Absence

My dad's absence is with me wherever I go.

I feel it when I wake up, especially when I receive a text message before my eyes have opened. I wonder, briefly, if it's him sending me a picture of something weird: the sign of a diner I hated, Exit 23, or a blurry picture of a baby fox he thought was cute.

I feel it now, when I'm home alone all day because it's spring break. I would usually call him and tell him I was "booooooored." "Uh-oh," he would say, and then would launch into some tedious, drawn out story about what he did today. I was supposed to take my Master's Examination this week, but I had to put it on hold because I wasn't emotionally ready for it. If I had been taking it, he would have messaged me every morning when he woke up with a "good luck today" and would have called me during the break, eagerly awaiting to hear how I did.

I felt it earlier, when I was driving my Volkswagen Beetle to Michael's. I had the sunroof open and was blasting a Taylor Swift CD. I thought of the sunny day my dad bought me my car. He hadn't wanted to buy a Beetle, but he did. "It's been my dream car since I was 11," I said. "I know. Mandy Moore was driving one in that stupid music video, except she wasn't 16 so she wasn't actually driving. They had to pull her."

I felt it when I spent $15 on scrapbooking supplies. He would have told me that I spend money frivolously, and that I need to save more. When I went over to TJ Maxx to get some k cups, he would have admonished me for drinking "rooty-poo" coffee and bragged about how he only drank store brand instant. Yet, whenever he visited me, he would quietly grumble that my coffee was better.

I hit the curb in a horrible attempt at parallel parking. He would have keeled over in laughter.

I felt it when I came home and had Culver's for lunch. I thought about how we never had a chance to introduce him to Culver's chicken strips. I had often told him they were the best I ever had. Had he tried them, he would have complained. Food never lived up to his high expectations.

Perhaps I felt it most yesterday, when I was that tricky combination of sad and angry. I would have called him, and he would have talked me down the ledge. I had my friends and Chris to guide me down, but it wasn't as steady as when my dad was holding the ladder.

I suppose I am eagerly looking forward to the day I don't feel it every minute of every hour of every day. But, at the same time, I often wonder if it will be lonely when I stop hearing his thoughts, and am left with just my own.

Because every day can't be a sad one.

In Defense of the C-Bomb

The best and worst thing about having a blog is that anyone can read it.

Losing my dad has taught me who my real friends are, or at the very least, who my real friends were. People I haven’t spoken to in years reached out to me on Facebook. Friends I haven’t talked to in both years and months came to my dad’s funeral and wake. My childhood best friend picked me up from the airport and her mom cooked my family dinner. My best friend came to visit me, and we were just able to spend some time together although, admittedly, I don’t think I was much fun. I’ve had so many Internet friends from an online community I belong to send me sympathy cards and well-wishes. In short, I have realized how blessed I have been.

But (and you must have known there was a but coming), I’ve recently realized that a group of girls read this blog who have no right to do so, and I feel called to write about how much this truly upsets me. For simplicity’s sake, and in keeping with the theme of this blog, let’s call them Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, and Drusilla.

I was friends with the three of them for about a year. Admittedly, it was fun and I truly did love Lady Tremaine. Yet, at its core, I’ve come to realize it was a friendship based mostly on appearances, and not actions. Moreover, it was a catty friendship, an activity I am ashamed to say I participated in with fervor; in hindsight, I can only wonder what they said about me when I wasn’t there. From calling boyfriends “losers” to disparaging another’s clinginess and one’s seeming desire to spend more time with her boyfriend than with her, it was immature and inappropriate, and I regret everything I ever said.

It all fell apart this summer. Lady Tremaine, who had already backed out of being a bridesmaid in my wedding because she claimed she couldn’t afford to feed herself, nonetheless attend my wedding, booked a week at the Contemporary for Anastasia’s wedding and bought yet another frivolous, overpriced item. I simply couldn’t handle the lies or the cattiness anymore. In a fit of further immaturity, when talking with my childhood best friend on twitter, I called her a c-bomb.

Please, don’t judge me too harshly. If my dad taught me anything in his 47 years on this planet, it was how to curse. The c-bomb has never seemed an extreme profanity to me; honestly, I use it more frequently than  the PG “jerk.” In high school, the aforementioned childhood best friend, Becky, wrote the word on my dad’s ceiling when we painted the dining room. My sophomore year English folder had the word “COONT” spelled out in giant letters, written by another friend. (Coont, by the way, is the Scottish pronunciation of the word; my dad went through a phase where he would gleefully say “You’re all just a bunch of coots!”) I’ve always liked the sound of the word: its hard “c” and forceful ending add emphasis, while also sounding a bit silly. Because swearing is silly! It’s rash and immature, and people only use swears when they can’t think of anything more intelligent to say.

She didn’t take it too well. She told me she would never forgive me for what I had said, and referring to her as my favorite swear word was the worst thing a person could do. She abashed me for my immature behavior, while refusing to acknowledge that she did anything wrong. And, honestly, it hurt for a long time, and it probably still hurts.

Unfortunately, we still run in the same Internet circles: sometimes, the Internet can feel more like a small town than a global enterprise. I think most people who read this blog know this, but I kept an online journal on a Disney fan website where I wrote about my wedding planning. I know they still read my planning journal: Becky keeps tabs on their twitter accounts at times, and Lady Tremaine and Drusilla publicly mocked my wedding registry. (Drusilla also called me fat, an insult perhaps even more uncreative than the c-bomb.) It bothered me, knowing that people were reading my posts only to insult me, but my desire to share my wedding plans outweighed my desire to keep them hidden.

But I wish I could keep this blog hidden from them. Right after my dad passed away, I actually thought for a moment that one of them might at least send me an email---we were, after all, close at one point in our lives--- but I never heard from them. For comparison’s sake, the girl who Chris broke up with in order to date me made an appearance at my dad’s wake, an action that truly touched me. Thanks to the tracker widget below, I know they’re reading this blog: and I just can’t believe their nerve. If history has proven anything about them, they’re reading my blog in order to taunt and ridicule me at a time when I am most vulnerable.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d say that’s worse than calling someone a cunt.

The Last Time

I've been dreading writing this entry, but it's something I need to do, especially today.

2 months ago I saw my dad for the last time.

It was at Chef Mickey's character breakfast at the Contemporary. We had a really long wait for our tables, and everyone was cranky, including me. I was exhausted from the wedding day, excited to stay at the Grand Floridian for the first time, and I had no idea I would never see my dad again. No idea. (How could I have?) We didn't even sit at the same table.

I had told him prior to my wedding that I wasn't going to spend the day with him on the 7th. That I only got one honeymoon, and I didn't want to spend it with my dad. (My dad had a habit of, how can I put this nicely... being kind of clingy.) He ended up spending most of the day with my friend Becky and her mom, and he had a great time. Rumor has it he even liked the Haunted Mansion, my favorite ride.

He didn't hug me goodbye. Just fist bumped me. Which is oddly appropriate.

If I had known, I would have done things differently. Of course I would have. I would have spent the entire day with him and shown him the Walt Disney World I love so much. I would have said a proper goodbye, and I would have told him that I love him. If I had known, I would have begged him to do something, anything to change Fate, so that I didn't have to go through this; so my grandparents didn't have to go through this.

But I didn't know. And sometimes, just sometimes, it is so difficult not to live in a sea of regret and wishes; an ocean of would haves.

U Ok

According to what everyone says ---and, truly, everyone says so---, loss is supposed to get easier with time. Wounds are sewn up, tears dry, people heal. But the more I think about the future (my future), the more difficult it becomes to do so.

My dad has been gone for just more than a month, and with time, my sadness has only changed, not lessened. A month ago, I was in shock and denial, mixed, I suppose, with anger and frustration. But now, I have truly begun to understand just was loss is.

My dad is never going to see me graduate from Marquette. He's not going to be there when I buy a house, and he won't be able to live in the basement with Thunder 3 like we always joked about. I'm never going to be able to give him another useless, crappy Father's Day gift that he would inevitably bitch about. He's never going to call me at 9:00am on my birthday again. I'll never receive another birthday check or another Christmas present, and we won't be able to go out to eat and complain about my grandmother's potatoes on Thanksgiving. And sometimes I just don't know how I can face all of these holidays, and all of these important life events, without him there. (Right now is one of those times.) I already post pictures to facebook with a certain twinge of sadness and regret because he won't be able to make a snarky comment about them; how can I ever possibly graduate without him there?!

I wish I could say it makes me angry that he won't be there. Anger is easy; anger takes no effort. Sadness is draining. Sorrow makes me want to stay in bed all day and makes me not care about my schoolwork or my teaching; makes me not care about, well, anything. Days like today take a Herculean effort; an amount of effort that is both draining and exhausting. And days like today come out of nowhere, and are prompted by the smallest of instances.

I just can't recover from this intense feeling of loneliness. My mom hasn't contacted me since her immature scene at the wake, and obviously my dad is no longer there to send me a worried, drunken instant message: "u ok," he would say. No, I'm just not okay. Not today.

Feats of Strength

On Monday, I had my first real emotional breakdown since the funeral. It was quick and unexpected, and truly seemed to come out of nowhere. One minute I was calmly watching TV on the couch; the next, I was crying my eyes out on the living room floor. My sadness physically hurt in a way that seems indescribable. I have never experienced loss as I experienced it on Monday night.

I know last time I wrote, I said that I was surprised by how I could no longer relate to anyone. I hate to be redundant, but I am also surprised by how sudden grief is. While I have learned to live with sadness as an everyday companion, I have not yet learned how to deal with true and utter grief.

I am, by nature, a strong person. Everyone keeps reminding me of this; everyone tells me that I am "strong and will get through this." For me, there is no question as to whether or not I will get through it (what is my other option, after all?), but I am honestly tired of hearing about my feats of strength. I'm struggling with how to put this into words, but I don't mean to say that I am attempting to put on a certain face because I want people to perceive me a certain way; it's nothing like that. I simply don't have the benefit to be grieving all of the time. I am a teacher, and I have to put on my teaching persona every Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday. Likewise, I have classes every day of the week, and I do not want to come to school a blubbering mess. It is, then, by force of habit and will that I get up out of bed and appear "fine." It is a job requirement, for lack of a better word.

But I am not fine, and I am okay with that. I am also trying my hardest not to be a "White": a White, as my dad always said, does not deal with his or her problems, and pushes them down until they become forgotten. But I think being a White is what killed my dad, and I don't want to do that; not with this. It's just hard, sometimes, not to brush everything off with a laugh and a smile.

It's all (Not) Relative

One of the most surprising things about grief is how difficult it has become to relate to other people.

Truthfully, I am not the most... how shall I say... social advantageous of girls. I am awkward, and I don't make friends easily. I'm usually invited to various events and gatherings, but I tend to avoid them: not because I am shy or dislike my friends, but because I know there will be alcohol. I drink sometimes, but I have a mental block against being in a large group of people, surrounded by liquor. The smell of it reminds me of so many bad moments, and I simply can't do it. For me, it's not about just not drinking, it's about not exposing myself to the smell; to the atmosphere; to the inevitable drunkenness. The mere thought makes me melancholy.

As a result, I haven't had a large group of friends since high school. Both undergraduate and graduate student culture is centered around drinking (or at least meeting in bars), and so I have had to distance myself. It's lonely sometimes, but I truly enjoy staying at home with my husband and my dog. Some of my favorite moments of the last two years have been spent simply snuggling on the small couch with the two of them.

Yet, since my dad's passing, I have found it increasingly difficult to relate to anyone (besides my husband), because I have it in my head that no one understands what I am going through. And I know I am not the first person to lose a parent, and I am not the first person to lose someone she loved very, very much. I can just no longer comprehend things that used to matter to me so much. I hear my students complain about having to wake up for an 8:00am chemistry class, and I wish with all of my heart that such a problem was mine. All of my friends in school right now are busy studying for our Master's Exam (a test I have had to push back by six months because I could not imagine taking it right now), and I envy their stress and worry. I wish I could take the test; I wish I could graduate with them, but I can't do it. I just don't have it in me.

Perhaps more than anything, I wish I could go back to the person I was when I was planning my wedding. I made myself sick with worry and stress over things that seem so insignificant now. I would give my world to worry about having four bridal party members drop out... instead of having to face all this.

I don't mean to say that all of these complaints I have mentioned aren't legitimate concerns: they certainly are, and I am not trying to insult anyone I may know who might stumble across this thing. I just wish we could trade places: not forever, but just for a moment.