God and I are Having a Rough Time Lately

I don't mean to be melodramatic, but I've been stuck in a nasty dark night lately.

I've feel very remote from God, and it's been terrible. It's awful to feel separated from something that usually gives me so much comfort, especially at a time when comfort is so hard to find. I'm don't doubt God's existence; I just feel like we don't have anything to say to each other right now. It's like God and I are teenage girls who had a nasty fight, so we're avoiding each other at parties until we both cool off.

The way I see God and the world is changing, and it's stressful to be going through such major growing pains at a time when I'm already exhausted. I'm really annoyed that this is happening now since I'm already pretty freaking busy mourning the death of my father! I'm pissed that I'm spending my time working through a bunch of existential angst instead of curling up in a big, snugly God blanket of comfort and hope.

Being upset with God is such a difficult thing to talk about because it's so strange and private. Most people know that I'm religious, and a lot of people have wanted to comfort me with those terrible religious platitudes that annoy me on a good day (Seriously, if I never hear "God only gives us as much as we can handle" again it will be too soon).  I want to shush them and say "Please just stop. God and I are having a moment right now, so I wish you'd stop being silly."


I wish there was a neat solution to this issue, but there isn't. This is just another part of my life that needs plenty of time to work itself out.

Radio Silence

Yesterday I took my final unit test for nursing school. I was originally scheduled to take it over a month ago, but after Dad died I just couldn't do it. I needed to score 38 out of 100 points to pass the semester, but I needed 60 to get a B. Now, normally I score in the mid-80s, but you can totally bomb a nursing test if you're not seriously prepared. Dead Daddy or no dead Daddy, there was no way I was letting a B slip through my fingers this late in the game.

Taking the test couldn't have been a nicer experience. School is out, so I drove over to my teacher's house to take the test. We looked through my pictures from Pinning, and then I took the exam at her kitchen table while her cat kept me company. Afterwards we sat out on her deck and watched the butterflies fly around the pink and yellow bushes. It was the gauzy dream version of what taking a test should be like, and a hell of a lot nicer than taking it in the Nursing office.

Unfortunately, all the butterflies and kittens in the world couldn't make me feel good. I missed my father terribly. My dad is the first person I call after I take a test, and, for the first time, I wasn't able to call him. It was such a loss for me. Dad wasn't exactly a cheery guy, but he loved it when I did well in school. He would have been so excited and proud, and it hurts to not be able to share this with him.

So many changes are coming for me, and it blows my mind that my dad won't be here to see them. In the span of just a few months I will have finished nursing school, lost my father, taken boards, gotten a job, and started a new career. As I live with my parent(s), my dad always knew all of the minutia of my day.

 I can't believe that in so little time we have gone from speaking constantly to a state of total radio silence.

 It feels unfair. I know that "You can always talk to him", but talking to the air is a cold comfort. I feel like we should have a tin-can radio to the afterlife so that we can actually speak to our dead; not a wistful, romanticized  version of what they would say, but an actual link to their opinions and peculiarities. I don't want to hear what I think my dad would say read back to me in my own voice. I want to speak to him. It's very hard knowing that, at least for now, I will not get to do so.

Every Rain-Cloud has a Silver Lining

A tornado touched down about 20 miles from my house earlier today. When my dad was alive, inclement weather like this meant non-stop panic in our house. Dad needed oxygen machines and controlled temperatures to breathe for at least the last two years, so if we lost power we needed to get him to a hotel or the hospital immediately. That meant wheeling him from the house to the car and transporting his breathing machines with us, and hoping there wouldn't be any downed trees on our escape route. These demands made storms or heatwaves beyond stressful. Whenever one would happen my mom and I would ghost around the house day and night, the three of us waiting for the worst to happen.

 Of course, the worst has already happened: my dad is dead. His death really takes the punch out of most other problems. I'm starting to notice that things that some of the things that stress other people out don't even phase me anymore. I mean, yeah, it sucks that I'm broke and my hair is falling out, but at least I don't have to touch my father's dead body today. That kind of shit puts things into perspective. I still desperately want my father back, but it's nice not to constantly feel the strain of fighting against the odds to keep him alive. The gentlest battles are the ones you have already lost.