Thursday Thoughts

I haven't posted in a while, but I've been in kind of a dark place lately.


I called my father on Father's Day, and the news I got was that he has cirrhosis of the liver, and may not have much time left. He's almost 65, and has already had a quadruple bypass surgery, and also had a stint put in his leg for another issue. Plus, they (his insurance company) is blaming the cirrhosis on alcohol use, which isn't true, he has never been much of a drinker. In order to even be put on a waiting list for a transplant he'd have to go to rehab. He sees no point in doing that, since he doesn't need rehab for alcohol, so he's just waiting it out, living his life as he sees fit until the end. 


I've never been really very close with my dad, but the news hit me hard. I don't want to see him go like that, but if it's his time, then it's his time. I just think it's too soon. He should have at least 20 or 30 good years left in him, but it seems that's not to be. 


Our family is not one known for its longevity, so I should have seen this coming. Both sets of my grandparents were dead before I got to be 10 years old. One died before I was born, and the other 3 only made it about halfway into their 70's before they died. I figured though that since that was the 1970's back then, and medical technology has advanced quite a bit in the years since, that my parents would live a lot longer. Seems that's not going to be the case. 


My mother is 67, and for her, that's already past the point that the women in her family normally live to. Her sister died at 42 of breast cancer turned bone cancer, and her mother died at 59 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Basically if you're a woman on my mom's side of the family and you've made it past the age of 60, you've accomplished something. I just don't know what will happen to my mother though when my dad dies, he's her whole world, and I have all ideas she will follow him to the grave soon after he passes.


In other news, my financial situation has taken a downturn with the garnishment they are taking from my pay. If I haven't mentioned it before, my wife has a medical bill to the tune of 25,000 dollars that they had previously been garnishing HER check for, but, I assume they were not satisfied with what they were getting from her. Since I am married to her, that same bill magically ended up on MY credit report too, several years ago, and now they have decided to start taking it from my check. Not fun. At all.


Otherwise, work has been going well, I am still stocking shelves every night, which is still enjoyable. I have decided to get another job during the day however, as with the garnishment my checks have left me without enough to live on each week, let alone have anything extra to play with. I tried with one company, they called me to come in for an "interview", which turned out to be nothing more than a group meeting with 7 other people. This guy came in and gave us his pitch on why we should come work for their insurance company. I was intrigued at first, thinking this might be a good opportunity to make REAL money. Then I found out there was a cost involved. I would have to pay to get licensed to sell insurance. And I don't have the 340 dollars to do it. So, I'll have to find something else. As they say, the right job will come along when it's time.


I haven't seen my daughters in a few weeks. They are eager to see me every time I get over there, but there just hasn't been gas money to make the trip lately. They called me on Father's Day, and I got to talk to them briefly, but that was it. Hopefully soon I'll be able to scrounge up enough to go and see them.


All this, coupled with live in general, has had me feeling very lonely lately. For the first time in my life, I've even had thoughts about ending it all and starting again in the next life, from this vantage point it seems that I haven't accomplished anything in THIS one. Did I learn the lessons I came here to learn? If you look at the decisions I've made in my life and seen how many choices I've made that were so, so wrong, then you might say "No". But maybe that's what this life has been all about. Making bad choices, and then dealing with the consequences emotionally. Emotional control, that's what this has all been about, and so far, I've been failing miserably. That's mainly because for the most part, I have had no idea what "control" of my emotions even meant. I do know that it's not about wallowing in self pity, or allowing ANY emotion to get the best of me, and overwhelm my sense of logic. It's a work in progress, and will remain so, till this lifetime is over.


I posted a few weeks ago about motivation, and how I needed to get out of my comfort zone, or rather, I had to stop "settling". Ever since then, life has seemed to send me situations to deal with to show me where I have decided to "settle". My financial situation took a dump, when it seemed like everything there was going fairly well. Now, I will HAVE to get a second job if I want to be able to even EAT from week to week.


I wanted to sit here and try to explain the rest, but I find I cannot. It just seems that everything is a little topsy turvy in my world right now, and I'm not sure what to think. 


I just know I'm done with making decisions with my emotions. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say I just about made a complete fool out of myself yesterday, and it was because I was thinking with my emotions.  See, I told you life was teaching me something lol. I've done a lot of changing over the last 2 years of my life, but some things hadn't changed much, and that was one of them. Somehow or other, in all the changes I made, moving out, starting my own life, really becoming "me", I had forgotten the most basic thing. Life won't go how you want it to, or even how you hope it will, no matter how much you want it to. You've got to take what life gives you, and go with it. While it's good to have dreams and aspirations for things, some things aren't meant to happen, and if you keep on dreaming and hoping they will, you're just going to end up with hurt feelings. 


Anyway, in a nutshell, I've not been in a "happy" place a lot lately, but that's life. You have ups and downs, and for me, it's just been a sort of down time. Life goes on, things happen, and you deal. End of story.