Comfortably Numb

This is one of my all-time favorite songs. I love a lot of Pink Floyd songs, but this one is especially good to me. The music is awesome, but lately "comfortably numb" has become a good description of how I feel. Numbness is basically what I feel inside. Sometimes I feel numb almost to the point of feeling empty. Sometimes I feel like I'm just going through the motions of day-to-day life.

Some people don't understand what it's like to lose a parent. It would be unreasonable to expect them to when they haven't experienced it. However, I think I do expect people to have a bit more understanding. I guess now it seems a bit like common sense that losing a parent is a very difficult thing to deal with, that getting back to "life as normal" is often easier said than done. I wish my boss could understand that. She is so black and white most of the time. (I'm guilty of seeing things this way too.) I feel like she sees my situation like this: I've lost my dad. I should just get over it and get back to my normal routine without any glitches or problems. It doesn't work that way. I don't really have any explanation as to why it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't. Life isn't the same. It won't ever be. Part of me is missing. Part of me is gone. Part of me is dead. It is part of me because I am part of him. Part of him is in me. Sometimes it's difficult to look at myself in the mirror because I look like him. My eyes are the same, and I can't bear looking at them some days.

I really miss being able to call my dad whenever I felt like it, for no reason at all. I miss hearing his tales, his silliness, his fun-loving personality and his cooking. He loved to kid around and play jokes on people, and he loved to cook anything. Often he would read cookbooks or find recipes in the newspaper just to try something new and different.

Last weekend I visited his grave for the first time since he was buried. It was so difficult. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find it, but something strange happened when I got to the cemetery. As soon as I entered the gates, I felt overwhelmed. My emotions got the best of me, and I cried uncontrollably. I fought to gain my composure as I was driving and needed to be in control of myself. I didn't know where to go. I couldn't remember where he was buried. I said, "Daddy, help me find you." Then there was something like a pull in my gut that guided me and showed me where to stop.

This may be too weird and may be a bit difficult to believe or to read. But it's true. I don't know that it was really my dad that guided me, but I was able to find his final resting place with ease.

I placed a few flowers in the vase and knelt down on the ground next to his plot. I had been feeling like I just needed to talk to my dad. I felt weird about it because he's gone, but nothing I did made me feel any less like I needed to do this. So I began to talk, telling him everything I wished that I could talk to him about if he were alive. I really needed some advice that I knew only he could give me. I needed some relationship advice, and I needed to know what to do about some things.

To be honest, I didn't expect to get any answers from him. I really just thought that I was basically talking to the air and hoping that somehow he could hear me, that God would allow him to hear me. Somehow I have received the answers I needed. I believe that God has answered me, with or without my dad being a messenger.

I have a lot of things to do. School starts again next week, and I'll be very busy with my studies and projects. I have a good relationship with a good man. I just don't have much interest in actually doing stuff. I started back to the gym recently, and I'm hoping that working out regularly will help me get through this emotional state and also help with the stress that will come as the semester progresses. Nineteen credit hours is a huge load for one semester!

Today I had a busy day. I went to a get-together with my best friend. It was a lot of fun. After that we went shopping for some things I need for school - a portable external hard drive, a chill pad for my laptop, a new backpack, notebooks, pens, folders, a lock (for the gym) and a new iPod Shuffle (the clip-on kind).

Ok, so I don't need the iPod, but I could really use it at the gym. I have an iPod Nano, but it's inconvenient. I have to hold all the time. My workout clothes don't have any pockets. I do have one of those workout case things for it with a strap that goes around my arm, but I hate it. It's terribly uncomfortable. It isn't tight, but still it reminds me of a blood pressure cuff. This new one I can just clip on my shirt and not have to fuss with it. That makes me happy. =)