yo yo

I'm exhausted. Babysitting is tiring. I'm sleeping on a waterbed. Who has a waterbed anymore? I'm sleepy. Still working on something else to post,but not quite done yet. It involves a metaphor that made sense when I first thought of it, but I'm having trouble articulating. So someday it will be finished and you'll all be underwhelmed by the buildup,but in the meantime I wanted to share a quote and a revelation from therapy yesterday. The quote is by Kahlil Gibran: "And a woman spoke, saying, tell us of pain. And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your job; and you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief."
I've loved that quote for quite a while. I have had it printed out and taped to my monitor from the day I got my full time job. I've never really understood it, never thought about it more than to acknowledge that pain is a necessity if we're ever to fully live life. I just really liked the the words. In therapy yesterday we talked about dad (which happens every week) and I talked about how it's weird that our family is focused on two things. We're all focused on living our daily life, and then we're focused on how things will work after dad is out of the hospital. No one talks about the actual surgery. It's just understood that everything will be fine and that the surgery will be a success.
The day that dad got diagnosed with cancer was a Thursday. I remember because I didn't go to Otto's that night, I just didn't feel up to being around people. So I stayed home and watched "Gray's Anatomy." So it turns out that this was the night when George's dad dies. He'd had some sort of surgery and it didn't work out so well. and George is outside talking to Christina and he says "I don't know how to exist in a world where my dad doesn't." And she says "Yeah, that never really changes." I feel like that possibility isn't something that anyone in the family is acknowledging. I know that it's likely that everything will go as planned and he'll have his surgery and recover and be spectacular. But there's part of me that needs to at least acknowledge the risk that's involved, and that part of that risk is that he could die. Is that probably going to happen? no. But could it? yes. I think if I just pretend it isn't even an option then it would be harder to deal if something adverse did happen. Does that make sense? I don't know. I'm really not trying to be melodramatic or doomsday-like, but I guess I just need the whole spectrum of outcomes to be part of my reality. That way no matter what happens I've at least thought about it before. Then it's not out of the blue. I think I'm just really scared about the surgery. It's a huge deal I think and it's really hard to wrap my head around it. I started thinking about the time at the hospital, within 45min-1hour after he gets to the hospital dad will be in surgery. And then we wait for 6-8 hours for him to be finished. That's such a long time. I have to pack my bag for the hospital and I'm going to include a book so that maybe I can read. At least if it's during the day I can call people and talk on the phone. Sigh. I just am ready for it to happen. I seem to cycle between feeling really positive and like we're doing things to prepare, and then feeling really strung out like I can't deal with anything because it hasn't happened yet. I'm exhausted and I want a vacation.