It's All True

This has been an awful week. No... not true. The last 2 weeks have been awful and I'm battling emotions that I usually feel very short terms and it's an uncomfortable space for me to be.

And, because I know that so many people read this blog I've found that it's really, really hard to go in and write truthfully about the bad stuff. The feeling sad stuff. The got the blues stuff. The "I'm so f-ing angry" stuff. Well, that's the stuff that these past 2 weeks have been made of.

First, the "feeling sorry for myself" stuff... I got laid off from my job. A job that I love and want to keep. A job I've been at for 8 years and that I have become very, very good at. I teach at a for-profit college. One of those evil schools that's been in the news a lot lately. Problem is that it's not an evil school. Sure, it's totally mismanaged but it does so much good for the students and the teachers are fantastic. I'm one of them. I have the opportunity to teach part-time while still getting a severance and I'm jumping all over it. It's still a loss and it still makes me really angry that this happened to me and over 60 other teachers. So, hopefully I'll be back part-time. If not, it's off to the unemployment line for me.

But, in the larger picture, that's really not important. The big thing I'm dealing with is Bea showing regressive symptoms. Her balance has not improved since the VP Shunt was put in. The numbness in her right hand has not gone away. It's not changing one bit day by day. I wake up hoping to see Bea walking down the bedroom corridor with a skip in her step and what I see is a girl who often has to lean on the wall and sit down all the time. She can hardly stand up for a minute. With physical therapy this may improve but there's no telling right now whether it's a weakness that can be improved on or if it's a long-term or permanent problem.

It makes me sick to my stomach to think about. When I go to that mental place my body tenses, my face gets hot and I feel just totally ill. Because it doesn't feel right. It's almost all wrong. And, this feeling is based on the thought I had months and months ago - that my fear would trickle into Bea's life. I'm afraid that I'm losing hope.

It's all true. And it feels awful and so good to say it. Because acknowledging what I'm really feeling means that I'm just a normal person. I need to be normal sometimes.