"if you don't love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?" ~RuPaul
Well, I've certainly loved everybody else long enough that I've forgotten to love myself in the process. What does that mean? Well, it means I finally woke up and I'm going to start taking care of myself again.
Let me backstory a bit...
November of 2010, my mother started flaking, right after my hubby lost his his job. It was both a good and bad thing: good was my dh was available to take my gran (my maternal grandmother, the only grandparent i had left) to her doctors appointments, bad because we'd lost a source of income.
In January of 2011, we found out my mother had been flaking because she'd stolen over a thousand dollars from my gran on her credit card. Guess guilt was kicking her ass and then she was sent to jail and then prison. Yup, my mama's a jailbird. So, my hubby and I somehow got stuck with my gran's care.
Now, I want to point out that she had two other children here (and two much more capabke kids that lived way out of town) that were capable of taking care of her as well, mostly, but somehow my gran's care was my problem.
So, my hubby and I took her to appointments, moved her in and out of nursing homes, our home, her home, and hospitals. It was crazy and hectic. But I loved her and she had cared for me when I was little (let's just leave it at my mom wouldn't have won any awards, shall we?), so this was not a hardship to me in that way.
But I got very distracted with her and forgot about me. And let's not mention what has been, and still is, going on with my marriage. It was a strain. My son, however, is a trooper and it hasn't ruffled his feathers, even when his world was falling apart too, in the form of his grandfather being seriously ill and then finding bladder cancer. That journey began in October of 2011.
Then my dad died. Unexpectedly. From a massive heart attack. December 19, 2011. We went to Chicago area for his funeral, came home on Christmas eve and got a call at 8 am Christmas day that my gran was back in the hospital.
And thats when I got lost...very lost.
A year ago...yes, a whole year. Somehow I forgot me. I'm not sure where I went, but I left the building...
I put on 10-15 pounds of the 40 I had just lost over the two years previously. I comfort ate sugar the entire time we were at my dads funeral, and I didn't care! And I didn't have time to work it off because my hubby and I spent the next three months intensively caring for my dying gran before she passed away on March 27, 2012.
And I've spent the time since mourning. More so for my dad whose death was so out of left field it knocked me for a loop and was buried under the need to care for my dying gran. I remember having a conversation with the Lord and Lady (sorry folks, I'm pagan. Deal with it.) begging them to not let my gran die right then, I couldn't handle it yet. To give her the strength to hold on until I could deal.
And it was granted. I got two and a half months to cope and then I prayed again. I prayed to the Lord and Lady and said I could now handle this. It wasn't fair to her anymore just because I couldn't deal. I could do this and I would do this, because it was her time to go.
Now maybe that sounds selfish or morbid to say it was her time, but she had told me she was ready when the Lord was ready (she was Christain) for her to come home. I couldn't be selfish about needing time to cope anymore. I'd had two and a half months. It was her time now.
And two weeks later, she was gone. And I was glad for her. I knew she was where she wanted to be.
And then wham!
I finally woke up. It started about a month ago, and I've been slowly and steadily coming out of slumber like a bear out of hibernation. I don't recognize some things anymore, because they're so different! Now I'm just hoping I don't fall back into slumber. It's so much easier there, but so much more worth it here.
Now maybe that sounds silly, but seriously, deal with all this and see if you don't disappear somewhere deep inside yourself. Then one day, you wake up and realize that your house is a mess, you look and feel like shit, your marriage is strange, and nobody seems able to deal with anything around the house but you.
Let's just say I'm the lynchpin in this family shall we? And if I don't do it, it doesn't get done. And we'll leave it at that, cause thats a bunch if family dynamics that have only gotten worse in some ways over this sleeping period I've been in.
So now, I'm going to starting caring for me again, end of story.
I want a clean house, so I'm going to clean it.
I want beautiful skin, so I'm going to care for it...again.
I want to loose this weight and gain some muscle, so I'm going to watch what I eat and add in some exercises.
I want some other things, but that will require some working with others.
And I'm not waiting til new years. This isn't a resolution. This is picking up where I dropped off into slumber a year ago. My mourning period is over.
I will move on and live for me, my son, and my hubby.
And to get to where I want to, and need to, be, I must first love myself. And it started in earnest today.
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