This weekend, despite voting and gaming with friends and going shopping with other friends and attending a friend’s recital and friendsfriendsfriends I’m still feeling pretty neglected and lonely right now. Also I feel pretty incompetent because I bombed a midterm today and I’ve just been thinking about my path as a grad student and just thinking I should quit and work retail, etc. etc. etc. Mostly feeling hopeless.
But given that I’m continuing to make friends and do things and work hard and get job offers, most of this whining is unfounded. All I can say is I’m glad my emotions are working again to make me feel pretty crappy while, in the big picture, everything’s pretty okay. I bet tomorrow or the day after I’ll feel awesome again. Ups and downs! This is the sort of stuff I’ve wanted for a long time.
My stepmom will die within the next few days, and interestingly enough, that’s the least of my worries. It’s not really a worry at all. Dying sucks, but death is when the healing can begin. What I really feel bad about is not Betty’s life ending – it’s really what she’s leaving behind. She has a son, estranged from our family due to his disability (Down’s syndrome), she’s leaving my dad a widower, and I can imagine he’ll feel lonely for an exhorbitant amount of time, her insurance business will disappear, et cetera. The amount of people her death affects is much more saddening than her actual death.
At least this is the explanation I’m giving to the lack of emotion I’m showing for the entire issue. Talking to my dad and sister certainly affects me, because I hate to see them this way. But I feel like it’s almost insulting how little caring I seem to be putting forth.
I’m considering living with my dad for the summer. The house is big, and as my dad put it, it’s like a Betty museum considering the amount of possessions and decorations of hers. It would certainly be more fulfilling than Seattle, where I still don’t know anyone well enough to regularly hang out with – and even if I did, they probably wouldn’t be around during the summer.
The future’s so uncertain, especially now when I’m feeling down in the dumps. What am I doing, why am I doing it, and what should I be doing? The thing is, I can answer all of those questions, so why am I still asking them?
My grandma died from brain cancer a few years ago… We saw her at Christmas where she acted a little funny and accidentally locked herself in the bathroom 3 times… and then her funeral was in February, I believe. Wtf, brain cancer! It just swoops in really fast out of nowhere! It hardly seems fair.
Not-really-lols: I missed a backpacking trip to Death Valley and the Funeral Mountains to go to her funeral.
Thursday will have another food-and-drink outing, if you’d like to come.
Cool, I think I will take you up on that.