Time Marches On

So much has happened, I don’t know where to start. I don’t recognize who I am now from who I was writing the introduction to this blog in the beginning. A subservient, shy introvert, to a charismatic type “A” extrovert who can command any space I’m in. I’ve accidentally climbed a corporate ladder to become head of a global manufacturing company’s human resources as well as board secretary. Kaity, our oldest, is nearly 18, in her final year of high school. Kaity and Hannah both live in Iowa now, with their bio mom, who has since remarried and has a son who is about 2 now. Genesee moved back to Washington to live with my dad after my mom passed away earlier this year. Elijah is going into second grade this fall and Savannah is going into first. Al has been out of work. Again. almost four months this time. We’ve moved, probably multiple times since I last wrote. I’ve asked for a divorce. Many times. I no longer see or believe in the amazing father and partner I described early on in this blog. We are no longer compatible. Sigh. He refuses, he can’t stand to lose me, to lose control, he threatens, I stay.

This is life. life isn’t happy. It has happy moments, happy times, sad times, but overall it isn’t happy. That’s absurd though, some people must be, right?

I wasn’t ready for my mom to die. I never had the closest relationship with her, the traditional “my mom is my best friend” thing, but I wasn’t ready for her to just be……..gone. There was no notice. There was no illness- at least not that we were aware of. Fall, hospital stay, visit, diagnosis Friday, gone the next Wednesday. Stage 4 lung cancer, complicated by pneumonia, we had no idea until the end. It was shocking. It was hard. There were decisions made I never thought I’d have to make- for anyone much less my mother. Grief is funny. It doesn’t make sense, it isn’t logical, it hits randomly when you least expect it, when you think you’re finally moving on. There’s a specific brand of hand lotion that I massaged her with at the end, in the hospital. Dying is an awful thing to watch, when someone stops eating and drinking and they waste away. Pretty quick actually, but it feels like eternity when you’re watching it. Skin gets dry like paper. Such a small gesture, but something I remember so vividly from the end. Her hands, forearms, face, ear lobes, all so dry like thousand year old parchment paper. I tear up every time I see that specific tube of lotion on a shelf at a store. I wonder if I always will. Maybe they’ll stop selling it. Or at least change the packaging.

Fiona, someone I called my sister, someone who was my only close friend for fifteen years, deserted me around the time my mom passed away. I don’t think I can ever move past that. I don’t want to say the word forgive, because I believe harboring anger would hurt me, but I will certainly never forget. I hope I don’t have to decide. Maybe she’ll just never contact me again. There was no argument, nothing. She just “can’t be there for me right now”- like a bad friend text breakup. I thought surely 15 years of friendship would be the one thing I could count on when my mom passed away, but no, she couldn’t be bothered. Al wasn’t supportive. The girls didn’t call. This was the line in the sand for me. It was me and Genesee that experienced this. We were it. Oh sure, I flew Elijah and Savannah and Genesee there with me for the funeral. But Al didn’t attend. He thought it was a waste of money that I even went. I try to forgive him, for the same reason I say I forgave Fiona. I’m not sure I really have though. I don’t know that a spouse deserting you when you need them most, criticizing, making light of your emotions like that, can ever really be forgiven. Kaity and Hannah didn’t attend the memorial or even offer condolences. It was clear, this was my family, my blood, and the girls and Al have never been that. I truly have nobody.

That is a sobering thought. Depressing even. I never thought it would be like this. I wonder, do some people’s lives end up how they plan? Mine certainly hasn’t. And yet I have to be grateful. I have an amazing job that I love. I have my health aside from the minor American problems like weight and type two diabetes. My children are healthy, aside from being bratty and general first world problems like some light social anxiety and teen depression (we used to just call it being an emotional teenager??). I make a decent living, live in a decent house, my kids go to the best public schools in the area, I have a reasonably nice vehicle, and a modest retirement savings account. I shouldn’t expect to be able to be happy too, right?

1 October

There are certain events that you end up thinking about things as “before” or “after” that event. 9/11 is one of those, Columbine, Orlando and now Vegas.

There will always be a before and after October 1, 2017 for me now. 58 Lives lost, the largest mass shooting event in American history.

For months I had planned to leave on my first business trip in 7 years, on that date. So, I had the date in my head for a while, for a very different reason than what I now remember it for. I boarded my plan that evening nervous but excited to be off for a week of intensive learning and networking with fellow HR industry professionals and feeling emotional about leaving my 4 and 5 year old for the longest of ever been away from them.

At 10:10pm I happened to be watching a news channel on live TV for the first time in many years as I waited for the hotel TV to warm up and the remote to catch up so I could change the channel as I checked in to my hotel in Phoenix. Unfortunately it caught my attention and I couldn’t look away for nearly 6 hours.

There was an active shooter on the Vegas strip. Possibly more than one, possibly multiple at multiple properties, a coordinated attack, high powered weapons, elevated tactical shooting, so many down there was no death toll yet and first responders were still struggling to even get to the most active scene, an outdoor concert with over 20,000 attendees.

At first, I thought it was a hoax. It must be, there’s too many cameras and security, the strip is perceived as being pretty safe. Or, it was, before October 1.

As the evening continued, the media continuously played LIVE coverage of the shooting, there were plenty of cameras, with audio. The shots, the screams, the terror of a war zone, shared with anyone willing to watch. I would later learn that the auditory sound of gun shots is a major factor in causing PTSD for those at the event, but thanks to the media, we all experienced that, over and over again. A month later and I still jump when I hear a loud pop.