the Goodbye Tour

This is most likely the last visit I will have with my Grandpa. He is so fragile now and his health is failing, and he has made the arduous trek up from North Carolina so that he can see his sisters and children and grandkids one last time.

His hearing is terrible. It can make conversations with him incredibly frustrating, but they are precious nonetheless. He talks a lot about my Grandma. She died in a nursing home 2 years ago with dementia that made her bitter and confused and and unrecognizable. His last memories of her are not good-- he tells me that once he went to visit her and she had been screaming all day that the staff was going to pour cement on her. He had tried to calm her down, to reassure her that she was ok, but she wouldn't listen. I can tell it's impossible for him to reconcile this image with the woman he loved for over half a century. But still, he says, he often reaches over for her in bed at night and briefly forgets that she is not there.

I just nod and listen, and try not to cry. It's strange and distressing to see my Grandpa like this, to see his heart so irretrievably broken. He says that when they talked about who would die first, it was always him.

I will always hold the memory of my Grandparents as inseparable. And as cliche as it is, it really is comforting to know that they will be together again someday soon. My Grandpa will probably not live to see my wedding or see me start a family, but he will be so happy to be with Grandma again. I hope someday that I find love that is even a fraction of what they've had.

This visit is bittersweet all around, but I am so grateful for it. I will try to soak up as much as I can, the good and the bad and any memory he wants to share. He is the only Grandpa I have ever known, and I'm so blessed to call him that.

On friendship and disappointment

It's strange, the lengths to which I allow myself to be disappointed.

From an early age I have set my expectations for others far too high. Moving away can solidify some friendships while most others simply disintegrate like shitty tissue paper. The thing is, I never know which friendships will be the ones that last. I don't know that it has anything to do with intentions. I believe that people's intentions are good, usually.

So I never quite know how attached to be to someone, or how much faith or hope to put in them. I guess that's the point though isn't it? Every connection we make is a risk to our fragile insides. Every degree of vulnerability we allow with another person is a step towards potential heartbreak and loss.

I remember the first time a friendship broke me. Her name was Amy, and we were in the first grade. We lived near each other and rode the bus home together. I wanted Amy and I to be best friends. When I told her this, she informed me that we couldn't be best friends, because I wasn't going to heaven like her. Amy wore skirts and had long hair and her family spoke in tongues. My God wasn't the same as her God, and apparently my God wasn't good enough. But all I remember feeling was that I wasn't good enough.

The thing is-- I don't know how to change. I don't know how to value people less, or how to desire friendships that are more shallow, or how to meet people where they are at. I don't understand why depth and loyalty aren't things that everyone wants.

I suppose perhaps not everyone wants to share their deepest darkest selves. But I guess that's the only way I know how to deal with my own darkness-- by sharing with others and hoping that someone, someday can relate.

Moment of truth

As I scroll through online profiles I judge the world of men. One mention's his ex, another can't spell, another babbles on and on or uses phrases I resent: "looking to settle down" or "I prefer white women" or "looking for a girl who takes good care of herself" (which always translates in my mind to "move along fatty").

And in one moment of mental clarity, as my thoughts spun with judgment of "weirdos", I realized that my greatest fear is being one of them.

A wise woman in my life once pointed out to me that the things that bother us about others are really the things that bother us about ourselves. I've found this to be true too many times. I have a great fear of being seen as too strange to be lovable, and this is not limited to my dating life.

Moving out of the desert meant moving back into the humidity of Minnesota's summers. It also means, apparently, that my skin has decided to revive the acne of summers past... summers that I thought were over. And when I think about my new-found pimples, I can't help but remember how painful my teen years were, feeling so self-conscious and bitter.

So perhaps I have a ways to go in accepting my abnormalities, my weirdness, my quirks that make me uniquely me. And maybe if I make an effort to stop silently judging others (even if it is in the superficial world of online dating)... maybe I can find the grace to stop judging myself.

Reason #278 as to why God should make me barren

I am a total douche bag of a dog mom. I totally forgot to let my dog out to pee tonight. This is another reason that I should never have kids. I guarantee I will forget to feed them or something.

Online dating is so fruitless. I like to use reasoning such as "well if I'm doing online dating and I'm a quality person, doesn't that mean that someone of equal quality could also be out there?"

No, no it does not.

I get emails from men who write, "Hi you are so biutiful" or something equally as patronizing that is almost always misspelled. I'm sorry, but if you don't know how to use spell check I'm pretty sure I don't want to go on a date with you. It's the internet, and I don't have all that much to judge on here. Spell check equals common sense. See where I'm going with this?

I also get a good amount of one-liner emails that simply say "hey." Well hey to you too. Gosh, you've totally captivated me. I can see that you really put a lot of thought and effort into the email that you just sent me and a few dozen other women.

I don't want to get married anytime soon, but I hate the single life. So before I crawl in a hole with my dog and swear this whole thing off for a few months, bear with me as I complain for a bit. I'll hibernate and be back out there again, searching for that idea of a relationship that may in reality not exist. A relationship that I'm sure will look completely different than what I expect and will catch me off guard just as I'm ready to throw in the towel for good, because that's just how my God works.

Culture shock

I think I can appropriately sum up the last few weeks with these words: culture shock. It's quite interesting to go from living by yourself to living in a house full of people. Besides my parents my younger brother Sam has friends who stay here on a regular basis (hopefully the last of the circus is leaving tomorrow) and the entire lower level of the house often feels (and smells) like a big frat party. So I use my parents bathroom, run my fan on full blast at night, and found a little nook upstairs that I can park myself in when I want to read a good book or just not be in my room. Even though I love my brother, I'm going to be incredibly excited when he packs up for college, so that I can enjoy things like access to a TV without teenagers controlling the remote, and a bathroom where my things fit on the counter and the floor does not have any questionable spots on it. I seriously feel like I'm living in the movie Animal House.

I spent a couple of days this week babysitting for a family friend. I had completely forgotten how difficult it is to take care of 3 kids-- and all of this was compounded by the fact that I can't remember the last time I babysat for kids who weren't allowed to watch TV. Do you know what that means? It means I'm exhausted. They were cute as heck, but man, I am way too selfish to be a mom any time soon.

I went to my first Al-Anon meeting in Winona this week. It was... interesting. In Al-Anon, many meetings open with the meeting leader encouraging everyone to keep the focus on themselves and not on the alcoholic. This meeting did not. No one really talked about themselves or their programs or things they wanted to do differently. It felt like a big complaint-fest. I don't know that I'll be back to that meeting... it was a little discouraging.

Charlie is doing well. He's calmed down considerably after Sam's grad party. Now that things are a little more predictable around here he's settling into the groove of things. Even though I think he's doing very well, it's still been a difficult adjustment for my parents. Two somewhat related stressors have been the fact that he had about 3 or 4 accidents in the house his first week, and that the attempts to contain him while we are not home haven't gone well. To remedy the accidents, I've been taking him on two long walks a day, and he's doing really well with that. As for leaving him alone, we've moved to option C. Option A was keeping him in my room with the door closed. That resulted in a shredded door, shredded carpet, and bloody paws from his frantic clawing. Option B was to keep him in my room with the doggy gate up. He hopped it. So we are moving back to Option C: the crate. I am terrified because of how it went when we first tried the crate option (if you don't remember, he chewed himself out, twice. Blood everywhere). But this time I got a different kind of crate and have a tentative plan to keep him from harming himself while he's in there. It's worth another shot. My parents don't want him roaming the house freely while we are gone, which is totally understandable. And being able to crate him would solve a lot of problems-- like spiteful peeing while I am gone. I'm also reading a book on aggressive dogs, so we're going to start implementing new training methods pretty soon. Lots more changes are around the corner for Charlie.

I am still on the hunt for a job. Being unemployed is hard, but it's a little encouraging that I've seen a handful of my high school classmates since I've been back in town who are in the same position.

I bought some Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy with some of my babysitting money. I'm off to enjoy a bottle!