Half-Pint

I have had a lot of time to think since last week. Spending a lot of time thinking about regrets, and my age, and my health. What are things that I can do to improve those things, what stands in my way. Funny enough it keeps coming back to me. I stand in my own way. What a revelation, or epiphany I suppose. I get in my own damn way. So, we did some talking about where our future should go, what are we happy doing, what should we be doing. After being a part of that funeral I know that my place should be there, with the officers in blue. That is where I am supposed to be. I think I have always known this, I just don’t understand why I get in my own way. Why would I sabotage myself?! The last test I was sailing through the PT..until the run. Funny, it was the only part I was actually nervous about. I think deep down something in me feels that it is either not the right time, or I wasn’t ready yet. I am not happy with who I am right now. So, with all of that we have a commitme...

I am reminded of a part in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes where Ruth is dying...Miss Ruth was a lady, and a lady always knows when it's time to leave. Karen knew it was time to leave. I am thankful that I was up there on Friday night- I knew then it was going to be soon. She left us at 10:10am today. She has no more pain, she fought so well. I will miss you my friend, whenever one of our softball teammates calls me double N I will think of you and smile. And although I hated playing euchre the boobie prize I won will sit proudly on my desk as a reminder of the laughs that happened during those parties.  Be at peace & hurt no more.  Me and Karen at one of our softball games Karen at work during the big protests in Madison Karen after a hockey game

This week has been hard, I have gone to visit Karen at hospice a few times and watched her get a lot of awards and slowly start to leave us. Wonderful write up this week in the paper for her  Story of Karen  she is so loved. This is the hardest thing that I have done since walking through this with Coach House. Of ourse I am much older, and I have a different relationship with Karen. I am not close with her like I was House, but she is my friend. I feel helpless which is why I show up there and sit with her, knowing she knows I am there and that I care. It's all I can do. I don't think it will be long now. I am afraid to go, I am afraid not to go. Rest peacefully Karen, we are all there for you. You have fought well and we all love you. Just close your eyes.

Now this is how you escort a police Sargent to hospice! 

My friend is moving to hospice tomorrow. Doctors say maybe a week or two. That's it, all the time we have. I don't know how to say good bye, but I will have to find those words. This is how I will remember her. As a healthy, fantastic lady that I enjoyed playing hockey and softball with. The one that could always make me laugh. Stay Strong.

Doesn't look like my friend has much longer. She was doing so well, but apparently this week they found 4 more new tumors on her spine and she started having issues moving her legs. She went back to the hospital and I heard last night is now on palliative care heading to hospice soon. Selfishly I am so upset that we are to this point already, but I know she has fought hard. The most selfish thing for me to do would be to stay home and not see her through the rest of her journey, but I will not be able to live with that. It's not fair that a woman this young is debilitated and will ultimately lose her life to cancer. I am upset, I am mad, I am so sad for all the things she will never get to do. I am thankful that for her last hockey game ever I was there. I was on the ice skating with her, defending my goal as she was trying to score her last one. She would never have let me live it down had I just "let" her skate past me. She was the one that started calling me...

Every now and again I have to fight these intense feelings of being unwanted. According to my shrink when I was a kid this has something to do with being adopted. But other times I feel like it is so much more than that. Unwanted at work, unwanted at home, unwanted by my folks, unwanted at karate the list could go on. Tonight it is crushing me. Unwanted. Cast aside. Whatever. I tell myself to ignore it, to bury it deep. Don't want to rock the boat. Don't want to say something that will just upset everything all over again. Bury it very, very deep. Don't say what is really right there. Don't say that sometimes I do feel like nothing, like I do not exist. I am here, sure, but for what?! why? Tomorrow we are supposed to go to a friends to have my birthday celebration. I want to cancel. I want to call it off. Why the hell are we celebrating me? Nothing to celebrate anyway. I will go of course because it's the right thing to do, and I will smile, and I will lau...

So I am signed up for my first into to CrossFit class Saturday. What in the world have I done :)  I will be journaling my journey and experiences in my other  blog . Can't wait to begin this new experience.

Work is horrible, well not work but my job. It impacts how I sleep, how I eat, how I just want to curl up in a hole and cry. Every day I am physically ill from walking into this place, the atmosphere is toxic. I need to get out of here soon before I completely disappear.

Well I wish I could take back a few words. Things I said that were more about trying to hurt than what I was meaning to say. Things are a mess for me right now with work being my daily living nightmare and it is just consuming my life. I am absolutely miserable. I love martial arts, I do, but I am certainly not the best in my class. L is amazing at karate and excels so easily. I am used to doing things because I am so good at them. I admit I am jealous. I am so jealous that L is so good, and is testing for Black Belt in July. I think it upset me when she first tasked someone else in class to hold the pads for her & partner with her during the test and not me. Deep,down I understand its so I can take pictures & watch the test but it would have been nice to be asked. I did finally say something but that really hurt. Sometimes I would just like a pat on my back too. I feel there has been so much focus recently on L and how she isn't challenged enough & needs something m...

A good friend was brought back into the hospital this week...seems her cancer is spreading like wildfire. They found it in her brain this week. How do we say goodbye to her? We have not stepped foot in that hospital since my MIL died. She is much too young to go through this... Last year her doctor told her to see the things she wanted to see or go the places she wanted to see..and she didn't even have that chance. She has been too sick since the diagnosis to even travel. I just cannot say goodbye.

Here is my new favorite song...new favorite voice etc. Sara Ramirez is just amazing and this song is so perfect for her voice. I won't mention that it is a cover song that just blows away the original. Enjoy :)

I am a little late to watching the show Grey's Anatomy but I have fallen head-over-heals for this show. I remember loving some of the other medical drama shows, but none like this is so long. I am especially drawn to the story of Dr. Callie Torez and Dr. Arizona Robbins. Maybe that is like stating the obvious but really I can feel their relationship the strongest. Maybe I expected the usually perfect hollywood gay couple storyline, and in some ways I am not surprised by some of it. Even the L Word tried pulling off "normal" relationships. Of course they failed terribly but I figured it would be similar. Episode 5 of Season 6 was especially touching for me and it has been playing in my mind a lot. Callie essentially introduces the love of her life to her father and he brings in the priest. Great line where she throws up her hands and says "You can't pray away the gay" it was completely how the interactions with my parents are. Including the quoting the bibl...

Well today was not a happy holiday, nor was is a merry xmas...Today was frustrating, sad & far away from a good day. We are here alone with no family around. Last year we went to Texas for the holidays which was a wonderful time, and prior years we had gone up to my BIL to be with the kids and hang out for the day. Well for the last year he has been a selfish prick that is going through his own stuff and not realizing or caring that he is hurting his own family. So today we sat at home. No family, no friends..just us. L was a mess today, very upset and crying. Nothing I could do would snap her out of her sadness today. I tried many times to get our out to go to a movie or something but she couldn't hardly go 5 min without crying. To say that today was a very rough day is an understatement. I think next year I will try and send L down to TX to be with her sister. This was just too rough.

Well summer certainly flew by-holy crap! Let's see what is all going on these days, karate- lots and lots of karate. We go pretty much 5 days a week right now which is an adjustment for the house but it's so much fun and an excellent workout! I will be testing for my next belt in less than a month so I am excited about that. Big difference in my martial arts training this time around is that I feel my instructor really makes us earn our belts and encourages us to do our best. I am lucky because I decided to go down a couple of ranks and enter into this school as a green belt- which is right where I belong. I have a nice group of ladies that are green as well and if all goes well we will work our way up to black belt together. The plan is to take a semi-permeant break from hockey so we can focus on our training. This has made me so happy and relieved so much stress from my life. I can honestly say that I have not missed hockey at all which is quite surprising t...

Tomorrow I head home again for a long weekend with my folks. Always a trying and emotional time for me, on the one hand I am excited to see my dad and some friends/family while I am in town. On the other hand there is such a tension between my mother and I it's palpable. Many of my friends here just do not understand that it is only for my father that I make this trip. I know that once he is gone I will miss him every single day and will be glad I took the time and endured whatever I had to to spend time to him. I just wish once, just once they would finally meet my partner. But I cannot hold my breath for that day because I know it will never come. My folks are actually a lot of fun and I have some great times when I am with them. We laugh a lot and we enjoy each other's company as long as we have something to do..a focus. I don't know if I really have a point to this other than just that I am stressed out.

On Tuesday I decided to "introduce" myself to my brother. All I had was facebook but I knew my other brother was in town so this might be a good time to lay this one on him. I just said my name was Jenn and I was born April 28, 1977 to Kathy and I am your sister. Time has been ticking by since then, no response or anything. Apparently he has not said anything at all so I don't know if this is a good sign or not. I have been feeling very strongly lately that I need to gather my family close to me. But now I just have to sit and wait. I hope my brothers understand that I just want to build a relationship with them, I have never had siblings & they have always had each other. But now I just sit and wait...

So many changes to share and I don't know where to start right now. I suppose starting at the beginning would be helpful. School was going along wonderfully until somewhere around March/April- essentially after I got home from my cruise. That was when school just fell apart for me and a challenge because an obstacle and that became an impossibility which lead to a withdraw. That prompted another try, renewed effort and again withdraw and I have ended my masters studies for now. I just found that anything with account or statistics just had a roadblock for me that I am unable to get around. Truly made me feel like a failure and frankly like an idiot. So student status is currently on the off side. Apparently there are just things that I cannot grasp and rather than continue to beat myself up longer I pulled out. As if that wasn't enough, this may come as a shock but I am also hanging up my hockey skates. I have been disenchanted with hockey for...

As children we are asked early what do you want to be when you grow up? It starts innocently with princess, president, astronaut, police office. But at some point they actually expect that you just know  what you want to do, then ship you off to school for a few years and viola- there you are! But what if your dream and your ability to do this occupation do not mesh, and then you are faced with - nothing? A series of mindless, lackluster occupations that will bring home money for your family but leave you unfulfilled and wishing for more. So what does someone do when they are 35 and realize that they just don't know what they want to do with their life. Faced with working on a masters in something that is not bringing them joy or doing the scary thing and starting over. But how do you know what your passion is, or what you are supposed to do with your life. If you have many things that interest you and sound good but just doesn't strike a cord. So where do you go? Wha...

I think that time has run away from me these days. I look around and it's days later and I just don't have enough time anymore. Story of life I know...but it's unnerving. School is a struggle. I found my ultimate roadblock in accounting and actually had to attempt this class twice. Sadly, I did not win this battle and then it became a question of changing majors or dropping my attempt at masters all together. Well not being one to just give up I switched to an MPA which is public administration. Not my ideal and actually I am not as excited about the classes. I am really struggling now where the classes for my MBA just came easily to me. Makes me wonder if this is not a poor choice. I hate that I just cannot understand something like accounting no matter what I have tried and it is very demoralizing. Currently I have two classes which are a mixture of accounting and statistics which is like my nightmare. I have a feeling that I am not going to do well this term but we wi...