The holidays were tough this year, as they have been since KC has been gone, but this year it has been different and worse. About 3 weeks before Thanksgiving my dad told me that he had renal cancer and would have to have surgery to remove his left kidney. To add to this, he said I couldn't tell anyone about it. I was sitting at the dinner table with my parents, my sister, brother-in-law, and niece and my dad dropped this bomb. As soon as I heard the words "I have cancer" my vision blurred, my temperature rose, and I stopped hearing everything else that he said. I soon got up and ran to the bathroom to throw up; as if my body thought it could extinguish the bad news. My father has had the surgery and is doing quite well, but I can't shake the feeling of foreboding.
This news and the surgery obviously affected my Thanksgiving celebration. We still had the dinner we usually have, but it was tainted. It felt different. The food was different as Pop wasn't able to prepare the entire meal as he usually does and other people provided the bulk of the feast. It was nice to have everyone, and obviously I am grateful that Pop is hangin in there, but shit, man. The foreboding. It's there and it's real.
A short couple weeks later was four years since KC passed, and then two days later it was my 31st birthday. My birthday was on a Saturday this year, however, it was a grad school weekend, so that Friday, Saturday and Sunday were 12 hour school days. Though my cohort at school was incredibly kind and ritualized my day in an unbelievable showing of love and appreciation, it wasn't the same as celebrating my birthday with my family and my friends as I usually do. I felt a little like my birthday was skipped this year.
The last week of work before winter break is always brutal. The kids were crazy and I was at my wits end, aching for Friday afternoon and the freedom that awaited me. Freedom finally came, and I woke up with a terrible cold that first Saturday morning of my vacation. Mind you, this was a working vacation, as I have 4 papers due tomorrow for school, but it was a vacation nonetheless. Yet, it was just a cold...how bad could it be, right? Wrong. I am still sick. There have been days here and there in the last two weeks where I thought I was getting better and over it, but it has fallen back to the nastiness and I still can't shake it. The worst part is that I had laryngitis as well, and it was at its worst on Christmas Day, forcing me to stay home alone while my family celebrated together, without me. My Christmas was spent barely conscious on a couch all by myself, unable to talk.
I realize I am sounding like a whiny little kid, here. Trust me, I am fucking sick of myself too. But I am affected by this. Being sick for so long has taken away experiences from me. It even affected the papers I have had to write, as being so sick for so long apparently has a dramatic affect on cognitive functioning (who knew?). But the point is, as I am looking at a brand new year, I have had a lot of time to think about how I want to make this year better than the last, and broaden my experiences. I have been trying to think of a word to encompass all aspects of my life that I want to improve. The best that I can come up with is discipline. If I can be disciplined, I will maximize the use of my time in my work and school. I will be in charge of my health and fitness. I will have space in my domicile. I will limit my spending to save for the things that really matter to me, like travel, family, and education. And maybe, if I am lucky, it will spill over into my romantic endeavors too and I will be able to make time and take chances to aim toward a better life for myself.
So, this year, I aim toward discipline. I will manifest 2015 in the best way possible and change habits that no longer serve me. Discipline, kids. The name if the 2015 game.
Wishing you a connected, disciplined, and empowered year.
