October, I had such high hopes for you.
You were to be the month of change and awesome and geek heaven. You betrayed me. You foliage-brilliant bastard, you betrayed me.
“The only consistent thing in life is change” October held true there. I started a new job and moved to a new place basically the same day. It was hell. Hell on overwhelmed and terribly wobbly wheels. I was the car on Highway 64 and my german shepherd, Bartok took the unseemly place of “grandma.”
The job was way out of my comfort zone, but I was damn lucky to get it and I knew its awesomeness would shine after the initial information/technical disaster overloads. I mean, I work from home people. In my pajamas. Yeah, so lucky.
The same time I was moving and starting this new job, we learned that my mother has precancerous cells and will need major surgery. My mother, who is a rock. She got second degree burns last year—her skin literally melted off—and she never made a sound. In fact, she cleaned it up and went back to cooking. No ER or doctor visit. She kept it cleaned, she kept it dry and she kept on.
Rock.
And suddenly my rock was broken. (Though not outwardly.) We’re confident the surgery will go well, she’ll recover and that will be that…but a once unshakable belief I had apparently, deep down, naively depended on my entire life was shattered—leaving me with a face full of undeniable truth.
My mother is mortal.
Son of a bitch.
To say I was overwhelmed, well…
:in computerized voice: System overload. Shutdown is imminent.
I could hear the countdown in my brain. I already had a nice looking corner picked out to rock in once I finally checked out. I was going to share it with Bartok—who is also apparently losing his mind. That’s another post.
I was supposed to go to a Supernatural convention in Chicago two weeks ago. Geek heaven. I also had a ticket to get my picture taken with Jared Padalecki. Bartok was at my Dad’s, my bags were packed, I was up at the ungodly hour of 5:30am, showered and ready…and I sat on the couch, stared at my bag and just started crying.
I wasn’t oblivious to the ridiculous of me, but I was so incredibly overwhelmed (my mom, my dog, still settling into the new job and still moving/unpacking) that a 10 hour drive to an all expense paid Supernatural utopia—was just too much for me.Again, I wasn’t oblivious to how absurd I was being, but at the time simply rolling out of bed and finding something other than chocolate to eat were valiant efforts on my part.
I stayed home that weekend and worked on unpacking and mentally processing my new norms. I eventually found something else to put in that corner, and now after a month, I feel like I might finally be settling into the new place and job. I also haven’t spontaneously sobbed in a few days, so—go me.
My mom’s surgery is in a couple of weeks. They’re taking a lot more than they had originally planned, but the rest of her tests are coming back good. Keep your prayers on.
As for November… I’ve got my eyes on you. You’ll be good to me and mine or I’ll tell December.
This month I’m going to try and get my secondary norms back on track.
1. Continue training again for Fandom 5K. I will run a 5K. I will. …even if I have to crawl across the finish line.
2. Work on my original novel. If I can get 10,000 words written this month I’ll be happy. No NaNoWriMo, but it’s something.
My next post will be about unicorns. Or zombies. Or zombied unicorns.
Something fun, damnit!
