Spilt mammary gland lactation

I think I went a stretch once were I hadn't cried in over a year, maybe two. A record by no stretch of the imagination. I will ignore the occasional swell up during a good movie, I'm talking really letting it go. It has been more regular though however. Even ignoring the past three weeks. 

One of the many traits I picked up from my dad was not crying or getting upset about something. By all means it wasn't because we ignored our feelings. Hell, I think I wear mine on my sleeve in many situations. I think he honed me in the art of numbness though. More specifically, "what the hell is the point of it?" has been the attitude. Efficiency is the driving force behind my long dry spells. Before recent events, moving into my new apartment and saying goodbye to my best friend was my last outburst (of course not in front of him, what am I? gay?). Before that, early march, was cause for the waterworks again as my girlfriend and I came on hard times. I couldn't find a job, and she was tired of lending me money (like I wasn't tired of asking). That just caused a stress breakdown, which was something I never experienced before. Just let me say, if you have a choice in it, don't choose the stress breakdown, it's a bitch.

A couple of weeks ago though, my dad passed away in a hospital bed, with his family around him. Images are seared into my head of the two days I spent next to him. I'm grateful I don't have more time logged away in my head, deconstructing the mess in my head with the material that's there now is hard enough. The crying that came from this was scary. Erratic, convulsive, uncontrollable, sick to my stomach, everything you can imagine, and some things you can't. The kind of upset that makes you not want to take another breath yourself. That thought is quickly replaced with realizing not only how incredibly selfish that is to your loved ones,  but to the real person this is happening to, in this case, my dad. For the following days and weeks, at some point in the day, I cried, for two weeks straight this happened. Some were light and passing, some were strong thunderstorms that beat down on my head. Usually coupled with images of my dads last breath, sounds of him breathing, my mom echoing "We cry for ourselves, not for him", and the current environment this takes place in. Everything from at work, to out to dinner, it happens public and private. I knew the day would come were I would weather all of the storms, and I wouldn't cry. I felt guilty about that day before it even came, it's the same guilt I feel about the day months or years from now that my dad doesn't pop into my head at least once. The crying became almost a constant, something that I knew was going to happen. It was something that justified the way I felt. I started thinking that I wasn't sad or mourning unless I was crying. Also, the crying and sadness was the last thing I had with my dad. 

I wish I could have been a stronger, cooler, more hip person and thought that his passing was suppose to be a celebratory experience, all to appease the natural cycle of life. Then and now, I say fuck the "cycle of life". I don't remember when my cycle started, and I won't remember when it ends. Sorry about lashing out a bit there, but convincing myself that this is going to be for the better or mean something down the road is pointless to me. I always want to live in the now, and when people suggest this is meant to teach me something later, even if that is the case, that isn't how I want to accept it. Human beings weren't made, psychologically to accept this, if we were, we wouldn't have created a magic book full of fairy tales to make us feel better. It would have not bothered us at all if it was so natural. It bugs the hell out of other animals, and they don't have the minds to create stories and culture and, fine I'll say it, religion. But this isn't a blog on religion. It's a blog on me being a pussy and crying for two weeks, so back to that.

Now as a few days have gone by, and the attachment of crying has waned. The waves hit me less often, and are usually only triggered by something personal. The anger comes in waves too, usually separate from the crying. The anger of him being put to sleep. I think about that for me, and I know why my dad wanted it. So we wouldn't have to worry about keeping someone alive who wasn't themselves anymore, and seeing them in the state they were in for longer than we had to. He really did it for us. I don't know if I would want that though. Maybe it's because I myself don't have a wife and kids or the experience yet to make a call like that. I don't know if I'm being optimistic on what could be done treatment wise, or what is more likely to be the case, selfish.

The day I didn't cry for the first time, it felt like I was being watched, or hunted. Like it was there, ready for me, waiting to hit me again. I can't say I didn't want it either. But the hours slipped away, and I somehow managed to avoid alot of triggers that normally set me off. The day then turned into the next. Thoughts still circled my head. But the feeling of the entire event shifted. It started to feel like it happened in the past. I ended up crying on the following day, and it has been back and forth since. But the distance is starting to be created. I guess some would call it healing, I am hoping though it isn't the beginning of something just the opposite. My greatest fear in all of this IS returning to normalcy, and not enact the resolutions I have made from it. The immediacy of the emotion in the first two weeks made fulfilling resolutions, like taking better care of my family and friends, even more imperative. I just wanted to do it, and cared about nothing else. Getting back to work and the grind I fear will erode that urgency. I really hope not.

 Well, just a few thoughts today, many of them kicking around the bean for the last week. Maybe back to more constructive things soon. That's all I will be busy with after this, rebuilding myself, hopefully for the better. For myself, my family and my dad. One thing is for sure, my personal streak doesn't have anything to worry about for awhile, and I'm OK with that. After this, there definitely is a point to it.

2 weeks, 2 hours, 2 minutes

My previous post unfortunately has been resolved. The confusion I have cluttered my head with has come to an abrupt halt, and soggy clarity has gripped me.

Two weeks ago today, I received a phone call that is still ringing. I wonder to myself when I will wake up, or if this could have been avoided. Guilt and denial have stung my eyes everyday since then. My dad was in the hospital, unconscious, and no one knew what was wrong. The minutes passed by like lifetimes. Eventually, a lifetime did pass, on October 3rd. He was 52. Today has been better than yesterday, and so on. But I am unsure still what the measure of "better" is.

He is slipping into my past, and I am tugging so hard to keep him in my present. We discovered he had an asthma attack, one of the countless others he has conquered his entire life. This one was different, and the air stopped. His brain died, my dad was gone. The machines kept beeping and humming and we said goodbye. Still clouded by hope, and the chance for a false miracle.

The doctor wore cowboy boots, he showed us his brain, and he said the man laying in that bed wasn't my dad anymore. The 4 of us became one, they held me up. Their faces, different takes on the same person, I could see my dad in all of them.

His eyes watered, we were told they weren't tears. I didn't care. We jammed away, to a viking funeral being piped through tiny ear buds, his eyes watered again, and pooled heavily in the nooks on his long nose. He heard me, he knew I was there.

The man in the cowboy boots called it "posturing". He didn't explain it to us, so I looked it up. It meant damage, bad.

I stared at him for hours, he looked OK, his chest moved up and down, his heart steadily thumped in his chest, sweat rolled from his brow. He never smiled, squeezed, or winked at us. I kept wondering... If my dad isn't there, who is?

I miss everything about him. I miss the 45 minute weekly chat that I would complain about. I miss the cackle of his laugh, like he was holding it in. I miss all the things he knew, and never told me. I miss all the things I knew and never told him. I never told him I was proud of him, but he reminded me every time. I miss my dad.

They pulled the tube from him, and his chest roared. He panted, grasping for the stale air squeezing past his parched lips and tongue. I could see his tongue, purple and beaten from the abuse of his miscalculating jaw. His eye rolling back and forth with the sway of the bed. Then came the shots. I would never leave him, but the doctors said we must. I lost count of them, 3 1/2, maybe 4 1/2. It ripped through his veins and made him drunk with death. He fought off each one, like I expected him to. A gurgle and a puff and he kept ticking, kept driving, kept rocking. The last one was too much, they put my dad to sleep, like my dogs in the years past, they always called it humane... painless. All I feel now is the pain of it, the shots didn't work.

For 2 hours, he swung at the barrage, and at 10:15am, little bubbles sputtered from his mouth, and his eyelids crept open. Again, the 4 of us became one. None of us looked like him anymore, my dad was gone.

The world kept spinning that day, under my feet, I was oblivious. All of the things I questioned and feared went away. I have spent my adult life thinking outside of a box that I never spent time in. A box now with four corners, their faces like mine. I have found love, it was here the whole time.