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.