First Day of Grad School

I was told to blog.  to blog about my first day of grad school.  

I want to first back up some.... For the past couple of weeks I have felt quite anxious about starting school.  People said, "It'll be fine, you're going to be great, don't worry."  Yet I was anxious about starting school.  I don't know if it is just the unexpectedness of starting something new.  A prime example of this is when I started my first day at Hertz.  I stepped on Jay's glasses, I had no car so Jay drove me to work, spent the day not having a clue what I was doing, had to take a taxi home, cost me $18 for 5 miles, locked my self out, drank half a beer at the bar and cried about my day, left because I was so embarrassed to be crying in a bar while the sun was still up, walked to 2 different gas stations, sat on a picnic table behind my apartment and talked to Kat Glass on my cell phone until 9pm when Jay got off work.... that day sucked.  I know that there are always things that can go awry when starting something new and I think that I am afraid of those moments.  But I went into today with an open mind, a plan, and the expectation of hope.

So today.

First, I woke up and watched Obama take office.  A great way to start a day, or a year, or a presidency term... but because of the coverage I got a late start on getting ready.  I had to run around the house gathering my things and making last minute adjustments to my bag, laptop in, phone charger in, debit card in, all the essentials.  I looked up where I needed to park, what way I was going to take, what my room numbers were... everything, right?

So I take off at my pre-scheduled time and realize that I am STARVING.... so hungry that I am thinking that I have to get something to eat.  So I stop at the gas station to get something to eat I also grabbed a soda.  I am on my way now.

I am running so late.  Class start at 1.  I can't find my building, I can't find a parking spot... I am going to be late.  I have to park at a meter and I don't have any change on me or in the car.  II scrounge and find 2 nickles under the seat it is now 1:00.  I stick them in the meter and see that i have paid for 7 min. of parking.  I resolve to take my chances against the parking gods.  I trek off to class.  I am not in the parking lot that I think that I am in and I am much further away from my building than I had planned.  More time lost.  I find the building.  I get to my class and it is 1:10.  Professor knows who I am (I am the only person late).  This was my Reading in American Lit class... I am so excited to see the syllabus, see what I am reading... and I find out that it is a English/Philosophy class and we are reading mainly philosophy books.  (I am not against philosophy it was simply unexpected).  I am thinking the whole time I am in the wrong class, panicked the entire time.  Class ends and I have a couple of hours to spare.... I don't know where my next class is.... I have to find a place to look that up.... mind you my mom and I were fighting all through this as well.  So I drive around town doing nothing that I really needed to do...  i decide just to park in the parking ramp closest to my next class and pay the price...  I think I will go find my next class so I am not late and hang out near there.... I do.  I feel awkward.  As class time approached I walked over to the classroom, there was a guy sitting outside, there were people in the class and I thought that it was the previous class still not dismissed... so I wait, and I wait and wait... kid still sitting outside, no one going in and out.  finally at 4:29 another girl walks up make the same assumption as I do.  but then boy gets up and walks away.  we finally go in.... that class goes great.  I am really looking forward to it (except every boy in the class is a different type of chode, annoying).  As I am leaving the class I pick up my loaded bag and sprain my wrist.  like seriously I sprained my wrist...  so i decided to go pick my battle with the university bookstore... I ordered my books like a week ago and they haven't even processed my order.... annoying.  spent time dealing with that.  i contemplated getting cash for the money owed for parking but think... they have to take debit card.  they don't.  cash or check ONLY. so i am think....  my bad does have everything in it so i frantically look for my check book.  it was only $3 but I didn't have that... didn't have change so I had to write and IOU.  Awesome.

In all seriousness though.  I am so glad to be back in school.  I am excited and once I get all the parking, and books, and timing down it is going to be awesome.  I will write more once I get going on my classes but I think that is enough for tonight.

it's been one year

I know that my blog has been overly emotional lately but that is kinda how I feel... and it is my blog so i will do what i want with it.

Today is the one year mark... one years since my dad died.  I am looking back over the year and trying to think what I've done.  

1.  I held 2 funerals, for one person, but two funerals nonetheless.  Hardest, and most memorable thing I've done to date.  

2.  I quit Hertz.  I hate to say it but it is something that I have wanted to do for about 3 years.  granted there was a lot of time in there in which I did like my job.  It never was for me and that is okay.  I am glad to have been there and had the experience and met the people I did but I am equally as glad to be done.  

3. I've applied and got accepted to GRAD school.  I am so glad that I did this.... i have been thinking about it for sometime and I am so glad that I dove in and will be starting back to school in like days... and I am excited about that.

4. I am working at a great place and feel good at the end of the day when I come home.  Foundation 2 is awesome, I love the work environment, I love the job that I do.  I LOVE it.

5. I've made a lot of good friends.  I have been hurt by people along the way... but I'm not perfect and I am sure that I have hurt some people too.... lessons learned and other friendships strengthened.

6. Survived a flood.  a 500 year flood.  this is something that i will never forget.  watching water rise in my city.  Cross over the flooded city on 380 and literally losing it.... because it was demolished.  Knowing that the water was just 2 blocks from my house, my house that was "never" going to be in danger of flooding.  I also got to see what it means to live in the Midwest.  There really is no place like this, the way strangers stand up and help one another, when the last well is the city was about to go under water and the news announced they need sand baggers and 1500 people showed up at 11:30 at night.  I know that these few sentences don't do justice to what happened but those are my memories of it.  

7. I've traveled less this last year.  I've visited my dad's grave 4 times.  I've been to Utah only once and besides that I haven't gone too many other places... and I'm okay with that.

I know that a lot more happened in the last year but those are the things that are most pressing. I feel like my life is split right now... into the before dad died and the after.... i look at everything I do know and ask, "Am I making my dad proud?"  I know I am.  I just wish he was hear to see it with me.  

is it written somewhere?

I find myself expecting people to just know the pain that I feel about my dad dying.  I feel like it is written into the expressions on my face... when i meet someone i feel like they should just know that I think of my dad anytime I meet a man over the age of 40.  I don't understand how something can be so large inside my head and be so small in the world.  It should just be written somewhere... so i don't have to tell anyone but they will know not to bring up certain topics so I don't have to think about it.  Not that it would help that much.  It is only going to get worse as we approach the 16th.  I just keep going over in my head...  "where was I last year this time..."  I know every date and know what I was feeling and I keep reliving all those emotions.  I know that on the 2nd my dad went into the hospital.  I got the call on Jan 10th that it was time to come home.  I flew on the 11th home hoping that my dad would stay alive long enough for me to see him one last time.  I remember that every time my plane landed the feeling of calling home to make sure that he was still alive.  Always being so relived to know that he was alive just that little bit longer.  He was barely talking at this point so I couldn't talk to him.  I am not sure I could have even handled that... I remember at Christmas last year when I was trying to get home and after driving through a blizzard for 4 hours to barely make my flight then missing my connection by 10 mins in Denver and breaking down at the airport. People had to think I was losing it because I did that all out cry at the Denver Airport.  I mean it was the hardest I ever cried in public.  I didn't want to have to hear my dad's dying voice at another airport.  I remember what it was like when I finally got into Salt Lake and then driving up the canyon listening to breath of heaven over and over again.... there is something in the song that breaks my heart but also mends it back together.  

When I finally got to my dad's house it was weird because in my head I was thinking "it's okay to die now dad."  Such a weird feeling to be thinking that... like giving permission.  Then my uncle Dan and Grandma Holladay came and my dad was so funny.  He was animated and talking and even sat up in the bed.  It was the last time that I would see him that way.  I also remember that night, that first night was hell because I was up with my mom all night doing meds, changing diapers (my dad couldn't get out of bed so we would have to have him pee in a diaper, I think that memory will be with me for a long time, I had to convince him to pee the bed.  He didn't want to and he really didn't want me there when he was doing it.), I didn't sleep one bit that night.  I laid on the floor of my dad's room and helped my mom and gave my dad a little sponge with water on it.  It was a long night.  There were several more nights like that where I just didn't sleep because I needed to be there for my dad.  There were other people that could have stepped in but I also knew that I was taking on a new role in my family... it was like my transition into adulthood...  I was now the one that held the weight of the family the way my dad had.  I was the one that had to keep it together.  It was now me.  People may not know this but the paying for the funeral was also something that fell on my shoulders.  We had jars put out at local businesses because we didn't have the money.  Once a day we had to go out and collect the money and then roll the change to take to the bank.  We literally rolled nickels and dimes to pay for my dad's funeral.  It was overwhelming, to rely on the goodness of other's spare change to pay for the funeral.  It will stick with me for the rest of my life, I can't pass up a jar at the gas station with out putting some money in there.  Whatever cash I have goes in there because I know what it is like when you collect that jar and count the cash and think of all the people that contributed to paying the bills.  I remember the day my dad died.  January 16th, 2008.  I remember it vividly.  That was the 5th day of me being there... that morning the rest of my family went back to school and work and my mom decided to leave the house.  I didn't want to leave, I couldn't, I had no where to go anyway.  It was about 1 o'clock and at this point we had to rotate him.  We had to roll him over a couple times every day.  Me and Grandma Clara had to roll him over and as we started to roll him his breathing was becoming more labored.  That morning his breathing had changed, it was shallow and rapid.  I knew that he was breathing, Grandma went and got her heart monitor to see what dad's heart rate was and I was just holding him, holding him and telling him it was okay to go, I told him that I would take care of everyone, that he just needed to go and be done with the pain.  I knew that his pain was bad, I just wanted him to know that I would step in his shoes and do what needed to be done.  He died.  I had to call everyone and tell them to come home.  I don't know where my mom was at that time but she ended up trying to walk back to dad's.  Amrit came home from school, someone picked up Landon and brought him home, we were all there as a family and I knew that from that moment on I would carry those memories with me forever.  I made the appropriate notification, to Kristin, to work, to the funeral home, to Tara... I don't remember these moments as vividly.  The funeral home told us to call when we were ready to have them come.  I think they came sometime around 5.  I think I was the one who called them, but I am unsure about that...  I finally slept that day, like I could just relax.  I slept for so long.  They came maybe the next day to take his bed (it was all hospice's stuff in his room at that point).  After that things get blurrier and less sharp at the edges.

I didn't know that Christmas and New Years would be this hard to get through.  It is like I went through the motions but didn't really think because if I did it would be too hard.  I resolved for the new year to have a less traumatic 2009.  I hope that can happen.

I have nothing more to say about that subject...  I just needed to write it out.  I don't think I have been ready to talk about it all until tonight...

A lady at work told me that her dad died about 10 years ago and just recently she is starting to remember the before he was sick days more than the one's where he was in the hospital.  It is hopeful that it will happen one day.  10 years is a long time to wait for that this past year has been hard enough... but here's to a less traumatic 2009.