Been thinking a lot lately. (I probably should get that book 'Women Who Think Too Much'...) All the stuff below is what has been rattling around and bouncing about in my head the last month or two. You've been warned, etc.
Mostly, about myself and the head-check department. What I'm noticing lately isn't that the pills aren't working, but that they're working on everything they can - the niggling sense of never doing well enough, of just sliding by, of being my own worst critic... They can take the worst edges off those thoughts, but they sure don't make them go away. And I don't expect them to.
I've felt better than I have in the last few years. I think, subconsciously, I've finally accepted on some level Dad's death as a finality, not an eventuality. That after spending 22 years of my life waiting for that horrible phone call, I was never actually prepared in any way to get it. It's not much of a hill to have crested, when it comes down to it; it started off as a mountain when the phone call hit, but now, I dunno. It's almost anti-climactic. Sure, it still hurts, it never won't hurt, but... I can safely say "Life goes on" when I do feel that hurt. I don't stop and curl up in it and wallow and wish things were different. And while it wasn't a conclusion at the time, watching one of the other Tea students who is 2 years younger with her dad there to see her in the tearoom, I think I came to that point later that day. I was lucky - my dad's illness never EVER made him any less of a father or best friend. And however much my inner self may rail against the unfairness of it all, that people who hate their parents and are abused by them get to watch those people grow old and senile and reciprocate with bad nursing homes... And unless I'm counting those days where Dad was in the hospital, there weren't any moments worth regretting, like some people may do with their parents. Sure, I wish Dad were around to see me do all this crazy Tea stuff, because aside from watching me practice (badly) in the living room at one point, I don't think he ever did, he was always around for other things, like my very bad piano practice, tennis (similarly bad, if not much, much worse), and yearbook (not bad, and I think he was rather proud of the publishing streak in his youngest). So. Long story short, I've come to the point where the positive memories are steadily outweighing the negatives of grief.
Now I just have to learn to live with myself, a whole other challenge entirely. Not only live with myself, but actually like myself. In all reality, I feel rather oddly like I'm back in junior year of college again - I'm not entirely sure what my Thesis (life) will be, or how I'll go about it, but it's there and dammit, I'm going to do something about it, etc. I'm independent, I'm me, I'm not taking crap from others, and I'm having regular fights with Mom. Everything is normal. [And if I could kill that fighting with Mom part, everything would be pretty damn skippy.]
I think my biggest hurdle right now is missing school. I miss being a student, having tasks that involve learning rather than pencil-pushing, label-making drudgery. I miss the active and constructive feedback of a mentor, rather than the usually harsh or entirely absent responses of a supervisor. Maybe it's because all I've known prior to graduating from school was (you guessed it) school. Maybe it's watching everyone go 'back to school' now that the shiny-and-new feeling of "neener, I graduated so I don't have to!" is gone. But I miss it. I really do. I really need to go online for the local community college and start signing up for evening classes. Something, anything. Auto 101. Lit 100. Accounting basics. Pottery. Something. Because however much fun it may be to go home and rot my brain with the latest Netflix and a watered-down cocktail, it's sure not satisfying.
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