CAUTION: Woman In Progress

As a follow up to yesterday's post... To add insult to injury, Sis2 found out in a rather off-hand way last night that my dad's dog, Chrissy, who we had let our great aunt, G, adopt died WEEKS ago and nobody thought to tell us. I even explicitly asked yesterday if they needed anyone to take care of Chrissy while Aunt G was in the hospital and all I was told was that "everything is covered." Did everyone just think we wouldn't care to know she'd died? The only reason I didn't keep Chrissy with Milo was because she needed extensive one on one care and since my aunt is retired and stays at home most of the time I knew she could give that to her. I didn't give her away because I didn't care about her. And I already knew Chrissy was in bad health and also 18-years-old so I knew her time was short so it's not like I'm mad that she's dead. They shouldn't think they'd need to hide it from me. It just really, really hurt and pissed me of...

 One thing I never really considered before my parents both died was that apparently, my only tie to any of the rest of their families was them and once those ties were gone so was my tie to everyone I ever thought I could count on.  I grew up with strong family ties. Every holiday spent with both sides. Mama had four brothers and two sisters. I have 20 cousins on that side. My dad had one sister, two aunts, and I have three cousins and five cousins, once removed on that Daddy's side. I spent every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Easter, birthday, milestone event, etc. with these people. I thought we were all pretty solid.  But after Mama died, we pretty much stopped hearing from anyone on her side. Even the two aunts we'd always thought of as second mothers. I think I heard from one aunt twice in two years before Daddy got sick and another aunt a handful of times. One uncle once. But other than that? Crickets.  Right after Daddy died his sister checked in o...

 It's been a wild ride these past several months/years. I still don't feel entirely like myself but I think I'm finally starting to heal. To be entirely honest, I finally gave in and let my doctor prescribe a mild anti-depressant, primarily for the anxiety I've been battling. I had become so irritable and anxious and irrationally angry I wasn't really able to be around people without getting really bitchy or feeling like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I'm still struggling some with irrational irritability but it's not at as often or as extreme as it had become. I'm finally coming to a point where I can think about my parents and Libby without having a complete breakdown. I can look at pictures and feel more joy than sadness. I can go whole days without replaying the last three weeks of Daddy's life. I do still wake up in the wee hours of the morning sometimes with the last two weeks rolling over in my mind with all the heavy what-if's and that...