What I want to say...

I am here, at home, visiting my parents.

Yes, my Dad is still home.

And I want to tell you that it is all great. But that wouldn't be true.

I also want to sit here and cry (via the blog) to you about how awful it is to change your father's diaper, to find him soaked in urine at 5:30 in the morning, to ask him if he likes being at home versus being in the nursing home and have him tell you that he just doesn't care, to see that he can barely carry on a conversation anymore...I want to cry and cry and cry about that and the fact that stupid cramps started last night too (yes, stupidly as it sounds I still get my battered little hopes up every.single.month) but then I think: "Come on, everyone has their problems and no one ever guaranteed things would be easy in life."

All of this is true. It's awful and sad and breaks my heart. It's also true that no one guaranteed things would be easy in this life.

See...my life was relatively easy growing up. I was spoiled. I was sheltered. I was loved and indulged and loved and indulged.

I was protected.

I was taught that if you worked hard you were rewarded. That if you did good in the world good would come back to you. I was also taught (and teach it every day of my life in clinic) that if you take good care of yourself you can remain healthy.

And up until a few years ago, my world remained fairly intact. I operated within the rules I had been taught and life was good.

Then little by little, piece by piece, my world started getting rocked. Sometimes with giant, shattering earthquakes that took me to floor (literally) and sometimes with small sequential disappointments that piled on top of each other until they were a giant snowball of sadness. I've been knocked down a few more times very recently and frankly I am sick of it.

But isn't everyone? Isn't this part of growing up? Of realizing that this is just the way life works...a series of compromises, and lowered expectations and realizing that who are you to get what you want in life?

I know I sound bitter. I know I sound like I'm whining. I'm not trying to, I'm just trying to make sense of things.

Those of you who are parents--you are likely doing exactly what my parents did. Working hard to love your children and surround and insulate them in a bubble of happiness and light. You'll teach them to work hard and do good things in life and that life will reward you for it--because who's going to tell a five year old that life is hard, that life isn't fair, that life sucks sometimes?

But it's 5:45 in the morning and I'm rambling. But if I don't talk here, I fear I will just slowly, silently implode.