I guess this is growing up.

I never thought I'd have a blog that details my peeing schedule but not my family background. For the next few lines, we'll speed date while I share TMI in Kirstenese. I'm the oldest of six kids. There was a seventh sibling who was placed for adoption. I was born when my parents were both seniors at Manson High School. I got to go to my mom's 18th birthday party and since my dad only got his GED, he was free to hold me on his lap in the audience while we watched my mom graduate from HS. I have two nephews and a niece. One of my siblings has placed a child for adoption as well. I lost two pregnancies of my own. I feel the reaches of family throughout so much more than the nuclear unit we identify. 

I have three parents: a mom and two dads. The first dad (Dad1) gave me a first name and a face, well, and life. The second dad (Dad2) married my mom when I was five and legally adopted me and my brother when I was 11 so we could be sealed in the temple to the family. Dad2 raised us from there. 

Both dads have been good friends to me throughout my adult life. I love them both for their contributions to who I am, to their contradictions of one another, and to the claim neither of them could fully have to me, that forced me to learn things "daddy's girls" never got to.

Six or so years back, my D1 was in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. This gave way to health problems that begat more health problems, but it hurt his spirit more than his body. The deathbed scares were countless. Last summer, in the middle of my move into Rbf's house, doctors told him to start calling family. We dropped everything and bolted to Washington. Reboyfriend flew in to join us, to meet my D1, to say his hello and goodbye all at once. When we arrived at the hospital, his health returned. The doctors didn't have a very good reason for the spike in his wellbeing, but they were pleased. I quietly let the incident pass without bringing it into the blogosphere. I lightheartedly griped about the bruises on my legs from moving and the mess I was living in. I didn't want to bring the party down. The truth is, it took a massive emotional toll on me. The bad news followed with good news, the hospital, the visiting, and allll that driving. I just put it away and chose not to feel it. I did this recently with my current stress, and ended up puking all night long.

When Rbf died, I shut down on my D1. I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want someone else to feel sorry for. Either I didn't like his own self-pity, or I didn't like him hurting on my behalf. He couldn't win. He always irritated me with his childishness BEFORE Rbf's crash - whiny voicemails making me feel like a bad daughter, wondering why I was avoiding him. But after the crash, it became more than I could handle. Calling him was a chore. I winced with guilt remembering the gentle lecture I got from Rbf on the drive home from Washington last summer, urging me to be more patient with my D1. Rbf liked him. He liked my hometown. He liked the stories my D1 had from his logging days and his trucking tales. He liked the family ranch I took him to. He liked the whole D1 side of the family. He told me to lighten up on pops. Sigh.

Rbf is everywhere and in everything. In traffic and TV. In warm water and in my breath on cold morning air. 

And this morning, my father joined him there, in music and sunlight, in the smell of diesel fuel and in the bubbles in your beer. They're both free of this stupid shit world and its incessant cruelty, and now I have them both to make proud from their perches in heaven. Today my dad died.

I cry daily for my own loss of my boyfriend, my fiance, my partner, my best friend and my future. I cry because it was perfect, just too perfect. Because other than letting him go on that godforsaken trip in the first place, I truly have no regrets.

I cry for the loss of my dad because I have too many regrets. I regret that I didn't have the patience Rbf wisely cautioned me to have. I hurt that I bitched out on my dad for his immaturity. Why couldn't I have let him just be that way? I regret that I kept him as a friend, not a dad. I regret that I let his absence in most of my life harden me toward fathers in general. I regret that I didn't call him back after his last voicemail. And while we're being honest, I regret that I didn't help him home sooner, like he begged. He suffered so much. I regret this for him.

I'm told that he stopped breathing, in his sleep. He died peacefully at 7:10 this morning, on the seven month anniversary of Reboyfriend's death. We bury him on Saturday.

I've stayed cheerful today; I embrace his relief, his new world. I remember him for the sweet times I had with him, I replay the time this year he told me he was proud of me and what I'd amounted to. I know he's happier, that he finally has what he wants. But boy, do I wish I could rewrite his last five years for him. It's weird the things you cry over. I'm sick of being a grown up. I'm sick of loss and pain and dealing. I'm sick of the fact that I am always on the receiving end of people's kindness...that I worry daily that the compassion will end and astonished when it doesn't. People helping me move. People still checking on me. When will I ever not be at the mercy of everything around me? Why do I feel like the older I get, the more maturity I gain, the less independent I somehow become? The more I need people? I remember just laying there after Jed died, thinking "My soul just needs a nap." I don't even know what it needs now. It needs my facebook page to not be a perpetual obituary. It needs to be able to worry about stupid things again like traffic lights and checking balances. My little soul, it doesn't want to be a grown up soul anymore. It wants to embrace its petty, childish side...like the side of my soul that is jealous that he is now in heaven. 

But that's just not how it is. I feel it growing up, turning into a seasoned veteran of pain and wrapping itself around this shit, in effort to own it and overcome it and not let it win. And I guess that's what's happening.


And thank you for keeping your front row seat to that show....


What a year it's been.

But everybody's gone
And you've been there for too long
To face this on your own
I guess this is growing up.


--Blink 182