was telling him to get out. Fine. Honestly, with everything else going on with my family, I can't deal with people who I can't rely on, when they agree to be reliable. Apparently, we aren't any "fun". I didn't know it was in my job description to be "fun". I thought I was supposed to be a human being with emotions and problems, and good and bad. I also have pimples and am about 100,000 pounds overweight. Yes, this comes from a selfish place, but I have ENOUGH crap to deal with, without dealing with his crap. He can find somewhere else to live. 

Anyways, the WHOOOOLE point of all of this, is that I have spend YEARS exploring the deep dark abyss of my brain, and I still am completely lost. How is one person supposed to deal with all of this. Why, after all the years of crap I've been through, am I still completely lost on how to handle all this. You would figure, since I've dealt with some variation of these problems with my family's health, my mom's mental problems and my amazing ability to get myself in trouble without even trying, that I would know how to handle this. But, I don't. I guess I need to keep exploring the abyss. The answer has to be in there somewhere. (I may also need Xanax. That would be killer.)

Andrew Largeman - Good Luck exploring the infinite abyss.

Albert - Thank you! And, hey, you too! - Garden State

Hmmm...oh, hey there...

Yes, I slack on blog posts. Regularly. I have a life outside of my computer, and a serious lack of motivation for wanting to devel into my thoughts more than necessary, however, because of what is going on lately, I feel like I should. Writing down where I am now, and looking back on it, seems to help motivate me to improve my life and know what needs improving and what is ok.

I find that most times, when it seems like my life is going ok, that's usually when things are about to go bananas. I also always go back to my self-improvement project I was working on a few years ago, while I was preggers, because that seems to help remind me of what I want to do. I think. My knowledge of what I want to do with myself seems to change from year to year, so, I try to roll with it. Whatever.

The point, is that when I look back at where I was four years ago, compared to now, things are much better. But, they could still be better than what they are now. I have my own place, but am completely broke on a regular basis. Add to that, the fact that my legit job that I've held for the last year just announced job cuts and hour cuts, does not bode well for the gal that just got a legit place. So, I'm back to job hunting, but at least I have a current job with decent hours, pay and benefits, which makes life much easier. However, my standard of living is higher now, so I expect to find a job with at least the same pay and close to the same benefits. I am having a debate about whether I can actually afford the benefits or not, but I can change my mind on them until October of this year, hopefully I will have another job by then and not have to worry about it.

I've noticed something about myself. It's always outside circumstances that push me towards doing one thing or another. Don't get me wrong, there are certain things in life that I'm always striving towards, like being a better photographer, or a better cook. But, once I got this job that I have now, I got comfy. Then, things got shaken up, and now I gotta figure out a new plan. Again. I guess life is like this for everyone.

Anyways, I've got other things going on, stuff I'm not going to talk about right now, because I don't want to be all melodramtic and crap. However, this stuff is the kind of stuff that shakes me to the core. And, I was filling my friend Ashton in on it, and discussing how all this stuff happening makes me realize how much I just want to go ahead and get married. Screw the photobooth, fancy food, sweet dj, designer dress, fancy decorations, etc. Ray and I just need to figure out how to get married. Ashton did her wedding for $1500 total. I'm completely overwhelmed and don't know where to start. Ashton stepped in said she would help me! Yay! We're going to get together over the next few months with all the rest of the people who would help, like moms, dads, sibs, friends etc and figure out how everybody could help, so that Ray and I can get married by April of next year. My goal when I was house hunting was to have a yard large enough to have a backyard wedding in, however, that did not work out, at all. So, Ashton and her hubby Dave offered up there house to use for a wedding. It will obviously be small, but, with any luck, and epic good time. I go for epic good times. So, I'll try to keep on top of everything, not slack, and hopefully get this wedding planned by next year.

I got this. I can do this.