When the Bottom Drops Out

There are lots of situations when your bottom drops out. No one can tell you when, how, or why these situations will occur; they just happen. Often times when you least expect it. Nothing spectacular happens, and you don't even realized it happened until it's already over. A good example is when you find out someone you are really close to just passed away. Now you know what feeling I'm talking about. It's like your abdomen is a trap door, someone just released the lever, and the entire contents spill to the floor.

This usually happens when we receive bad news of some kind. Someone you really love decides to call it quits, someone dies, you lose a job you thought was secure, you find out you're sick and there's nothing that can be done about it, etc. Always when there's bad news of some kind that is out of your control to remedy. Sometimes this toxic emotion can be spurred by a few simple words from the most unexpected of places.

This happened recently to my wife, and then later myself. The culprit? Our son. If you've been following along, or know me personally, you know the story of my child, as it's been told so far. He's going to need a major surgery to replace a major organ. It's not his fault, and he's having a hard time grasping the situation as it is. I'm sure as he gets older, he'll wrap his mind around it, and it'll be an easier pill to swallow. But for right now, as it is, he just knows that he gets sick and has to go see the doctors a lot.

After coming home from a long day of work tonight, I walked in expecting everyone to be asleep in their beds. I was quick to learn that was not the case. As soon as I stepped foot in the door, there was my littlest one. Usually this brings a smile to my face as he usually announces my arrival by screaming “Daddy!” and running up to me for his evening hug and to tell me all about his day.

Not tonight. Tonight he had a somber look on his face and I could tell that something was troubling him. I asked him was what wrong and he told me that he was unable able to sleep.

“Why” I asked, “What's the matter?”

“When are the doctors going to cut me open” he asked me in return.

A little taken aback, I replied “Not tonight.” I'm used to these anonymous questions, but this evening I was not really prepared.

“Are you sure?” he asked again. A tint of urgency creeping into his tone.

“I'm pretty sure” I said.

“Every time I close my eyes, they try to cut me open”

I bent down to my knee and got eye level with him. “No one is going to touch you without you letting them”

“Are you sure?” he asked me one more time.

“I promise you”

He hugged me around the neck and said “Thank you, daddy” and ran off back to bed.

I haven't seen him for a few hours, so I guess that worked.

I dressed down from my work uniform and grabbed a bite to eat. After I was done, I headed outside for a smoke. My wife joined me shortly thereafter. She too is having trouble sleeping this evening. I asked her what was going on with her, and she went on to confide the days events and why she was so bothered.

She told me that earlier in the day, Rogue stopped doing his homework and asked her why he couldn't go to back to school. We've decided to home school him this year if you didn't catch that. My wife explained to him that he was going to stay home this year in case he gets sick. Last year he missed about 2 months of school because of illness. They decided to fail him. So this year, we're just home schooling him to make everyone's lives easier.

He tried to convince her that he was better and was ready to go back. My wife kept trying to change the subject, but being my son, he wasn't letting that happen. So she tried the next rational choice, she tried explaining to him about why he was being home schooled and why he was staying home. We've already been through this talk with him and with doctors a hundred times, but sometimes it just doesn't stick and you have to explain it to him again later on..... later on was today.... again.

She explained to him about his “broken” liver, and how the doctors are going to have to replace it, and how it will make him feel better.
“What if it doesn't make me feel better” he asked.

“The doctors have told us that it will” she responded.

“But what if it doesn't” he asked again, “Will I be able to see you in heaven.” Thats the moment someone grabbed the lever.

“Are you sure it'll be time to go to heaven?” She asked him, not prepared for any answer.

“Yes, and I'll miss you when I get there” He said.

The bottom dropped out.

The conversation stopped there, as you would expect, but apparently, the echoes remained for the remainder of the evening. I've spoken to both of them about the conversation, and it's helped to alleviate the fears that they are anticipating. But now it's my turn. That's the bitch of it really. Being the Rock you really don't have anywhere else to turn. I do have friends to chat with about it, but for me that doesn't alleviate the situation. It doesn't make the bitter jagged pill go down any easier. Talking about it doesn't make it go away, it just fortifies it even further. So I do what I do best. I slam the verbiage to paper, and I continue on with my life.

A Most Dangerous Game

It's been a while since my last post; it's been a hellish few weeks. The last post I made my son was getting sick, and a few days after penning it, we went into the hospital for a week +. After we got out I spent some time trying to make up work for school, catching up with both my day and evening jobs.
Playing catch up is always fun when you're not prepared for it.
Then I lost internet access for a few weeks.. We're preparing to take him back to the hospital in the morning, which is a few hours away, but i'm not really ready to sleep. I got a post up on my other blog, and since I've been neglecting this one as well, I figured it was time for an update.
If anyone is curious, we found out that his condition was much worse than any of us had anticipated, and he has been preparing for a future surgery.

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Now to the meat and potatoes.

Psychology is an art form. Hit or miss. Your either right or your wrong. There is no margin for error when your fucking with someone's mind. The consequences from a miscalculation could be devastating.

As has been obvious if you have been following along, there is a great deal of concern over the health of my youngest child. My wife, who suffers from bi-polar disorder (believe me when I say suffers), has not been dealing well with the situation; as to be expected. None of us have, but she has been taking it extremely hard.

The thing with bi-polar disorder if you are unfamiliar, is fluctuating emotions between different extremes in the spectrum. They are either extremely happy, or extremely sad, and it's hard for them to hit a middle ground. If you've ever met a genuine bi-polar person, you know what I mean. They're not psychotics screaming at bus stops and beating up old ladies as our cultural views and late night news would lead you to believe. They can be very manic and a mile a minute, or very sad and emotionally drained. My wife is of the type that spends most of their time depressed, or "hypo-manic."

How do you cope with the knowledge that there is a very good possibility that you will outlive your children? I honestly believe that it's harder knowing in advance. Why? Because you have hopes, fears, expectations, dreams, regrets and an entire plethora of other emotions to deal with while trying to maintain a facade that all is well while your insides are churning brimstone. You spend every waking moment going over in your mind what you can do to try and prevent something that may or may not even come to fruition.

Too much is on the line, including your sanity. Unfortunately, when a child is taken unexpectedly, that entire part of the process is removed from the equation. Your left dealing with the aftermath, there was nothing you could do to change the outcome. Not in every situation, I admit, but tearing yourself from the inside out before anything even happens is removed. Your left with keeping yourself together afterword, and dealing with the shock.

To help my wife deal with life in general, she seeks the services of a psychiatrist. This person helps her maintain her medication, which if you know anyone who actually lives with any type of clinical mental condition, it's quite a regimen. They also offer advice, help her to set goals, and try to help her maintain a stability.

If you know me, and if your reading this then I expect you at least know some of my views. You probably know that I struggle with religion, as does my wife. She is a lot more active than I am. She actually attends church, and is active within the community. Whereas I like to just dabble in the philosophical and theological aspects of the business.

Lately, my wife has been trying to deal with what I have dubbed the "what if" factor. What if he doesn't survive? What if he doesn't make it out alive? What if he doesn't get to experience love with another individual? What if he doesn't get to experience laughter only true friends can provide? What if he doesn't get to create a million summer time memories? What if he doesn't get to experience what life really has to offer? What if all of the sudden everything as we know it falls apart? What if we can't keep it together? What if?

It's quite  a lot to take in. A conundrum you don't really want to spend time thinking about. But you cannot stop yourself, and you find that it's all you think about. The more you try to push it away, the more it creeps in when you least expect it.

She's been slipping back evermore into the recession known as depression. With her condition very bad things could happen. In an attempt to alleviate her distress, she has frequented her psychologist's office more often trying to seek salvation from her haunting distress.

In what I believe to be a very dangerous power move by her doctor in an attempt to help, they prayed together about my son and his well being. I don't mind that at all. Good for them. I find that most people find courage and inner peace after consulting with a higher being, and given support from others while doing so. I'm glad that the doctor had the conviction to do so and express this with my wife.

What I don't agree with is what he did next.

After they had said their prayer, he removed a cross on a string from his wallet and held it over a picture of my son. They watched transfixed as it floated delicately over the photo. They watched as it swayed to and fro, and spun in semi-circles above the photo. Appearing to move by it's on volition.

When the cross ceased to move further, and the spectacle finally ended, he had very exciting news for my wife. He confined to her that my child would live a long life, and that he would go on to father 2 children of his own; a boy and a girl. Needless to say, my wife left the office feeling very optimistic about life in general.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete pessimist, and I want to believe this just as much as she does, but I can't bring myself to. I have reality nagging on my neck. I want this to be the truth, I want to put all my chips in this basket, and ride my winnings all the way back home. But I can't. I am not ready to stop being afraid.

I cannot stop thinking about how I want this to not go south even more now than before, if that was even possible. I firmly believe that if something does happen to him, she will walk away from the one doctor she's ever trusted enough to take the advice from. She will be even more devastated because she has put all of her chips in that basket. She wanted to before, but someone finally gave her the validation that she so desperately needed before doing so. If this power move did not work, I fear she may never recover.

She believes so desperately that I have found myself trying to support her with this against my own judgement. I just hope more than anything that I can openly admit that I was wrong about something and mean it.

Time, I Hate You

Sincerely, Me.

My biggest foe, my worst enemy. No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to beat you. You take away everything, and bring me, everything. I run away from you, and to you. No matter how fast I move, I cannot escape your grip. Even when I try to let you go, you're still there. Like an old lover, you know me so well. Even as free as I try to be, I cannot get away from your constraints. Time, I hate you. 

There it is. 

I cannot seem to get away from it. It's all around us, and yet I cannot seem to get enough of it. Perplexing. Sometimes it takes forever to get here, and other times, it moves too fast. I have too much to do, and never enough time to do it in. 

As I get older, I find that I have become more religious. If you know me well, that statement must seem odd. I have no real religious leaning one way or another. I guess I would call myself spiritual. I used to identify more as an agnostic, but as I grow, I realize I want to believe. I want to believe there is more than this, and that when I depart this realm, I want to keep moving forward. Is this true? I don't know, but I want to believe that it is. 

I have become fixated on death and time lately. Having an ill child, and an ill parent will do that to you. My mother died when I was younger, not a child per say, but not really an adult either. She passed well before a mother should, and it shocked me. We didn't really expect it and I've never really recovered either.

In all fairness, she was ill for a long time, and as the doctors kept telling us, she was around a lot longer than they ever expected. We should have felt fortunate that she lasted as long as she did, but we didn't. We felt robbed. We felt like she was taken at the wrong time. All of the times that she was physically ill, and we thought that she might pass, she pulled through. And then it happened. She had a heart attack. At a hospital. In a waiting room. Waiting to see a doctor. 

She was feeling just fine, and talking to my father, then she fell asleep as she often would when immobilized for any amount of time. She was waiting to see the doctor for a routine check up. She fell asleep sitting there waiting. When her name was called, my father couldn't get her to awaken. She died in her sleep, just the way that she wanted to go. I guess I find solace in that request. 

She died almost exactly 1 week after my youngest son was born, and 1 week before Mother's day. It was a rough few weeks to say the least. 

And here we are now, almost a decade later, and sometimes it feels like it just happened. 

My father is ill, and has been for years. My youngest son is ill and has been his entire life. I'm not ready for this. I don't want to be ready for this. Right now my child is very sick. The doctors aren't quite positive what is causing it, but they have him on medication they are hoping works. If it doesn't we're going to have to admit him to the hospital. What does that mean? We aren't sure, and the doctor didn't give us an answer. I'm assuming that's not the best of signs. 

We know that at some point he is going to need a transplant. After the transplant his life will change, and for the better. But that's if it takes and all goes according to plan. At our first few visits, the doctor estimated that he'd need the transplant probably sometime around his 20's, then the next few visits, the expectancy was lowered to his mid teens, and then to his lower teens, maybe around 10 or 11. Now, we're at a stage where the doctor just says "we'll keep an eye on it." The last time we seen him because he became sick, the doctor was worried that we were already to a point where we needed to "talk about our options." But thankfully, he pulled through and we never needed to "talk about our options."

My father is in the same boat. He has the same thing that my son has, it's a genetic disease. I more than likely have it as well, but I haven't gotten tested and have not showed any signs of it. I don't want to know right now. I know the rhetoric about knowing is better, but is it really? If you know, doesn't it become part of your life, part of who you are, how you identify yourself? I already have enough physical problems, I don't want to add 1 more to the list. 

The dreams have started again. I can't seem to get away from them. They always end the same way, my son doesn't make it after the operation. I'm afraid to go to sleep at night because I don't want to face the fear and the shock and the panic that comes with these dreams. I don't want to feel terrified, out of control, afraid that I cannot do something to change it. I'm the rock in my family when everything turns to shit. I'm the one every turns to for answers and help getting through tough situations. What happens when the rock finally crumbles and falls apart?

That leads me to why I am fixated on death and time. They go hand in hand don't they? Like some kind of macabre lovers. One always chasing after the other. One care free, and the other full of purpose. One always passing you by in a hurry while you wait for the inevitable follow up of the other. The difficulty that comes with wrapping your mind around one, but cannot stop thinking about the other.

Time, I hate you. Death, fuck you.
Sincerely,
Me

Sorry Been Busy

"Sorry, been busy." My usual mantra. Busy, busy, busy. I never have time; always busy. That's how I roll.

Not lately. ~ Eah ~ Sorta true. I have had busy spouts, where I'm busy for a few hours, but then I get distracted, and find myself doing something else. I know my blog so far, if you've been following, has been that I generally stay pretty busy. But the last few weeks I've really calmed down. I've been slowing down and trying to enjoy myself for a bit.

I expect that I'll resume my rampant pace very shortly, but for now, I just need a moment to breath.

It's time for me to stop for a minute and evaluate my life. I know I'm working on too much, and other area's have been faltering because of it. I haven't been spending as much time with my family, or my friends. For the last few months it's been nose to the grindstone, and a million projects all at once.

I've been working on dmotivated.com, writing articles for PawTucket, trying to keep up with this blog, going to school, working a full time job, and in between, teaching myself new stuff as much as I can and working on stuff for other people. I wake up 7 or 8 every morning, and go to bed between 2 and 4 every evening. On the weekends I have to make myself go to bed even at those times, or I'll try and pull an all-nighter. I go to work Monday through Friday, 9 to 7, 8, 9 - whenever, and then come home and get right back to work. When I get up in the morning I get right on the laptop, and work right up until I go to work. Then When I get home, I'll grab some chow, and say hey to the kids if they're still awake, then get right back to work right up until the wee hours of the morning.

On the weekends, I get home Friday night I'll stay up until 4 or 5, sleep until 9 or 10, then wake up, grab a cup of coffee and my laptop, then head out onto the porch for  pretty much the remainder of the day. I take small breaks here and there to do what I need to do, but most of the time I spend working. And I do this until Monday morning.

What is work?

Well my day job, I'm overseeing branch activities and working in a vault. A position I've come to despise. I was being vetted for branch manager, but that didn't pan out. So now I am the vault supervisor. I take care of day to day operations, and see to the place when the boss is out --which is frequent to say the least. It has literally become just a place that generates an income until my other endeavors start to pay out or until I can find another job; the later is preferred, but beggars can't be choosers.

After the day job is when the magic happens. That's when I'm doing what I do love to do, coding, reading, learning, and writing. I come home, check the media outlets as most people do, promote my main site with it's fan page on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. I spend about an hour doing that, then I'll divvy my night up with school work, coding, reading anything I can get my hands on about web development and programming, and writing articles. I don't publish every article I write. They'll get published eventually, but I just draft them out and have them ready to go until I have time to polish them up and publish.

This is what I want to do with my life, but I'd like to work less hours, and actually get paid for it. That is my goal, and I'd like to accomplish it within this year. That's why I keep busting my own ass, trying to stay on top of everything, keeping busy, no time for anything but progress. It takes me a few days to get most stuff done, but that is because of my pile of stuff called a to-do list. I try to break it all up, and do a little here, a little there.

Lately, the last few weeks, as I was originally saying, I've been a bad boy. I've stumbled a bit, and have been finding solace in video games. It used to be a very bad habit, and if I don't watch myself, may become one again. They help me escape reality just for a little bit, and let me immerse myself in another world. When I get stressed, I play more games; it's like running away, but without actually running. Sometimes, it's a nice change of pace from my day to day. Usually I can go a few months without even turning on a system. But lately, I've been play for a couple hours a day. I need to get back to work and stay focused, but the appeal has been too strong.

My day job hours have gotten unpredictable again, and my absent minded boss is literally absent more often.   But the bad part is he's still there, bugging me on the phone and over email. Most of my stress is caused by this job, and yet, I can't seem to get away, and can't afford to. I'll pull myself together, it's just taking a little longer than usual. I need to snap out of this, and get back to being productive; but at the same time I feel like I've earned a little bit of a breather. I feel like there is something lurking around the corner; something pretty big. I'm feeling that it's going to be a good change and hope I'm not just being optimistic.

To my friends and family, I hope you understand. I'm not ignoring you, I truly am not. I am just in one of those periods in my life where I know what I want, I'm just in the process of trying to get it. Please have faith and bear with me while I chase my dreams.

It's Time!

It's finally time. I've been talking about it for a long time, and I've decided to step away from some projects, and actually start working toward meeting my goal; starting my career in development.

I've been talking about it for a while now, that I'm going to take the leap and go for it, but one thing or another has been holding me back. Mostly because I'm afraid. I'm not worried that I'm not as good as I think I am, but because so much is on the line. It's different for me now.

A few years ago, I would have just done it. Stuck my neck out and just held out until I landed something that I was interested in. I didn't have a family to support, and I always found a way to make ends meet until a job came along. I would do anything, and because of this, I've gained a lot of skills, but none of them are really useful for what I am trying to do now. It's a lot like starting over.

I'm afraid that I won't land a position. I'm afraid that with the economy the way it is, and companies having the ability to be choosy, they will. I need someone to take a chance, and try my skills out. I have been honing them for several years. Constant education, I spend every waking minute that I can learning and trying to better myself. I can fix a computer 1000 miles away without ever seeing it, but that doesn't look good on a resume. I'm putting myself through college to earn a degree just so that I have a piece of paper to show someone someday.

Meanwhile, I'm at a job that I loathe just to pay the bills that I have. I stay up half of the night every single night after work and spend my weekends with my face shoved into my computer or a book. I stay up between 16 and 20 hours a day just to make time to educate myself. Some days I don't even sleep at all and go for 2 or 3 days; it's occasional, but happens, and then I crash for a day to catch up.

If I'm not at my day job, I'm busy working on a project or learning something. I spend a lot of time alone. My wife gets frustrated because I spend so much time occupied with other things, and I have to keep telling her that this will all pay off someday, and hope I'm not lying; somehow she still holds out hope which is encouraging. I know I'm sacrificing time with my kids, but my goal is to have more time for them when I actually start my career and I can slow down.

It makes it even harder when I'm preaching to others that you should "never waste your life doing something you're not happy doing" but at the same time I am. I'm at a job that I absolutely loathe, but maintaining it in hopes that one day I will have a job I love, doing exactly what I want to do. I want to be happy, and have the life I've always wanted, but never have.

Its frustrating! I have all of these skills, but everyone wants to see the documentation. So far in school I have taken a bunch of technical classes and bought books I've never opened because I already know the information. Everyone I know comes to me or sends people to me to help fix their computer issues, but I can't get a job working in the field because everyone wants a piece of paper confirming that I know what I'm talking about. It's frustrating.

I need someone to take a chance on me, and I feel like I'm begging the world, and that's even more frustrating.

I Don't Want to be a Millionaire

It's true, I don't want to be a Millionaire, a Billionaire, or even just filthy rich. I know living in a western capitalist society that it sounds strange, or even unheard of, but it's absolutely true. I don't want to be rich. I urge to be comfortable, and have some money in the bank, but I don't want the hassle of being rich. I never have, and I suspect that I never will. I honestly hope that is a trait I can pass onto my children as well.

Why don't I want to be rich? I guess that's the complicated part. I don't want the hassle, and I do not see any reason for it. I see celebrities showered in free gifts, and given millions of dollars for absolutely no reason. I don't see a reason why, in a world where there are people starving to death, why 1 person should be making millions and billions of dollars; I find that absolutely appalling.

I'm no saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have morals. I don't understand why people who can absolutely afford anything should be given anything free of charge, just to get a brand out there. It blows my mind, and simultaneously pisses me off to no end. Why go through the trouble of ensuring that a celebrity gets a free pair of shoes, but millions of children in our own country have trouble obtaining a decent pair.

That's just some of it. I don't understand how we live in a "tough economic climate" and yet there are record profits being made, and unemployment is out of control. I just don't understand it. We have trillions of dollars in debt, and yet we made 128 new billionaires this year alone. The original Forbes list can be found Here. It blows my mind.

I understand that hard work pays off. I have been a hard worker most of my life, and I still struggle, but I also have the insane notion that also defines me. I honestly do hope that one day my hard work does add up, and I do land a great job with great pay with great people. But I don't want to be rich in the process. I want to live comfortably. That is my goal in life, to work for myself from home, and be able to be comfortable doing so. I don't even want to be well off with no worries in life, I just want to be comfortable. That doesn't seem like an outlandish dream, it actually sounds mundane in comparison to some of the fiscal goals I've discussed with others.

I do know this, if I did have millions of dollars, there would be a lot of happy charities. I'd still make my kids get jobs, and they would work them. Sure, I would help them out here or there, but they would honestly grow to understand the value of a dollar and how much it means to make that dollar.

I don't want to be remembered for the amount of money I had while alive. I want to be remembered for the legacy I left behind. Currency cannot be taken with us when we pass, but the value of what we left behind can be felt for generations.

Photo taken by: Hoboton and hosted at stock.xchng.