May Day (almost)

(Warning...not really quilting related post)

Confessions...The last 3 months have been a blur. Four if you want to be honest. My blogging and social media presence on facebook have been sporadic, if at all. I will go weeks without even getting on the computer, then think it's high time I posted, but not really have the words to say. Life works that way.

In the past, when issues in my personal life were rampant, I still had quilting as my salvation. This year has been different. I'm not burned out, but it has been challenging to find the motivation to do the things I would really like to do, like finish the top that has been started for months. Or quilt the next piece on the frame. I have always used quilting as my fuel to restart that which is crooked in life, but this time it is taking something different. The fact that quilting cannot get me back on course is stressful, and confusing. I'm not one for rediscovering what works and what doesn't, being that creature of habit. Some days it's easier to crawl into a hole and vow to try again tomorrow.

My dad was in the hospital several times in 2018, for anywhere from a few days to as long as 2 weeks. It was unsettled, but somehow he always got better, went home and life mostly returned to normal. On new year's eve 2018, he went back into the hospital. Except for coming home for 6 days at the end of January, he was there until March 31st, when he lost his battle. He had recurrent unexplained GI bleeding, then congestive heart failure & fluid retention, then kidney failure. As we learned through this process, all of these things are interrelated, and are extremely challenging to treat. When you get one of them managed, you have wreaked havoc on the other. He went on dialysis a week before he died, something he never wanted to do. In February when I was in Florida teaching, he had heart valve surgery which was supposed to solve one of his issues. The fact that it may have was masked by the continual decline he suffered in other areas. They said he had hospital-induced dementia. This once very intelligent person, who read excessively, was barely a cloud of recognition. He could not focus or hold down decent conversations some days. He couldn't sleep there. For several days of his last week he was put in a drug-induced state so he could get rest. It was all pretty miserable watching the immense decline, and how hospitals treat (and overtreat). In the end, our family had to make some very tough decisions about his care, knowing that if he could tell us what he wanted, it would probably be anything but what he was getting. Losing one of my parents is hard. It's agonizing seeing my mother go through this. She's been with him since she was 16. I want to feel whole again, but am slowly coming to terms with the fact that whole will take on a new meaning different from before. I have lost grand parents before, and a dear friend from high school when she was just 39. It was sad then, but somehow life just went on. This experience has sent me soul-searching.

There has not been a traditional service yet, as my dad and our family are anything but traditional. This is something I am so grateful for. The week following his death just seemed too all-consuming to possibly squeeze planning a quickie memorial service into. I don't know how or why most people do that. It feels so contrary to who I am and how I process grief. Hopefully my mom feels the same, as she is clearly taking the brunt of this. Though we do have a service planned for mid-May, I am already being constrained by the anxiety of going. I'm a private person, and going in front of her family and friends feeling broken is not where I want to be. I don't need everybody else's sadness to process my own. I just prefer my aloneness.

I am managing my own feelings through working on my own quilt (above) for a few weeks. I figured it was better to screw up something of my own than anybody else's...LOL!  I took it off of the frame today for a look, and it's "getting there". It's not terrible, but I'm still waiting for that feeling of being fully invested. I have some different ideas for this quilt, and how it will finish, and I'm sure that many will be taken aback by my choices, but hey, that's life, and it's my decision. The quilting is most definitely influenced by my coping mechanism. I have rationalized that it's ok for this to be different than past quilts. The process is helping with all I need to process.

(my quilt "Escape")

My salvation through this has been music. It's been in my ears 8+ hours a day. Maybe this helps my mind from wandering and thinking too much; maybe it's taking me back to a time and place when I knew nothing could go wrong, or if it did I was just too young and optimistic to care. Throughout my teens and twenties, I lived to hear the songs of Queen, having most of their albums. Kids I went to high school either loved them or hated them. You know which camp I am in. I went to high school in very-conservative southern Mississippi. The fact that we knew Freddie was gay tainted the image of this fabulous group with so many. I loved every song they did then, and still do. It's the music of my happy youth. It's the concert I snuck out to go to, and nearly got caught doing so. I remember it like it was yesterday. Until last weekend (when my 14-yr old announced it), I don't think my mother was even aware of the lie of her 16-yr old. Why, 36 years later would I even care? The resurgence of their music since the movie came out has been wonderful. It's fun to see a new generation introduced to their music (even if 2 of my 3 kids claim it is attrocious "How can you possibly like music 45 years old?"...I roll my eyes!). Not having a turntable anymore, I went and bought all CDs except 2 from the early 80's just to torture my non-loving kids! Gosh it's fun to be a parent sometimes...LOL! You will have to wait to see how exactly this coping mechanism has migrated into my current quilt.

Through the events of the past month, it took listening to Innuendo (their last studio album) in the car one day for me to realize that was the last thing Freddie sang with the group. As much as I hated to come to the realization that Queen as I knew and loved was gone (and yes I did know he died 27 years ago when it happened), it symbolized something bigger. It took this music to make me finally break down over the loss of my father, and the loss to our family. What began as a means to cope with grief, and give me peace and structure, touched a sensitive nerve too. Freddie and my dad were nothing alike, neither in person or what they did for me. But as sure as Queen's music and musicians still endure without Freddie, I know that our family, more importantly "I" will survive too, and endure whatever life gives me. Not all steps will be easy, but all steps are walkable, one day at a time. It was a poignant breakdown moment.

Onward and upward, friends. Life is not always easy or fair. Find what makes you happy. Do what brings a peace and solace to your days, even if it is 180 degrees to what another might do.

My next post will be quilting related, I promise. I am working on one as we speak!