Turbulence

Life is turbulent - it will rock you when you least expect it, once it has rocked you once and it makes you nervous, each subsequent shake seems worse than the last. When we're flying and hit some turbulence, we just remind ourselves that it will be over soon enough, but a few bumpy hours pale in comparison to the turbulence of day to day life.

A week ago, my aunt lost her five year battle with throat cancer at the age of 51. While mourning and grieving the loss of my aunt, I feel bad to admit it, but my mind was not with her. My mind was instead locked on my own mother, who is now in her eighth year battling Multiple Myeloma. My mother is only a few years younger than my late aunt was - and all my brain seemed to be locked in on was thinking about how much time I may have left with my mother.

I haven't had it entirely rough, but things have never really been easy. My father, while I love him to death, has scarcely ever been around, especially when I needed him the most. My mother was my rock growing up, and remains to be to this day. For eight years I have pondered what it will mean to lose her, how I will cope; and to this day the answer remains the same; I have no idea how my life will change, and I don't think I'll find a way to cope until I'm forced to deal with the harsh reality that is the death of those closest to us.

My aunt's passing, my mother's health, my father's apparent indifference; all big turbulent shakes - but the small ones that come between those hitting me full force make them even harder to deal with. I've dealt with things by burying myself in something else, work, cleaning, games, sports, reading, anything really that allows me to forget about life and find some peace of mind, even if only temporary.

Work has become draining, my firm laid off multiple people, which meant longer and harder hours every day - between my main job and second job, it's not uncommon to hit 65-70 hours each week, and let's be honest, I'm just tired. Add in to the long hours and the rough days a haphazard and partially competent team around me; and a whimsical supervisor who jumps from one snap judgement or decision to the next like he's playing hopscotch, and it's nearly enough to cause me to snap.

The key for me is trying to find a balance between the turbulence and normalcy; whether that means a harder workout to exert the stress and anger that I seem to be accumulating at a more rapid than normal pace, or meditating before I go to sleep each night (has actually helped quite a bit), finding the balance has proven to be harder than I'd like, and has caused me to over compensate on either side more than once, which means things have slipped. One of my best outlets for understanding myself and how to process things remains writing it out. This blog has served as a target for raw emotion and reflection for years now, and every time I surge in how many posts I am writing, tends to correlate with an overall better mood.

Enough writing for now however... until next time,
Tut