I tell myself over and over again to be happy, to love my life. Life goes by so quickly, we must savor it and not get too worked up over the little things.
But the thing is, I never made it to the cheerleading squad. Perhaps if I had, I'd be perkier, more resilient less to feel like I'm being hammered.
My job is tough. Every day is at 10-13 hours. I report to work every day at 6:30am and only have a half hour break for lunch. We rehearse, we shoot, I do a fair amount of time consuming paperwork, I have a fair amount of questions aimed towards me and then we finish and I go home. I often don't drink as much water as I should because going to the bathroom can be a challenge when we rehearse and shoot as much and as fast as we do. There are moments of down time but not much. This is a six day work week. Last week, we ended with night shoots so we finished work at 7am on Saturday, only to report to work at 6:30am on Sunday. Over the "weekend" I volunteered at Eliza's school fundraiser, went to the grocery store, did laundry, looked over Eliza's school papers, planned the week's menu for the girls, and discussed this job with the woman who is covering me for one day.
In the meantime, my mother is going through chemo. She drives herself to and from her appointments because she has no one willing or available to drive her. She needs to return to the doctor tomorrow for some kind of shot (her platelets are down) but she's too weak to drive herself and has no one to drive her. I offered to pay for a cab (what's the point of working, right?) but she refused, saying she's in pain and might yell and doesn't want to do that in front of a stranger. Oh sure, there are some volunteer services who offer rides out there but you have to give them at least a week's notice and they kind of come on their own timetable which I'll admit is understandable considering they're volunteering their time for free.
My mother is a wonderful person and she has to fight this battle largely on her own. People have jobs, they have families, they live far away. It's not that she has no one who cares for her, it's just that there's no one available right now. Life in today's world is exceptionally hard for people without immediate family nearby, a spouse, a neighborhood support system. I look at her life and I see what mine will look like, if I'm fortunate to live as long as she has. I don't mean to make her cancer all about me but I can't help but go there. My mother's brother died from pancreatic cancer and now she has it. My mother has had cancer three times. Ask the doctors, they'll start spouting my statistics, how I'm kind of likely to get it.
I'll be going to my appointments alone because I have no one. Sure, I have friends and people who care about me but I can't even find some one to have dinner with let alone ask for help if I really need it. All my friends know what's going on in my life right now--has anyone offered to take me out and cheer me up? Babysit my kids for a few hours? Check in on my mom or even send a freakin card?
I don't want to turn this into some kind of pity party but those are the facts. I see people all the time, most of my friends in fact, married with spouses who might not be the greatest but who are THERE. With siblings they might not like all the time but who show up for Thanksgiving dinner.
I love my daughters and I'm so grateful to have them but why couldn't their father have cared about me enough to be a partner. I remember saying to him once that he had this moment to be a man and decide what he wanted and he did. He decided he wanted me. Why couldn't he decide to stay with me instead of disintegrating into the jerk he's become. The guy I met was a better guy than that. It may of been brief but it was there.
But anyway, I digress. It's late and I have to be up at 5:30am. I'm tired and there's still three more days left in this week. Snow is in the forecast already and it looks like winter will be starting to bear down. And when the snow falls and my car is buried under several feet of snow who will help me out?
that's right, there's no one.
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