So it's been a month since Dad died. I haven't felt like writing since then and have just figured that the world could more than do without my bloggy blatherings for a while anyway. The world is still more than fine without anything I have to say BUT life goes on and I can't stop living it just because I'm sad.
For the record, I'm dealing with a lot of grief over Dad's loss and guilt over the fact that he died right in front of me and nothing I did (or could have done probably) made a difference. Consequently, I feel cloudy-headed a lot of the time, indecisive and insecure. Going to work is okay because it gives me things to do and a sense of structure but I know the quality of my teaching is much lower than it normally is. There was a day in my 1002 class when I had to ask, "Now, what exactly did I ask you to do last time?"
I'm also pretty irritable. The girls, I'm afraid, are feeling the brunt of this. They're just going along, being an 8 and almost 10 year old, and I have no patience for the usual forgetfulness, laziness, and goofiness of kids their age. I yell a lot and that's not cool.
I'm not sure what I'm waiting for. Part of me feels like if I can just make it through this semester, I'll somehow be able to decompress or process or whatever it is I'm supposed to do that will make me feel somewhat better. I know grief is a long term process and I've heard that when you lose someone close to you, it can take a year or more to really start to get over it and deal with it. I'm not expecting to be all cured and dandy by Christmas or anything. I just kind of feel like, for right now, I have to just make it through these classes. If I can do that, I'll somehow earn some time to grieve or heal or something. Not sure.
Anyway, one thing that's not going to happen is this blog is not going to turn into an ongoing rumination about Dad, his death, my grief, etc. While my own sadness is real and powerful and I'm not trying to minimize it, I think people who go on and on about their dead parents are really boring. Sounds cold-hearted, I know, but seriously, I've known people who could only talk about their loss and that was it. I felt bad for them but also secretly begged they could find another topic once in a while. (The weather! The latest cast-off! Politics! Seen any good movies lately? Sweet fancy Moses, anything!)
So I'll probably continue to write about movies I've seen, silly stuff my students and kids say, the weather, TV shows, and stuff like that. I post cartoons and dumb pictures of spacemen and superheroes. It's lame and unimportant but a lot of life is like that, I've decided, and it's okay.
