coping, healing and struggling

Eating is complicated right now. It's restricted from 4:30pm to about 2am. And mostly because I'm sleeping for 12 hours before that. Sleeping feels like medicine and eating late also feels like a different type of drug. Eating just feels more satisfying past midnight and sleeping feels like everything when it's during the day. I guess you're wondering what I'm doing at night besides not sleeping and eating everything; the

answer is staring at either a wall or a screen.

Like I said in the last post, my uncle and second father passed a couple days before Thanksgiving. The wounds are still pretty fresh, but still I am deciding to start writing again. Even though eating and sleeping and going to class are taking the backburner, I'm going to write this out.

I'm learning to say I doing "fine" or "okay" or "better". I'm learning that I don't have to say "good good" everytime someone hugs me to show their condolences. I am learning that even though I am not his daughter I am allowed to feel everything I feel. I am learning that people will come out of the woodworks to make hard times even worse, because they can get away with the fact that deceased person can no longer stand up for themselves. And I am learning that I have to forgive myself for a couple things.

1. For not doing enough with him when he was staying with us. I always regret not playing cards or reading to him.

2. Not saying everything I wanted to say just so he knows.

3. And everyone that gave the illusion that this too shall pass...

This feels so sudden and out of the blue even for those who were living with him. I can't seem to get my head around the fact that he's not here. It feels like he's back in his apartment or took a trip to Africa not like, and not to be morbid here, is 6 feet under the ground on the other side of town. Thinking of him like that makes me shiver. Thinking of him like that makes me want to get him out of there. Bring him home, tuck him into his hospital bed and get him a blended dinner. Is that selfish? Is it selfish to wish that he was back here sick instead of dead???

Okay Step 1 is definitely don't think about him like that*. Focus on the good, focus on the good. I am trying to cope the way my body and mind lead me. Sometimes it's ignoring triggers and other times it's leaning into them. Sometimes it's folding his laundry the day after he passed or cleaning up his space but not throwing anything away. It's putting things away without reading his name on his pills or looking too closely at the pictures on the funeral invitations.

I know he passed, I'm not denying it, but diving head first into depression and all things death really isn't helping. I'm not denying myself the opportunity to miss him it's just not helpful to dwell on it soo much. Like I don't feel better afterwards, it's like I'm back to square one of Operation: cope-with-my-uncle-dying-in-our-dining room-at-the-young-age-of-forty-something-after-being-diagnosed-with-cancer-2-months-ago.

School has taken the back seat...again. I'm a little scared it's turning into Winter 2019 and were only a couple months in the first semester of my last year! I want to desperately graduate and shit literally keeps happening! And there's nothing I can do about it. I'm starting to realize that shit or life will not stop happening. There's always going to be a "good reason" why I can't get something done. One year it's the flu, the next semester it's the stomach flu followed by food poisoning and my period in the same week, then deep existential crisis kind of depression and now this diagnosis followed quickly by his passing...

There's always going to be something. Maybe that's a negative affirmation to hear, but it's kind of true. The universe is always going to serve us with something we didn't order. It will deal us a crappy hand and we will have to take it along side our good cards. It's the yin and yang of life. One day I'm going to be having my only good hair day of the year and laughing with my family and other days I can't seem to get out of bed and am debating dropping out of university (with only one semester left) while also debating shaving my head...again.

coping, healing and struggling is me trying to make sense of things, following the flow and then restarting. It's knowing that my uncle wouldn't want me to flunk out of school and use his passing as an excuse... Knowing him he probably feels the same way about me; 1. not leaving the house, 2. crying in the laundry room and 3. eating grilled cheese and a bowl of pasta at 12am (but I'm not done with these coping mechanism just yet).

coping, healing and struggling is the recipe of life. it's the bad shit followed by the really good vibes and energy and love with a side or sprinkle of shitiness