Zombies Are Just Waiting for Us
Apr. 28th, 2008 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowIt is apocolyptically hot here. Seriously, not even May and it's 95 degrees out. Writer's group met at the LA Times Festival of Books on Saturday, and after sitting outside for almost two hours, I could barely make it 20 steps into the booth area. I collected no free stuff. I browsed over very few books. In short, I was hot, cranky, annoyed at everyone with a freaking stroller and no sense of personal space (I love babies, well, I like babies in theory, and I adore the ones I know, but I have not so much interest in unknown babies and their parents and their paraphenalia and the parent thing where people don't exist in the same physical space as their kids and all their kids' crap!). So I left and went to the VALLEY. Where it was hotter.
So, here's where I tell y'all a story and give you fair warning. Five years ago (six in October), my dad suffered a massive stroke (at 55), that has left him with a great gaping black hole in his brain. He'll never drive again, read again, teach again. He has limited mobility, and nearly no ability to see to his own needs. He's still whip smart about somethings, lost to others. It devastated him, and my family, and myself. I am... not a good daughter a lot of the times, full of rage at him for letting this happen, full of annoyance for his acceptance of his situation with out a true acceptance of what is still possible for him. I am impatient, I am mean, I am often not what he wants me to be, but when he's surrounded by people who deal with him in order to make their lives easier (and I have no judgment on that), I feel obligated to be the one who holds him to a higher standard.
However, I'm still... angry. And devastated at what has happened to him. At losing the person I loved and having the person he is now as replacement. I love him. But he is changed. And he is the same in many ways, and it has taken me a good number of years to find some reconciliation.
So over the past five years, his was only the first (if the greatest) loss.My grandmother died a few months later. My mom had a heart attack (and has recovered completely). I was hospitalized for a blood clot, and hated my body for betraying me, and became someone I physically dislike as a way to punish myself. And, you know, normal life happens. Happened. People grow and change and get married and reproduce and get divorced and move and move on. But it has felt very personal in the past few years, even if it couldn't be less so.
I have always wanted to be the person leaving. I hate being left.
Fandom moves on and moves forward, and I fall out of step. Friends do it and I celebrate their victories and strides, and still feel left behind. So, I can't keep feeling left behind. I have to move forward. A lot of that is reflected in this journal. The amount of fannish content posted is nil, but I still keep tabs on people and things. I still like to see where the squee is happening, and where the interesting things are developing, and where the kerfuffles are launching. But I can't deny that I'm back to where I started pre-LJ, a watcher and not a participant. Because, in some ways, I've gotta start participating in my own journey.
So, as part of that, I'm doing this marathon training for The Stroke Association. They ask you to walk/train in someone's name, and that's an easy one. They ask you to raise funds (and I'm horrified by that idea, but at the same time, I'm committed. There are drugs now that can match the viciousness of a stroke if administered early enough. Super early. I'm not sure it would have done my father any good. But they're existence is exciting, and more research is necessary. Plus, the Stroke Foundation supports those caring for people who have had strokes, and anyone doing that has my blessing). So, I'll be harassing my friends and loved ones and flist for funds, I'll be updating you on my progress occasionally, and I'll be taking physical steps forward to figure out what and who I am now. Gotta love a metaphor made good.
Also, I have officially watched TOO MUCH Criminal Minds as a nice, lost dude on Saturday asked me where a pay phone was on the UCLA campus, and I started recording everything he was wearing in case he was a SERIAL KILLER trying to catch me off guard. Sigh. I wish I were kidding.
So, here's where I tell y'all a story and give you fair warning. Five years ago (six in October), my dad suffered a massive stroke (at 55), that has left him with a great gaping black hole in his brain. He'll never drive again, read again, teach again. He has limited mobility, and nearly no ability to see to his own needs. He's still whip smart about somethings, lost to others. It devastated him, and my family, and myself. I am... not a good daughter a lot of the times, full of rage at him for letting this happen, full of annoyance for his acceptance of his situation with out a true acceptance of what is still possible for him. I am impatient, I am mean, I am often not what he wants me to be, but when he's surrounded by people who deal with him in order to make their lives easier (and I have no judgment on that), I feel obligated to be the one who holds him to a higher standard.
However, I'm still... angry. And devastated at what has happened to him. At losing the person I loved and having the person he is now as replacement. I love him. But he is changed. And he is the same in many ways, and it has taken me a good number of years to find some reconciliation.
So over the past five years, his was only the first (if the greatest) loss.My grandmother died a few months later. My mom had a heart attack (and has recovered completely). I was hospitalized for a blood clot, and hated my body for betraying me, and became someone I physically dislike as a way to punish myself. And, you know, normal life happens. Happened. People grow and change and get married and reproduce and get divorced and move and move on. But it has felt very personal in the past few years, even if it couldn't be less so.
I have always wanted to be the person leaving. I hate being left.
Fandom moves on and moves forward, and I fall out of step. Friends do it and I celebrate their victories and strides, and still feel left behind. So, I can't keep feeling left behind. I have to move forward. A lot of that is reflected in this journal. The amount of fannish content posted is nil, but I still keep tabs on people and things. I still like to see where the squee is happening, and where the interesting things are developing, and where the kerfuffles are launching. But I can't deny that I'm back to where I started pre-LJ, a watcher and not a participant. Because, in some ways, I've gotta start participating in my own journey.
So, as part of that, I'm doing this marathon training for The Stroke Association. They ask you to walk/train in someone's name, and that's an easy one. They ask you to raise funds (and I'm horrified by that idea, but at the same time, I'm committed. There are drugs now that can match the viciousness of a stroke if administered early enough. Super early. I'm not sure it would have done my father any good. But they're existence is exciting, and more research is necessary. Plus, the Stroke Foundation supports those caring for people who have had strokes, and anyone doing that has my blessing). So, I'll be harassing my friends and loved ones and flist for funds, I'll be updating you on my progress occasionally, and I'll be taking physical steps forward to figure out what and who I am now. Gotta love a metaphor made good.
Also, I have officially watched TOO MUCH Criminal Minds as a nice, lost dude on Saturday asked me where a pay phone was on the UCLA campus, and I started recording everything he was wearing in case he was a SERIAL KILLER trying to catch me off guard. Sigh. I wish I were kidding.
