Dec 27

 Feeling fairly shit at the moment. Not as bad as I was overnight. But. Not good. The nausea is back, not as bad as it was, but, it has become once again very common, sitting with me for most of a day. It's at the level where it can go either way, either, pushing you into not doing anything feeling unwell, or, gritting your teeth, getting on with shit despite feeling green around the gills, and achieving a few minor things.

Marvellous.

Yesterday I decided I needed to get out and get some fresh air. So. I decided to go see Hazel for a while. Just to see how she was doing, how Poppy was doing. It was good to get out. But sad. Hazel talks along about Poppy and the dogs she has seen and met and yada. Which is nice. But it is bitter sweet for me. I say nothing. But. After a while. It makes me very sad. I cannot help but think about Ares or Athena and their experiences, it makes me terribly sad.

We also talked about her Aunt a bit. With MS. Its latest symptoms. So very hard. I cannot help empathising hard. And I see in her Aunts slow decline, the same pattern with my mom. It also brings up feelings of grief, and loss, and the futility of it all, and just adds another layer of sad.

Ha.

So. 

Good visit.

It's me, not Hazel to be clear. I am just raw.

Hazel is going to come over for a night on Sunday - Poppy has her X ray bright and early round the corner to me on Monday, so, easier all round if she takes her time on Sunday, and then, is 5 minutes round the corner for Monday.

Today, feeling particularly sick, I decided to phone my dad. I had meant to do it yesterday, but didn't have his number, felt ill, took that as a sign.

Today I did it anyway, despite feeling ill.

He was ok. Enough. His mind is slowly deteriorating by his own measure. He cannot concentrate on things anymore he said. His mind kept slipping away into daydreams. He is not really getting enough social stimulation I think. He lives alone. He does go out a couple of times a week to a social lunch. So. That's something. More than me ! But. Age, and isolation has taken its toll.

I spoke to him and felt very sad for him. No recriminations. Just sad. He said he had had enough. Not in a miserable doom and gloom way. But. Just as a matter of fact. Seen everything he wanted to. Done what he wanted to he said. Just. Not interested anymore.

I understood completely.

I kept things light with him. Kept him talking. Asked about everything he was doing.

In a rare flash of reverse insight, when I said when I felt up to it I would come drop by and see him, he said, that he knew I struggled with being well. He was the same. And not to worry about coming by.

It was a super dupe rare moment of actual empathy from the old man.

After 25 minutes we had run out of things to say. I left him to it. He isn't the easiest person to talk to, I don't think he's ever been well versed with it. I on the other hand can talk for hours to people. But. It's difficult when the other person doesn't have a lot to say. But I did my best. And it was alright.

As ever after I hung up on him I was overwhelmed with emotion.

So incredibly sad. And tearful.

Make of that what you will.

He said that he missed mom. He said that he thought she would go, and he would get over it. But. That hasn't happened. He admitted it had destroyed him. It was clear he didn't anticipate or understand the grief. And that it had chewed him up. Was chewing him up still. It is perfectly understandable. I tried to tell him that. That it was very hard. And not to be hard on himself. And it made sense. He is difficult to soothe like that though. Difficult to let himself be helped. Still.

That too was sad. Very very late in life my dad has had to learn how to get to grips with emotion that cannot be tempered with anger. To deal with loss. Too late, really. And his isolation just makes it all so much worse. No place to run to. No distractions. Just you and your ghosts.

It is a harsh sentence.

Ho hum.

Sometimes, I think I can see what happiness is like. What contentment and being "normal" is like. I get flashes of it. But it is always always like looking at some alien thing through a pane of glass. I can't feel it. I can't get to it. Intellectually I have a rough idea of what that would feel like to someone else. But to me. It is alien. Does not connect. A piece to study on a plinth. But not to experience.

Yeesh.

I am so very broken.

Perhaps there are uses for being so broken. Different perspective to things. I wish I wasn't. I wish I was able to be happy. Most of all I wish I wasn't ill all the time.

But it is what it is.

Tried talking to my sister today, I gave her a lot of opportunity to bail out first, are you ok, are you busy, etc. She wasn't feeling very well the last few days. So. I let her go without talking to her. I understand that she has difficulty at the best of times talking to me I think. But I was just going to chat to her. See how her xmas went. And I might have a laptop to give the great niece(s). A freebie. For getting a new phone. I don't need it.

But in the end I didn't get a chance. Another day. Maybe.

And I feel the walls of the isolation in our family close.

We will always be this way. At arms length.

That too, is what it is.

It does not make me happy.