Even Small Families: An explanation

I realize that I've been quiet lately. It's not because thing's aren't happening. It's because too much has been happening. I've been dealing with a good old fashioned quarter life crisis. It's been rough you guys. Really rough. I didn't feel like myself. At all. I mentioned it a time or 2 but didn't go into detail because, if we're being honest, I was kind of ashamed. I felt like I didn't have control and things weren't going the way I wanted and I felt like I was failing at life. What made it even harder was my inability to let myself actually feel what I was feeling. Every time I thought about something like being stuck in my house or my car leaking something or my need for food, I reminded myself that it could be worse. I gave myself examples of situations that would be way worse and told myself despite the bad things, I have a really great life. I thought that was the way to keep me grateful and keep me positive. I didn't really realize, until right now, writing this, that I was keeping myself stuck by never allowing myself to see the negatives objectively and figure out how to make them into a positive. 
At the same time that I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life and how to feel like I'm doing something, anything, I was still doing the things I normally would. Still had to go to work 40 hours a week. And while there I had to deal with getting us prepared for an audit. Can I just say, trying to get 12 people all on the same page can be difficult sometimes? I still spent time with my friends after work. I was hosting craft nights so we could help lil K get her wedding stuff taken care of. I spent time deep cleaning and organizing my house to get it ready for L's bday party. Why I thought a bunch of drunk people would really care about the cleanliness of my house, I don't know. On top of all that, the big stress was family related.
I always say I have a small family because I feel like I do...but really, that's not true. I have quite a large family, but we're not actually close. When I think of "family" I think of my mom and her dad, my grampy. Of course I've got my aunt and uncle and slew of cousins who live on the coast. But we only see each other a few times a year (I'm hoping to change that soon!) and we're not technically related. We just grew up as a family. There's my dad and step family who live 4 hours north of here. Though I love my dad, we've never had a very close relationship. I grew up with mom, and my brother grew up with dad. Dad remarried and my step mom already had 3 sons. Together they had my half sister A. That's the family my brother knows. I haven't even met all of them. I've only seen my sister a few times and she's a teenager. The only point I'm trying to make is that they weren't a strong fixture in my life, and while I do technically have a normal size family, my close family is actually small.
So when grampys health started to decline, it hit close. He's been in and out of the hospital for years but all of a sudden they were talking about heart surgery and 50% success rates and things got blurry for all of us. My mom and I used to see him every weekend and then he stopped wanting our help so much and we stopped seeing him as often. He had his caretaker, B, to help him out. And then the crazy old man ran away.
There's more to it. It was crazy. I cried a lot. We all hurt a lot. But then he came back. To have heart surgery. And we were all scared again. While he was in the hospital and recovering at the home he's now at, mom and I traded off watching his dog, Burrito. One day, Burrito died. I hate to say it, but I'm really glad I wasn't the one on dog duty that day. I don't know if I could have handled it. So now we had to tell this poor old frail man that his best friend in the whole world was dead and he didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.
The most heart wrenching moment of my life was when mom told him the news. I don't think it helped much that she told him directly after letting him know that we were still hurt by the way things had gone down when he ran away. I don't think she knew at the time, or maybe even until now, but I had gone to see grampy on my own without her before that. He apologized for everything. He got emotional. I know everyone has a soft spot for men crying and older men crying makes it worse. But damn, when it's your own grampy...Phew. Hard to handle. He held my hand and said what he needed to say and I wanted to just let everything go, in spite of still feeling hurt by his actions. He knew he hurt us and did things the wrong way but now, for all anyone knew, he could very well be on his death bed and he was very genuinely sorry. So now he feels bad and scared and worried and has regrets and then he gets to find out that his best buddy, lil ol Burrito, is gone. Just thinking about it makes me teary. I feel so sad for him.
So I've got a full time job with a serious audit to get prepared for, plans that I won't allow myself to back out of, not that I wanted to. At this point I needed all the fun I could get. A quarter life crisis. I've got serious family stuff going on, and that's just the big stuff. Don't forget about the broken dryer, the unsafe home, broken lawn mower, lack of money, lack of food because of lack of money, feeling for my friends who are also going through terribly tough times in their lives, trying to help them, feeling hopeless when I can't, the lines of homeless people I see every single day at work (I work right by the local mission), no health insurance, dirty politicians, world hunger....It was too much. I could no longer function properly.
Apparently the people I work with started to notice my shift in attitude. I mean really...I'm sure everyone did. I was really fooling myself thinking that no one cared so why should I? I stopped getting dressed up. I stopped smiling as much because I wasn't in a good mood as often. I stopped blogging.
Somehow, I didn't stop having fun. I mean, I stopped having fun as often, but through all of that I went to the Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj concert with lil K (good wedding gift eh?), we threw a bad ass 80's party for L's birthday, we had craft nights which were way more fun than they sound, and we went to K and G's circus themed wedding. I mean...those things were FUN! I couldn't muster up the energy to write about them though because I just wasn't happy enough to care.
Why the change now? Well, as it turns out, I really do have the best boss ever. After hearing that I wasn't my usual self, and noticing herself that I was down and clearly not completely well, she offered to have me see the counselor/therapist type woman her family uses. I had actually been wanting to see someone for a while but with no health insurance I knew I couldn't afford to so when she offered I accepted without hesitation. Just making the appointment took a weight off my shoulders. It helped that grampy was now stable and he and mom seemed to be doing at least a little better.
I've only seen her a few times but I already feel a million times better. A couple of months ago, I really didn't see the point in life. I didn't know what I was doing and I was giving up. I mean, really. Yes, I still showered and put make up on every day. Yes, I still went to work early every day. I even kept shaving my legs regularly. I didn't think I was really doing that bad. But now that I'm on the other side...back on the bright side of life, I can see I wasn't living back then. I was being way too hard on myself and not giving myself the things I needed.
I still don't know where I'm going with my life (fingers crossed I can get into styling somehow), but I know I can't stay in the house I currently live at. I don't ever feel safe there. I have to leave. So I put in my notice yesterday. I'm moving because I deserve to live at a place that I feel safe in. Because there is no reason for me to continue to be stuck at a place that doesn't make me happy when I really don't need to be. Thanks to an outsiders view, I saw the possibilities. As my part time roomie A would say, what I saw as a problem, this outsider saw as a solution. So now, I'm moving. I haven't found a place yet, but I'm looking. I know I'll find what I'm looking for. I'm taking a leap of faith by putting in my notice before having a place locked down, but this leap has made me more excited about life then I have been in a long time. I really can't wait to see how it all turns out. And then I'll be able to work on what's next. Not that I need to think about that right now.
The reason I decided to share all of this is because I think other people need to know that these feelings happen to everyone. To some people it seemed like everything was fine with me. I just want you to know that we all go through this. Even people who seem to be doing great with life. We all have moments in our lives where things don't seem awesome. Where it seems like there is no point in life and no reason to go on. For some of us, those moments last longer. But you can get out of it. Sometimes all it takes is an objective view from an outsider to help you see the way out.
Don't be scared to ask for help. It doesn't mean you're weaker than someone who doesn't ask for help. It means that you are doing what you need to do and sometimes that means letting someone else help. Because as my new BFF the therapist pointed out to me, letting someone help you is actually helping them. You know how when you help someone out and they thank you and you feel good? When you don't let someone help you, you're actually depriving them of feeling that good feeling we get when we help someone. So let someone help, and make them feel good at the same time. There are billions of people on this planet. There is no reason for us to feel alone or to tackle life and it's humongous obstacles on our own.
I may not have all the answers, but I can always listen. And who knows, maybe I can help, or know someone who can. Why not find out?


Fun stories coming up soon! I thought it would be a good idea to share the reasons I've been a little absent, but I know fun stories are...well....more fun to read, so don't worry. I've got some good stuff to share.