Home coming

Source: Home coming

Home coming

Well, Happy New Year! I’m officially not an Oregonian anymore. My home state is kinda falling apart at the seams lately anyway, so I switched all my identifications, titles, insurances and what nots over this last week. It’s weird. Oregon never really felt like home even though I will always love it. I’ll go back this spring. We’ll see if I can handle looking at it. The memories were suffocating when I left. I couldn’t do it. Go to the same places, have the same things Mom loved, we loved.

The nightmares are back. Over and over again I’m waking up in a cold sweat because I can still hear Mom’s death rattle. Then silence. Nothing, just black, cold, silence. I keep fixating on how I washed her body before they came to take her away. I keep thinking about the pop and crunch of her bones and tumor-ed joints as I changed her clothes. I wanted her to be clean, comfortable one last time. Just like sleeping, so they say. I know eventually the dreams will go away and I’ll shake it, but not yet. The year mark approaches and I get to relive it again every night. Sometimes I wish I didn’t remember, if that little bit of my memory could be erased I’d gladly trade just about anything.

I keep thinking about the good memories too. Somehow, irrational as it seems to me, I don’t want them either. I think about days at DQ and hikes and I break inside. Every calm moment I can hear my Mom’s voice, telling me to just get on with it, not to give up. Work is turmoil right now, and it seems like the harder I try the more I feel like Mom. Trapped in a nightmare that won’t end, but no choice but to continue on. Even when it’s something you detest. A place you can’t stand, you just do. Responsibility I think will always be my enemy. The want to do what’s right and what’s expected, regardless of passion or desire. I still have to pay bills. It’ll work out in the end, it always does.

For now, I’ve got to push myself. If I succeed I’ll double my income by the end of the year, but for now, I’ll scratch by until I can do what I want. So is the circle of life, I suppose. I always wonder why I had to be born honest instead of a crook. Seems much easier to lie, cheat and steal, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Morals. Values. I love my parents, but did they really have to teach me all that? I’m being facetious of course, but I wonder often how different my life would be if I didn’t have standards.

My new supervisor at work had the gull to tell me to lower my standards. HA! I’m the only employee in my branch with standards. I quite literally laughed in her face. I’m willing to wager I’ll be with the company long after she is let go. It’s frustrating all the same though. You spend the majority of your time in a workplace, how is it that you don’t show pride for your work? Strive for more? Laziness. Fucking ridiculous. But, in the end, I know thinking like that is why she has been with the company for so long and never gets promoted. It makes me sad for her in way. It’s frustrating for me to deal with incapable people day in and day out though. I was never meant to sit at the bottom of a tiered universe. Thankfully, most of my peers know that. I chose the right manager to work under. I’ll likely laugh at the notion of “lowering my standards,” for years to come. Truth of the matter is, I never lower, only ever raise, however, I’m not dumb enough to think that anyone else can rise to my standard. I like a challenge. So as much as I might want to throw in the towel, I know I won’t. I re-evaluate regularly, that’s how to be come a champion. At least Mom gave me that much. She and Dad have taught me never to settle. If I want it, earn it. And I will.

But. I’ve got to make it through the year first. It’ll be interesting. A spring trip home. I’ll have to face the memories, go look at my past and try to keep it together while I’m there. I’ll take Mike home with me so he can see where I grew up. The depraved little town that used to be nice. Now it’s a meth infested hole with disgraceful folks inter-mingled with retirees, new families and kids that don’t know any better. I should miss it, but I don’t. I will always have an affinity for the outdoors and fresh air. Trees, leaves, rocks, rivers, and my mountains were the best part of me. I said goodbye to that nearly a year ago. I’ll go back one year and one week later.

This time last year I was praying my Dad would make it home from the hospital and that my Mom would finally let go of her torment. I’m scarred. I’m haunted. I broke. The nightmares and night sweats still come. I feel like a shell shocked cat on the 4^th of July. It comes in waves, sometimes I know it and can hide myself for a bit and chill out. A lot of times I’m in a store or at work and I shut down. It’s a strange thing hearing your every breath as the anxiety rips you out of your senses. To know you’re moving and breathing and talking, but not really there. It’s isolating. It’s drowning. I don’t know how to turn it off some days. The manifestation.

I thought I had dealt with it this past year, but perhaps not. I’m still reliving losing everything. I’ve gained a whole new world and yet I still pine for the past. Humanity. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t human. It makes me wonder what Abbigail misses. If she sees and smells things throughout the week that remind her of being a puppy in the woods. A rabbit running. Looking out the window. She’s taken the move in stride. She likes living with Mike and Cliff. She seems happy, but I wonder if she has the same zeal and lust for the outdoors. Right now we are indoors a lot. I’m looking forward to spring though. We moved to a lake so I can’t wait to go sit on the banks with the dogs and play in the water. Maybe I’ll buy a little canoe and paddle about it.

I’ve been planning in my head all the places to take Mike when we’re in the Northwest. We only have a few days and most of that will be introducing Mike to my family. It should be a good week. Hopefully we can get in some camping, see everyone and explore a little. Mike has never seen the Pacific Northwest so it will be a quick trip, but we’ll go crabbing and maybe deep sea fishing, hike my favorite waterfalls in the North Umpqua. I’ll take him to the California red woods at Shenandoah and take him to Seattle. Fast week, but it should be fun.

Hopefully I’ll be okay with the memories. February is approaching too fast. I’m not ready for Mom to be gone for a whole year. I wasn’t ready for her to leave. I’ll go bowling on the day. A remembrance of sorts. Something she loved before her broken and beat up body couldn’t do it anymore. I’m not good at it, but it’s a place I can still feel close to her. I grew up in a bowling alley after all. Perhaps that can be my home away from home.