I feel like my heart has been torn out of my chest and that I can’t breath.  My blood runs cold at least once an hour.  I do my best to keep busy and just not think about this. I’m so tired.  Tired of crying, tired of explaining, tired of being the one to compromise…  Just frikking tired.  And incredibly sad.

Jean’s cancer has indeed spread to the brain, the frontal lobe.  It is untreatable, nothing to do but keep him comfortable until he releases his body.  I think he’s very close to that.  His decline in 7 days has been just, well, the speed of light.  From the 82 year old who was always calling me his Little Flower and insisted I call him Johnny he no longer knows where he is.  Prison? New Mexico? Africa?  Changes minute by minute.  His other child, my sister in law’s brother flew in today because it looks like we might not get Jean home, back to France.

I’m trying to manifest this new job, stay positive, bring good things my way, but it’s an incredible challenge.  A new job that would keep me busy doing stuff I love and give me a learning curve would be really welcome right now.  I can’t check out with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes so work sounds like a really good thing.

I need a new sponsee.  Helping others would get me out of my own pain.

And honey, for the first time in 12 years of sobriety I wanted to check out.  Just check out.  Take all those pain pills in the medicine cabinet.  Get drunk.  Smoke until I can’t smoke any more.  And it’s just not an option.  

So what do you do.  Me?  I just let the wind take me where it will. We’ve had a huge wind storm the last 24 hours, I lost my power twice last night and lost my cable connection too so when my power came back on I still had no TV.  And the week long marathon of all 9 seasons of America’s Next Top Model has been my drug of choice.  That and doing a massive purge of my home.    Including 4 garbage bags of FABRIC.  There is one piece I might change my mind about but so far tons of stuff is leaving my home.  I made myself a wool applique cell phone pouch.   I baby site my nephew, sometimes he’s a delight and sometimes he just falls apart.  Poor little guy.

I try to sleep but what has usually been no problem for me is not an easy thing.  I stay up as late as possible futzing around but as soon as I lay down that overweight hamster in my head just starts running on the wheel.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge.

Oh.  And yesterday, while doing the fabric purge there was cat trauma.  I left the room several times and left the top drawer of the built in dresser open.  I had no idea that Lao had jumped up into the drawer and then crept back behind the drawer. When I was done, I tried to shut the drawer and it bounced back out. I pushed it harder, it bounced again and I heard frantic scratching.  I pulled the drawer out and Lao tried to get into the drawer but I was pulling it so her head got banged between the wall and the drawer.  OMG.  Heart attack city.  I pushed the drawer in part way.  Waited to make sure she wasn’t going to make any moves and got it pulled all the way out.  She wasn’t hurt but she was traumatized.  She spent the rest of the evening under the bed and today too.  Poor baby.  I was pretty traumatized too.

We just all a mess.  One hour at a time we’ll get though this.