So July has arrived and i'm realllly starting to embrace that summer mode. I'm outside a lot and am doing a lot of things with my life. I'm following through with exactly how I believe summer to be; a time for soul reconstruction and self replenishing. I'm extremely happy with how things have been going for me recently and even the people around me. After a long time of everything feeling pretty confusing, things are starting to work out financial wise and even mentally for my mom. It's so tough to see people around you suffer from something and knowing there's just about nothing you can do to stop it. Kyle's working so extremely hard to make money and a potential living and i'm so beyond proud. I can really see our life together starting to shape out. My family feels connected for the first time in a while. I'm actually going to visit my sister at her apartment this upcoming weekend. I can literally feel everything coming together.
This time last year makes it into the "top 5 worst moments of my life" category. Last summer was when cancer really slapped my dad in the face. I can't remember if I've previously talked about his diagnosis, but he was diagnosed in February of 2014 with stage 3 esophageal cancer (quickly escalating to stage 4), which led to a lung infection, and with that the cancer sprung up to his brain which resulted in a peaceful death after a vicious fight against a poisonous illness on July 23rd. It was traumatizing for everyone who was in his life. It's almost as if as much as they tell you cancer isn't contagious, it spread to all of us and went straight for our souls, and made sure it reeked a little havoc in us too. His job had lost a talented, hardworking, and reliable artist. My grandmother, aunts, and uncles lost an always appreciated phone call from New York and the light of their lives. My mom lost her husband of 32 years, the good looking guy she met in art school, and the man she had created a life with since after college. And I, well I lost a dad who loved me, and who wanted what was best for me always. A man who made my childhood overflowing with color and imagination; A man who proudly made me gloat "Well, I have an artist for a dad!". I have a lot of regrets whether it be not visiting him in the hospital enough or even giving him that attitude way back in '09 or something like that. I miss him so much. It's so hard not to want to talk about him all the time. But I guess that's better than not speaking about it at all. Last July, I would come home and see a vegetable for a parent, a sorry excuse of a source of authority lying on my living room couch. A man who was 56 years old, but had weighed 97 pounds and looked like he was 20 years older. It was awful, truly awful. Sometimes I look back on all of it and I think, "I can't believe that actually happened". It's still a huge shock, and to know that i'm not the only one who has gone through it makes it worse. To watch someone you love not be able to open their eyes all the way, or not be able to hear or breathe, or told if by chance they do live, they'll never be able to eat again, or not be able to hear them say your name because there's an illness bounding their lips together is undeniably terrifying. It feels like the work of the devil. I used to not go anywhere or do anything new or fun because I felt so damn guilty that I was living my life and he wasn't living his. So I kind of temporarily stopped my life. It went on pause and I think that's what made things worse. I tried to do what I thought was best but it actually made a little piece of me die as he did. Today, a year later, I am totally and completely inspired.
I hope to live as whole heartedly as I can and especially with as much meaning as possible. Even the people who have suffered the same thing as you don't exactly know what it's like. I really kind of hate when people say that they understand what someone else is going through. They may relate to the situation, but no one actually understands and feels quite the same as the other. Every single persons experience is different. What my life is now, is all because of what happened in the past. I aspire to simply "be". Not to try to be a certain person or strive for it; just to be. And that's exactly what i'm doing in this moment in time. I am flowing with wherever life is taking me and I love it. I feel so good about what is happening around me. I'm smiling and adventuring. I feel almost as if there should be background music playing behind me to set the mood!! I encourage anyone who is reading this to just simply "be" if you catch my drift. I am enlightened and influenced by this summer attitude. I can confidently say that I, as a human being, am renewed.
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