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fivenineteen

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Tag Archives: holidays

Sneaky Depression

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

depression, exercise, holidays, loss, mood swings

WOW, what a difference a day makes!  Yesterday was a struggle to make it happy, productive, useful.  Well, it was Saturday and that usually slows my pace way down…so I try not to put too much pressure on myself to do too much.  That’s hard this time of year with the holidays and all.  I still haven’t finished up all of my shopping.  And Aunt Flo really kicked my butt this time around.  Notsomuch with the cramps (hurray – great benefit of regular exercise), but my emotions completely went down the tubes for a couple of days.

And I guess I hadn’t (haven’t?) finished getting over a couple of recent losses.  I woke up on Saturday feeling swallowed up in depression.  I miss my Grandma so much.  She was such a gift to our family and everyone she knew.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s like she was indestructible.  Now I know that can’t be true…we’re all human and have limited years on Earth.  Grandma was lucky to have 97 and a half of them…most of them active and healthy.

I haven’t written about J in awhile.  Most of the posts about him were about fun things we did together.  And all of the help he provided getting my garage cleaned up and so much more.  It’s been just a little over a month since he told me, after nearly a year, that he’s not in love with me and won’t ever will be.  I thought I was doing OK taking this on board and moving on with my life, but yesterday just really dragged down my spirit.  I’m single…again.  And this time of year that’s hard.  I guess I make it hard on myself, I don’t know.  Going to family gatherings, single.  I think that’s the hardest part of Thanksgiving and Christmas.  When I get really, really down I start feeling like a leftover freak sitting at the dining room table with everyone.  You want people to ask you if there’s a special guy in your life.  And when they don’t ask you wonder…do they just expect you not to – ever?  Have they given up on you?  I see my youngest brother and my younger cousins all getting married, having children.  Seeing their little ones over the holidays – that’s the best part! 

I never wanted kids (I knew this as a young teen actually) but I DO want a long-term, loving partnership in my life.  I know he’s out there somewhere.  I just thought we’d have met by now.  I see everyone around me paired up.  Are they happy?  I sure hope so.  I’m so fucking tired of having to do things on my own.  Try to take care of my townhouse alone.  Make plans to renovate, remodel, travel the world…I don’t LIKE traveling solo and get resentful when I have to take on the burden of planning and paying for home repairs and projects.  Do I wait until I have enough cash saved up?  Or take on debt? 

My townhouse is in a state of limbo and mess.  I have clothes everywhere that I’m slowly weeding out and getting packed off to Goodwill, and a new walk-in closet will get built in early January – hurray!  I’m just embarrassed that everything is taking so long.  My folks came over to drop off my Grandma’s new bed and pillow she had just the last few weeks of her life.  It will be perfect for my guestroom for now.  I apologized for how messy my place was and almost started crying right in front of them.  I never have them over.  I know that’s probably ridiculous because they’re just one suburb over.  I’m embarrassed at how out of date my townhouse is compared to their house, my brother’s, etc. I’m overwhelmed and sad.  There’s clutter everywhere. 

So all of these emotions really weighed me down yesterday.  It took all I could dredge up to force myself to get in the gym and do some intervals on the treadmill.  I was waiting for those endorphins to kick in…but they didn’t.  Oh well, at least I did SOMETHING active and burned some calories. I like how the gym is really feeling comfortable to me, like a broken-in shoe.

L (my guy BFF) invited me over to his place last night to cook dinner with him and watch hockey.  He wanted to make turkey burgers, cous cous and a kale salad, awww.  Normally I would have loved this chance to hang out and joke around, but I called him and apologized that I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be good company, I told him.  I went around yesterday with tears literally welled up in my eyes.  On the treadmill.  At the grocery store looking for some amino acid supplements. L said you know what, fivenineteen, you’ve got a pretty fucking good life. Don’t get so down on yourself.  I smiled a little into the phone while I looked around at the clutter inside my house.  And the popcorn ceiling that still needs to be scraped off downstairs (not to mention upstairs).

I just needed to ride out this wave of depression and stay home last night.  I’m glad he respected my choice.  He lives in a great part of Seattle, but it’s a 45 minute drive from my house and in the mood I was in I just wasn’t up for it.

So today (Sunday) is worlds better.  I’m feeling much more like ‘me’ again.

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My Grandma Jean

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

family, grandparents, holidays, home economics, memories, passings, transitions

My Grandma Jean passed away last Sunday 11/24.  She was 97 and the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known.  I’m so blessed to have had a grandparent in my life as long as I have, and even moreso with a grandparent who stayed mentally sharp even in her much later years.  I know all of that is rare…my other grandparents struggled with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, sadly.  I miss them all.

I went to see Grandma Jean a few days earlier.  One of my brothers called and said you better come see her soon…probably to say goodbye.  She had fallen a couple of weeks prior and just wasn’t pulling out of it like she had with other falls.  Her leg strength was pretty much gone, to where using her walker just wasn’t working anymore.   When I arrived at her retirement home the nurse brought me to her room.  She was sleeping, as she’d been doing a lot.  Refusing food and liquids.  All the classic signs she was getting ready to transition on.

I stood at her bed and started to cry.  I tried to hold it back but choked a little and she woke up.  I don’t know how coherent she was or if she recognized me, but I said what I wanted to say to her and left.  The nurse followed me out of the room and said “you have to be strong…don’t cry…next is with God.”  I think that actually made me cry harder.  I’d been holding it in that’s for sure, and seeing Grandma curled up in bed and a shell of what she used to be kind of shocked me.

Grandma was born on July 14, 1916 in Oakesdale, Washington. A tiny little town for sure!  Her parents were both very highly educated people…her father was a doctor/surgeon and her mother had a master’s degree in biology from Occidental College.  Wow!  She was the youngest of three daughters, actually.  Their Dad was the town doctor and made house calls, delivered babies, the whole works.  He could also perform lots of types of surgery, but when more resources were needed it was a 50-mile drive to Spokane, and he would drive his patients there himself. They were fortunate to have a car and a home with an electric stove, I remember her telling me.  Where they lived that was not very common.

Her Dad’s medical practice thrived (he was adamant about using proper sterilization techniques in his work, something that might not have been very typical in smaller towns I’d imagine), and the survival rates of patients and women giving birth rose dramatically.  But as she and her sisters got older, her parents wanted them to have more educational opportunities than what the town could offer.

So…they moved to Corvallis, Oregon!  I think Grandma and her sisters were teenagers at the time.  But then…WHAMMO.  The stock market crash of 1929 and the Depression sunk in.  It was hard enough to re-establish a medical practice, but this made it all the more difficult.  Times were tough and money was tight, as Grandma recalled.  Her mother was an excellent seamstress, but Grandma remembers sometimes she’d have to wear the same dress one or two weeks in a row.  You just did what you had to do.

Amazingly, Grandma and her sisters each graduated from Oregon State University…during the Depression!  Their parents put education as first priority and they made it happen for their family.  Astonishing!  Grandma’s degree was in Home Economics.

She married my Grandpa at age 24 in 1940…and 10 months later my Dad arrived (in Corvallis)! Her father delivered all of his grandchildren, actually.  That was how it was done back then so nothing odd about it.  They raised my Dad and Uncle in Seattle.  After they were each off at college she went back to school to get her teaching certificate and taught Home Ec at the high school level for 15 years.  When my Grandpa retired she did as well, and they hit the road traveling.  Camping and fly fishing were their favorites and they did it everywhere.  All over the country…and in New Zealand and Mexico too!  They even drove to Guatemala in their camper one time…in the late 1970s!

Grandma could cook, sew, bake, knit and crochet like nobody’s business.  I spent so much time at her house as a little girl…we’d go shopping for fabric and make something like a new blouse or skirt.  Or she’d show me how to knit and crochet.  We’d bake cookies together or homemade bread.  Their house may have been small by most standards, but to me it was a mansion.  Walking up those steep stairs up to the bed where I would stay overnight…such a huge contrast from the rambler my brothers and I grew up in!

There are just too many wonderful memories to list.  Grandma was a huge inspiration and influence over me and all of her grandchildren (and later, her great-grandchildren).  Unconditional love and joy for everyone around her.  Boundless generosity.  Commitment to family and pouring love into everything she did.  I’m trying to find the words to describe it and it’s harder than I thought!

She made a few scrapbooks for me as a teenager…one has incredible family photos (photos of HER grandparents), and she typed up several pages with more details about the family history along with all of the pictures.  Pictures of her with her sisters as young girls all dressed up with hair in curls.  Another scrapbook has samples of all kinds of sewing techniques with handwritten explanations how to do them.  Snaps. Zippers.  French seams. Darts. I am tearing my house apart trying to find that one.  It’s a treasure.  How she found time to do all of this astounds me.

She and her oldest sister were quite close – her middle sister I don’t think as much, but I honestly didn’t know her very well.  Sadly, tragedy struck our family when her middle sister and her husband were killed in a car accident in Costa Rica.  This  was in the late 1970s – they were retired and enjoying life.  Their car went off the road.  I don’t know much more than that to be honest.  Her oldest sister lived into her 90s like Grandma Jean did.

So we’re getting ready for her memorial service next week.  It’s still kind of surreal that she’s not here.  Thanksgiving dinner was bittersweet.  I kept expecting her to pop into the living room with a scratch pumpkin pie like she would always bring.

I’ve shared a little about her with a few trusted co-workers. One of the comments really struck me down to the core:

“Wow, fivenineteen.  She gave you so much.  Now it’s YOUR turn to pass it along.  Don’t waste it.”

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