Had. Small. Breakdown. Earlier. Today.
Everyone knows that around the end of the semester I am due for a hysterical little breakdown. When I decided to take eighteen hours I knew the breakdown would be a little bigger than usual. Somehow though I didn't factor in the possibility that my dad would be so sick.
We've been told that he doesn't have long left. His doctors don't see how he could live more than a week or two. I have three weeks of school left. He desperately wants me to finish school. I want to panic. Panic. Panic. I need to get my grad school recommendations together, finish this semester's work, and try to deal with my dad being on the brink of death.
Mama thinks that he'll hold on 'til I'm done. She thinks that he's worried that I'll flip out and not be able to finish if he dies before it's over. I'm not sure she's wrong. All I have left is nineteen pages of text, two paper rewrites, two presentations, and four finals. That might sound like a lot, but believe it or not a week ago I had twice as much work to do. After Thursday I'll be able to (almost) breathe a sigh of relief as my biggest research paper will be done.
I've just been having this HUGE internal conflict because I want to spend my dad's last days with him, and he wants me to do my homework and graduate. I can't do both. Anyone who has ever tried to get something meaningful done at a hospital (other than hospital related stuff) can probably understand that to do what he wants I can't be there. Which is where I want to be. It's unnerving.
There's also the issue of all the weird thoughts I've been having. Like how I'm so happy that life with D has simply settled down. How I'm happy with him. How he's a really good boyfriend. Maybe some of it is that I'm too tired to argue, but we've really learned how to be a team in the last few months. He still drives me nuts at times but I'm happy to have that. I'd rather have him driving me nuts a little than miss out on all the love. I've never, ever felt so loved and cared for in my life. The weird thought part is; I'm afraid I never would have felt this way if my dad hadn't been sick.
Everyone knows that around the end of the semester I am due for a hysterical little breakdown. When I decided to take eighteen hours I knew the breakdown would be a little bigger than usual. Somehow though I didn't factor in the possibility that my dad would be so sick.
We've been told that he doesn't have long left. His doctors don't see how he could live more than a week or two. I have three weeks of school left. He desperately wants me to finish school. I want to panic. Panic. Panic. I need to get my grad school recommendations together, finish this semester's work, and try to deal with my dad being on the brink of death.
Mama thinks that he'll hold on 'til I'm done. She thinks that he's worried that I'll flip out and not be able to finish if he dies before it's over. I'm not sure she's wrong. All I have left is nineteen pages of text, two paper rewrites, two presentations, and four finals. That might sound like a lot, but believe it or not a week ago I had twice as much work to do. After Thursday I'll be able to (almost) breathe a sigh of relief as my biggest research paper will be done.
I've just been having this HUGE internal conflict because I want to spend my dad's last days with him, and he wants me to do my homework and graduate. I can't do both. Anyone who has ever tried to get something meaningful done at a hospital (other than hospital related stuff) can probably understand that to do what he wants I can't be there. Which is where I want to be. It's unnerving.
There's also the issue of all the weird thoughts I've been having. Like how I'm so happy that life with D has simply settled down. How I'm happy with him. How he's a really good boyfriend. Maybe some of it is that I'm too tired to argue, but we've really learned how to be a team in the last few months. He still drives me nuts at times but I'm happy to have that. I'd rather have him driving me nuts a little than miss out on all the love. I've never, ever felt so loved and cared for in my life. The weird thought part is; I'm afraid I never would have felt this way if my dad hadn't been sick.
3 Comments:
JEEEEZ..What a really tough position to be in. At the end of the day you can't get the time with your dad back - but you can redo your work again though with perhaps, a clearer head. Your dad doesn't have to know that youre not doing the work either.
He's with it enough to know that if I'm at the hospital I'm not going to school, or finishing my work.
It's funny, my mom and I talked about this whole conundrum this morning. She pointed out to me how incredibly driven my dad has always been, and that he's always expected the same from me. We were brought up never to give up.
A few months ago, before things go really bad he said that no matter what I had to finish school, that was what he wanted. I could never lie to my dad right now. The times I've had with him are what are important to the two of us. I'll continue to work until the last minute. Then there's going to have to be some professors who do some "understanding"...
Thinking about you a
lot.
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