Embracing the pain

I’ve wanted to try and ignore that my baby girl flies back to her mom at 11:25am.  I’ve been trying to make her last day as “normal” as possible…do a bit of homework, clean up after yourself, stop eating me out of house and home.

But I suppose that’s what I did last year…and I don’t want that to happen again.

See, the first half of last year was absolutely brutal for me.  Why?

• New Year’s Even saw me have to call 911 for my mom…who was dying on her bed as my father cried helplessly beside her.  My daughter and my little brother were downstairs having fun, and I had to ensure everybody knew exactly what was going on as the ambulance arrived in a snowstorm.  See, my mom has a brain tumor…and New Year’s Eve was about the bottom of the bottom in terms of horrific times for me (I could go into much more detail, but just know that she’s alive and doing much better over a year later).
• After that night, I pretty much shut myself off from the world emotionally.  I stopped talking to friends, I stopped answering the phone, I didn’t want to communicate via email, I stopped paying bills and just blew money on nothing purchases.  It was an emotional downward rollercoaster ride.
• My grandmother was hospitalized for a few months…at one point she was in the room right next to my mother…before finally succuming to old age.
• My dad was hospitalized numerous times with kidney issues.
• My cousin was battling tongue cancer (he never smoked), and eventually passed away during the summer.

So once my summer vacation with my daughter was over and she flew back to Ontario, I felt alone.  In fact, I don’t know if I had ever felt as alone and vulnerable as I did the night she left.  I thought my only friend in the world was gone.

Those feelings transferred to my first day back at work, where I ended up blowing up at some co-workers for absolutely nothing.  Long story short, I got written up at work and ended up seeking assistance through an Employee Assistance Program…and I slowly crawled my way back out of debt and out of the emotional funk I was in.

I guess that brings me back to today and the attempts to ignore the fact that she is leaving in the morning.  If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that I need to embrace and accept hurt and change and find healthy ways to work through it.

Father & daughter - last full day of vacation: 03-18-09

My daughter flying back to Ontario again will hurt…a lot.  But I don’t feel alone anymore.  I’ve got friends…I’ve got an online community that appears to be extremely helpful and supportive…I’ve got a healthy outlook on life and I feel better about myself.  So I think I’ll be able to handle her leaving a lot better as I’m not the same person that I was at this time last year.

It’ll hurt when she gets on that plane, but I’ll embrace the pain and forge ahead.  Life goes on…and I’m ready to embrace that, too.