Well, if you read my blog via Bloglines, you might be wondering what in HELL this girl’s a-doin’. I’ve been doing a little brushing, scrubbing & cleaning up of the ol’ blog, because there’s the possibility I’m going to be included in an upcoming article on local bloggers. And there haven’t been a ton of adjustments/edits/removal of posts – I’m happy with where I work, and most of the negative stuff I say about other people seems to involve bad drivers or customer service issues. I just want to make sure I’m not unintentionally pissing anyone off. Good thing I’m pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get! What I write and put out on the internets is 99% what you’d get if you started talking to me on that day. Bottom line, everyone who DOES know me, knows I’m smart, crazy, and looking for humor at every turn. I like to think so, anyway. :)
However, I seem to have a blind spot still, and going back through the past year’s worth of posts (and pictures) was a bit daunting. I watched the transformation of posts go from squirrelly, ranting goofball to the insanity and grief with my dad’s cancer & death. Kudos to you for continuing to read.
Speaking of humor, you know that feeling inside, when you have to pretend you like this person who has power (like a hated boss, or your father-in-law or someone who can give you something you need but may decide on a whim not to?), and you feel your face move into a smile that isn’t genuine from the inside, but still appears like a smile on the surface? Sometimes that’s what laughing has felt like since he died. It hasn’t been that the emotion itself was false, and I’ve had some crazy times where my stomach ached from laughing, but there was this other piece inside me that frowned, that stood to the side and shook it’s head, making the other part (the part laughing) feel false, awkward, uncomfortable. I assume it’s all part & parcel of this process. People ask, “So! What’s going on?! What’s the latest & greatest?” And I feel this dead flatness inside as I force myself to smile and say, “Oh, you know! Spring’s coming!” (What the hell kind of answer is that, anyway?) Because we can’t spend the rest of our lives weeping and not laughing and instead answering, “Death! That’s what happened! My dad’s dead and all of this post-death stuff SUCKS! I got the short end of the stick and I’m angry!” I mean, you could? But it would REALLY bring down the mood, and it’d probably keep you stuck in that bad place for a really long time.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not an adept liar, and I’m not terribly great at forced joviality. So that’s been my challenge. My dear friend & I decided we would both “fake-it-’til-we-make-it” in respect to our individual situations. It’s sort of working, and right now? It’s all I’ve got.
The day before my dad died, I posted these words. They are still gorgeous, and continue to be true.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
— Emily Dickinson
Spring’s coming.
Bring on the perching songbirds.
