How was your day?

How was your weekend?

Boss: What about you ________, how was your weekend?

Me: I'd rather not.

Boss: Come on! No secrets in this room. Open it up, let us in.

Me: [Annoyed. At my wits end. Needing to let loose..] Well, I spent the weekend in the hospital because my father had heart failure and fluid backed up into his lungs. I came home at night because my mom is severely asthmatic and has crazy anxiety, so I had to come home and tend to her. Oh, and for the last three months I've been spending most evenings at my sisters house because my brother in-law was having an affair in India and was threatening to leave his family behind, claiming that it had to do with the fact that they didn't have a son. I have two nieces in their teens. I guess that was a half-truth.

Aside from that, not too much going on.

"Y'all gon' keep f***in' round with me & turn me back to the old me."

This could be something ||

I used to be a romantic.
I believed in love at first sight. I believed in happily ever after. I believed that the right person could fulfill you and that anything less would be unacceptable.

Then I went through some shit and my beliefs evolved.
Things that I was certain about no longer made sense, because I gained insight.
Beliefs that I had, I no longer believed, because they weren't based in fact, but rather unfounded hypothetical's.
I questioned more, and in turn not only learned more about the real world, but about myself.
I'm thankful for the awakening I experienced - rude or pleasant. It was actually both.

I no longer look for someone to complete me, but rather compliment me.
As much as I want someone to enhance my being and my life as a whole - I understand that it's on me to be fulfilled - with myself, with what I do, with how I live, and lead, and love. Another being is just that - another being. They do not, and will not, and should not be a reflection of my needs and fulfillment. 

I used to look at it all wrong. 
I used to let my needs control my thinking leading me to act on emotion rather than rational thought. 
I did not have the ability to even understand this before.
I now understand, and am working on creating a better me.
I'm working on me now, to prepare a better me forever. For as long as ever will be.

"So much on my mind, I just can't recline / Blastin' holes in the night 'til she bled sunshine"

These have been the most trying few days of my life.

I believe I may be having a nervous breakdown, all while desperately trying to keep it all together.

My mom has been in the hospital for almost a week. She was admitted for asthma - she was discharged a month ago for the exact same issue, and never fully recovered. Her shortness of breath drove me to take her back last Tuesday. Coincidentally, the first day of my 'vacation'. 

Since she's gone back, she has become increasingly depressed and extremely emotional. Citing issues with her family back home, her parents, and remembering her past life..

It's taking a huge toll on me.

I also have to try and deal with my dad at home. This is a much more manageable issue, a non-issue actually, but I feel the obligation to make sure he's taken care of and this whole ordeal is not taking a toll on him.

My parents relationship has become very turmoiled as well. He's sick and tired of her constant negativity and way of dealing with things. She has a very bad habit of needing to be in-charge. She want's to control every aspect of her surroundings. She's constantly scrutinizing and ordering what one should wear, what one should cook and eat, how one should clean, when one should do certain things, when it should be done, where why what how, everything. I feel that this leaves him powerless to an extent. He has this 'enough is enough' attitude, as of late and does not feel inclined to want to visit her or deal with her world at the present moment. He still does. He just doesn't have the patience to tolerate her in this state and is easily agitated  which makes juggling the whole situation a little more difficult than it already is.

It also just so happened to be the wedding week of a very close friend. 

I don't like to share my problems with anyone normally, so I would never want to take away from his special time with any of my issues. This has proven to be tough having to still participate in the wedding party duties, and 'celebrate', when there's so much chaos happening in my own life.

The stress of all of the above, is also coupled with the stress of turning 30.

Turning 30 and not having accomplished anything except for a mountain of debt to date. This has caused me to officially break down mentally. 

I'm a wreck and these past few days have been the hardest of all time for me to deal with. By far, the darkest and most difficult days of my existence.

I'm still managing to put on a decent front - although people have noticed my subdued attitude a bit.

They don't however have any clue that it's caused by everything that I've mentioned.

Layers, upon layers, upon layers.

I hope things get better.

I really really really really really really hope things get better really soon.

Although I know it can always be worse, it just feels like I can't catch a break.

Happy birthday.

Reprised | Excerpt 1: Intro

I think this is my first memory of automatic sliding doors. 

There were two sets, and once we walked past both we stood in the entrance of the hospital. We probably stood there only for a few seconds, but I remember it feeling like minutes.

I also remember a sense of confusion because I wasn't able to understand exactly what was happening. I must have been 4 or 5 years old at the time. I held my dad's hand and stood by his side, clueless.

When I think about that day I picture it like a children's book I used to read. The illustrations didn't show the adults faces because they were so much taller than the kids, and the picture got cut off right around the grownups midriff.

That's exactly how I imagine it being when I try to recall what things were like that day. People walking around with half-bodies, because I don't remember anything above waist height. I don't know why I didn't just look up.

That whole memory feels a little blurry. I don't think I fully grasped the idea of it being real because even now it feels dream like.

I remember hearing a rush of noise spilling towards our direction. It quickly gained speed and volume as it drew closer. It felt something like a subway train approaching the platform. The chaos gained momentum and I saw a cluster of people hovering around and speeding down the corridor with a stretcher. It pushed towards, and then blew right past us.

That was my moment of realization. That was when I understood that this was absolutely real and happening right in front of me, because when they rushed the stretcher past us I remember seeing her eyes fighting to stay open. That scene felt like it was taken out of a movie. She was brought through in the blink of an eye, but the moment she went right past us felt like it happened in super slow motion. She was covered with white sheets and they were covered in blood.

It feels surreal reflecting on the memory right now; I can only imagine how unbelievable it must have felt in that instance. The last thing I remember about that day is her being rolled away and someone telling my dad and I to sit in the waiting room. I don't remember anything that happened after that. Not that day, not when she was released from the hospital, none of the events that followed.

I do have a faint memory of being home with my dad when the phone rang before this all happened. Someone called to say that my mom had been in an accident. I'm not sure if it was the police, the hospital or a relative. It's as if that call and us standing in front of the hospital doors were directly subsequent events. As if there are no points in time that existed between those two. Like we teleported from one setting to the next.

I don't remember much from that era of my life, I was still pretty young, so it came as a surprise when I randomly recalled that day. That memory had been tucked away in my head somewhere and over the years layers upon layers of other thoughts had been piled over top. The only reason it resurfaced now is this déjà vu feeling I got when my mom was being rolled out on the stretcher today. About a quarter century later, but a part of me still felt just as helpless and bewildered.

TEN

I give myself another ten.
It's not an extension per se. It's a reevaluation.

30 to get your shit together.
40 to live with your choices. No turning back.

I didn't get my shit together. Shame on me.

There's still time though. Not to do things right, but make things right.

The milk spilled - yes. But that's no reason to empty out the glass.

Is it alright?

When I was younger, if I were to ever find myself in trouble - not necessarily in a bad predicament, but even emotional trouble or anything that didn't feel normal or comfortable or familiar - I remember having the luxury of being able to go to one of my parents and have them hug me and say "It's alright. It's gonna be alright."

I haven't had anyone tell me that in years.

What I wouldn't give to have someone just hug me and say it's gonna be alright. 
And mean it. 

And for me to believe them.