(One of my favorite Duran Duran songs, btw...)
Soooo....I was going through my bookmarks today and, lo and behold, this blog is still listed and out on Ye Old Interwebs. Which is weird, considering the last post I had was apparently TEN YEARS AGO and it seems Blogger is like a dying T-Rex compared to what we use in terms of social media nowadays. But, I did a deep dive/trip down memory lane and read through these old posts...wow, was I a whiny bitch! I mean, not without cause, of course, but holy hell....it brought back a LOT. The good, the not so good (read: fucking awful), and honestly some that are still fucking hilarious, even almost 15 years later. Having a specially compounded progesterone suppository plop out of my whoo-ha and into the toilet when I stood up because I was stupid enough to insert it WHILE SITTING ON THE TOILET TO BEGIN WITH? Hilarious, I say! HILARIOUS!
But, after reading all the shenanigans, I had to ask myself-what do I do with all this? This started out as a diary for me-a way to preserve, for "posterity" the hard-fought journey to parenthood we had to take to create a human life that would hopefully be the best of the two of us. It can't be discounted, or thrown away-it did happen. Do I delete it all and forget? Do I save it, maybe combine it into a site that documents what life has now morphed into? Does anyone STILL read blogs at all, or even give a shit?
Since it's still obviously here, limping along, I figured, why not post something? Maybe give the world a little update and test the waters to see who is still, in fact, reading or even checking this? Who knows, perhaps some old dinosaur like me is actually looking for an update, unlike the most recent comments on my last post, which seems to be either spammers looking for me to CLICK THIS LINK, or are long comments in Russian, which could either be VERY indecent proposals or maybe spy encounters that could result in a visit from the local FBI office...but I digress. Blame the perimenopause on that one.
If you're still on the playing field, here's what's been going on since I last was on here-I'll try to be brief, but well...if you're even slightly familiar with me that may be a 'lil hard to accomplish, but I'll try, to save your eyes from bleeding. Can't make promises, though.
- We survived Hurricane Sandy (yeah, TOLD YOU it's been awhile). The hubs lost his job not long afterwards (which royally sucked, but was a blessing in disguise because he was absolutely miserable), but they gave him a VERY generous severance package and also allowed him to file for unemployment, so financially it was status quo. Except for the ACTUAL finding a job part, which wasn't working out so well. He ended up applying in March of '13 for a great job in his field, and was offered the position but...it was in Florida, the Land of the Mouse. 1300 miles away. We talked about it, and really, what was keeping us in NJ, besides our families? And friends? And everything we knew and were comfortable with? So we said fuck it, and threw caution to the wind, and moved to The Land of the Mouse. Was it a good decision? Ultimately, yes-it was a fresh start, one that looking back now was necessary. Am I 100% happy here? Not completely, but that's another post (if there is one, that is-jury is still out). But, we ARE still together and and as happy as you can be when you've been married for almost 24 years (and together as a team for 29). Is everything perfect? HELLS NAH, SON. But, he's my "person" and I wouldn't have it any other way-we've been through a lot together and made it through-a lot of people don't, so we're lucky.
- Due to the job change/relocation, we ended up living in the same city as my brother and his wife (who are now parents to three kids-MHN is going to HIGH SCHOOL next year, which is absolutely insane to me), and we live about 10 minutes away from each other, which is cool as hell because I get to see the kids all the time. My parents followed us 18 months later with my grandmother-but grandma had to be put into assisted living because, frankly, it was too much for my dad to care for my mother AND his mother. I got a teaching job in a charter school, HAAATED it (but met some awesome people who I'm still close with), got another job in ANOTHER charter school that made the first one look like Princeton, then moved to private, where I've been ever since. Yesterday was the end of my 23rd year in education, and, despite the ups and downs, I'm still hanging on. Education has VASTLY changed, especially post-COVID (that's another whole conversation), and being in a state that doesn't really put education as a priority doesn't help, but at least in a private school I still have academic freedom. And I met some kick-ass people, so that helps.
- We've had some kicks in the ass for a few consecutive years-my grandmother passed away in April 2016 (kidney failure), my father-in-law, unexpectedly, in June of the same year, which Sean took really hard (of course), and then my own mother in May of 2017, which is still something that I have a hard time discussing without wanting to break down into a hot mess. Her cancer, which was never really curable, only treatable (as Ovarian cancer tends to do), and eventually, the treatments stop working. She was admitted through the ER because she had fluid build up in her abdomen because of the metastasis of her disease, and was told by the oncologists that there was nothing more they could do, and she decided on hospice care-at that point, all she wanted was to go home. We were able to do that for her, and she passed at 7:30 in the morning on May the 15th, the day after Mother's Day, with all of us there-we were able to thankfully have enough time to get her siblings here so they could say their goodbyes. Dad was, understandably, devastated-they had just celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary the week before she died. He lived in the house by himself until 2021, when we finally convinced him to sell the house and move in with us-he neglected his own health for years when taking care of my mother, and he wasn't really taking care of himself. Dad was able to enjoy the last few years until he passed this past November (the 26th, the day after Thanksgiving), which started with a trip to the ER because he was having trouble catching his breath, and ended with him being diagnosed with late-stage emphysema, COPD and IPF (ideopathic pulmomary fibrosis), developing ARDS (if you're not sure what that is and want to look it up, trust me, dont-it sucks) after being transferred to the ICU and put on a ventilator, then being told that he wasn't going to survive off the vent. Dad, being the person he was, asked for a pen and paper and wrote EVERYTHING down-where his will and the insurance policy paperwork was, and at the end wrote two words: "pull plug". He knew. And he was tired. And missed my mother terribly-he was ready to be with her. So, once we knew for sure, we honored his wishes. I will say though...it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do-it makes all the years of fertility treatments look like a walk in the park.
Tomorrow will be 6 months that he's been gone. I still miss him every day. It sucks that, as a grown-ass 50 something year old, I feel like an orphan, twisting in the wind, directionless. I know, from my mother's passing, that grief will dull, eventually...but I'm definitely nowhere near there yet. Maybe I never will, who knows. But, I am grateful that I was able to take care of him, for a little bit. He was happy, and didn't feel that crushing loneliness that I'm sure he did in the house where my mother died. And, he quit smoking, finally-but too late to really help him at the end
