making it work
Nov. 6th, 2011 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Ugh. I can post more easily from my phone to Tumblr and Twitter, so I have been. I wish I could get those posts echoed here, if for no other reason than to archive them, but also because I don't mean to abandon LJ entirely.
The wireless Internet we relied on at work suddenly got a password; it was from the place next door, and they had the cable guy come by to fix something, and he must've pointed out that they had an unsecured signal and should lock it down. So they did, and now I have no Internet at work except what I can do on my phone. Which should be a lot, but as it happens, I'm not that good at using the tiny screen, so I have certain websites I can navigate, and most I don't. LJ is one of the ones I mostly don't. I definitely can't type anything ambitious.
So anyway. Feeble excuses.
I was looking back through old entries, and good fucking Lord, the depression meds have helped. I still am annoyed, stressed, and generally irritated by life, but I am sooooooo much better than I was. Holy crap, that was bad. I'm better, a lot better.
My uncle died, I don't know if I mentioned that on here. They diagnosed him with lung cancer just after Labor Day, told him he had a year to live, told him chemo would help him, gave him one dose of chemo, and it shut his kidneys down and he died right away. So it was about a month from the time he got sick. I was scheduled to come see him the Thursday of that week, the fastest I could get home, but he died on Monday, so I missed him. The funeral service was an open house at the historical society where he volunteered, and over two hundred people came, and there was a line down the sidewalk. Everyone made a point of telling my mother what a generous, good-hearted, cheerful, funny man he was, and how much he bragged about his talented, clever, beautiful nieces and their exciting lives. He never got along well with my mother, though, and never seemed to want to spend time with us, so she was glad to hear these things but still regretful she never really got to see them herself.
The last coherent thing he said was to my mother. "I love you," he said. "Sort of."
It was true.
Now she has to clean out his house, a beautiful two-story brick townhome dating to the nineteenth century downtown in Troy, which is literally stuffed full of a mixture of feral cats, garbage, and priceless antiques. His personal records are immaculately organized until 2001 when his depression got bad and he self-medicated with alcohol. Then things are randomly stuffed into boxes, under the television, on the floor, under the bed. It's a nightmare, and my parents are exhausted dealing with it. But at least my mother can sleep now; the whole time he was sick she had terrible insomnia, just worrying about what would happen.
I will stay on my meds. I will not let alcohol become a crutch. I will be kind to my mother even when she annoys me. And I will remember my uncle with love, because I inherited his toes, because I inherited his temperament, and because I hope I inherited his charm, his humor, his generosity, and his writing ability. (He had one published book, a nonfiction work about historical places in New York State. His second book, he was about to write, and left four boxes of beautifully organized research about it. I only wish I had time to write it.)
This is the first time I've cried for him. I guess that was good. I have to go clean my house now. This is probably my only day off and home the rest of this month.
The wireless Internet we relied on at work suddenly got a password; it was from the place next door, and they had the cable guy come by to fix something, and he must've pointed out that they had an unsecured signal and should lock it down. So they did, and now I have no Internet at work except what I can do on my phone. Which should be a lot, but as it happens, I'm not that good at using the tiny screen, so I have certain websites I can navigate, and most I don't. LJ is one of the ones I mostly don't. I definitely can't type anything ambitious.
So anyway. Feeble excuses.
I was looking back through old entries, and good fucking Lord, the depression meds have helped. I still am annoyed, stressed, and generally irritated by life, but I am sooooooo much better than I was. Holy crap, that was bad. I'm better, a lot better.
My uncle died, I don't know if I mentioned that on here. They diagnosed him with lung cancer just after Labor Day, told him he had a year to live, told him chemo would help him, gave him one dose of chemo, and it shut his kidneys down and he died right away. So it was about a month from the time he got sick. I was scheduled to come see him the Thursday of that week, the fastest I could get home, but he died on Monday, so I missed him. The funeral service was an open house at the historical society where he volunteered, and over two hundred people came, and there was a line down the sidewalk. Everyone made a point of telling my mother what a generous, good-hearted, cheerful, funny man he was, and how much he bragged about his talented, clever, beautiful nieces and their exciting lives. He never got along well with my mother, though, and never seemed to want to spend time with us, so she was glad to hear these things but still regretful she never really got to see them herself.
The last coherent thing he said was to my mother. "I love you," he said. "Sort of."
It was true.
Now she has to clean out his house, a beautiful two-story brick townhome dating to the nineteenth century downtown in Troy, which is literally stuffed full of a mixture of feral cats, garbage, and priceless antiques. His personal records are immaculately organized until 2001 when his depression got bad and he self-medicated with alcohol. Then things are randomly stuffed into boxes, under the television, on the floor, under the bed. It's a nightmare, and my parents are exhausted dealing with it. But at least my mother can sleep now; the whole time he was sick she had terrible insomnia, just worrying about what would happen.
I will stay on my meds. I will not let alcohol become a crutch. I will be kind to my mother even when she annoys me. And I will remember my uncle with love, because I inherited his toes, because I inherited his temperament, and because I hope I inherited his charm, his humor, his generosity, and his writing ability. (He had one published book, a nonfiction work about historical places in New York State. His second book, he was about to write, and left four boxes of beautifully organized research about it. I only wish I had time to write it.)
This is the first time I've cried for him. I guess that was good. I have to go clean my house now. This is probably my only day off and home the rest of this month.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 09:19 pm (UTC)In an odd way I kind of enjoy using the new LJ iPhone app to post here once in a while. I'm not sure what kind of phone you have, but I do like it quite a bit.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-07 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-07 02:15 pm (UTC)Grief is a weird, often terrible thing. I'm sorry you have to go through it.
On a different note, you might find your little keyboard gets easier with practice. After I was forced to write most of one NaNo on it, I got really, really fast and now I actually use it to write stories for work while sitting in boring meetings. It's hard and annoying but better than having to spend an hour writing the story AFTER the boring meeting.