Does any of this make sense?!?

It's not easy adulting.  It seems lately I've had a lot more growing pains as I reach down to pull up my big girl panties.  I don't always like it, but I'm slowly getting it through my thick skull that I'm learning valuable lessons and to just get over myself and learn them already!

As of late, I've been surrounded by bad news, hardships, sickness, and death.  It has brought back some memories and feelings I was sort of avoiding; in denial that they haven't already been processed and dealt with accordingly.  Above all else, there has been this strange and uncomfortable mixture of anger and compassion.  I don't typically expect to feel both in equal measure or simultaneously, so I've been sort of emotionally off-kilter.  The long hours at work certainly aren't helping me maintain any semblance of mental stability or understanding, so I probably seem to most people to be distracted and distant.  Locked away in my own little world.  They're not wrong, but it's not a completely bad thing, either.  The day I stop growing as a person, is the day I die.

A big part of my anger is rooted in the situation with my ex husband and his recent choice to stop paying child support.  My first reaction is to lash out at him, but I'm trying so hard to restrain myself because grown ups aren't supposed to freak out.  They're supposed to be stoic, then respond in a restrained and calculated manner.  In the midst of all of this, my ex's dad passed away.  So while I'm extremely pissed off, I had a short period of empathy for what he is going through and put our issues on pause.  But now that a couple weeks have passed, I'm left here wondering why I had to be the bigger person in all of this when he told me a week after my Granny died that I should be over it by then, because "most people have moved on by this point".  Things like that have started piling up and creating this weight on my heart, pushing me to react, to tell him what a piece of garbage he is.  But thus far I have withheld, aside from mentioning it on my fb and now this blog.  Neither of which he reads, so it doesn't really matter.

I am also feeling this immense wedge being formed between me and everyone close to me because I'm at work all the time and never see them anymore.  I'm in a constant state of fatigue from working so much that I have absolutely zero patience for the smallest annoyance, which doesn't make me fun to be around.  This reminds me that it's my ex's fault for not just paying his child support like he's supposed to so I can go back to normal working hours, and then the anger bubbles back to the surface.  Somewhere mixed in all of this, I feel the smallest bit proud of myself because I'm busting my ass to do something to help my family.  No excuses as to why I can't; I'm just doing it.  And that is something to be proud of.  But oh the guilt and sadness at missing out on living life while making a living!

Then there's my Mom.  Yes, she's back in the picture.  Well, sort of.  I had this really strange incident occur where someone called me posing as my Mom and said they had been raped.  The whole ordeal scared the living shit out of me and prompted me to get in contact with my Mom, just to make sure she was safe.  Seeing her in the state she's in was far more difficult than I expected.  I couldn't tell how much was alcohol-induced and how much is a natural progression/growth of the tumor in her brain.  Whatever the case, she's in a really bad way.  She barely functions.  Her boyfriend reached out to me a few days after I contacted her and said that she needs to be put into a home and that she wants my help getting her into one.  So I've started that process.  It's slow going, which also adds a bit to the now hearty accumulation of anger.  And once again, the compassionate voice kicks in and reminds me that my Mom is a person who cannot do for herself and needs my help.  No one else is going to do it if I don't, and she deserves to be somewhere safe and secure for what's left of her life.  (Which I have a strong premonition won't be terribly long.)  I've gotten the paperwork taken care of so that I can communicate with her primary doctor to find out about the status of the MRI's that she should be having done every 6 months to monitor the tumor.  I have also contacted the ADRC and they are supposed to be sending me information for Senior Services resources that might help.  I'm also researching power of attorney and what it takes to establish that because I think it's time to make sure that I've got full legal right to handle my Mom's care in a way that protects her interests and allows her to enjoy her remaining years.

Even as I write about all of these tough situations and the less upbeat emotions I've been experiencing, I'm keenly aware of so many moments of joy and humor and random acts of kindness that have happened recently, too.  I've been more-or-less happy, generally speaking, and not in some depressed funk like you'd expect me to be in if you've read the last few paragraphs.  I don't feel like life is bad or anything like that.  I have the distinct sense that I'm steadily working my way to the other side, albeit slowly and blindly.  Like I said, it's an off-kilter sensation, and that's really the best way I can describe it.  I know that lack of sleep is playing a huge role in my brain not quite processing everything in a clear and orderly way.  It feels like mud up there in my ole' noodle.  Still, that guiding light is flickering off and on to shine down and get me through everything. All I have to do is just keep swimming.