Crazy Week

Hello my friends!

Its been a crazy week, to say the least. I think I've felt every emotion possible. From great joy over my birthday, seeing old friends again to celebrate it. Getting violently ill that same night and spending all night in the bathroom. Calling in sick to work and trying to work while sick. Getting the call that my step-mom Gloria isn't doing so well and wasn't initally expected to make it another day. To feeling some extreme rage about some things involving it. I got all my shifts covered and drove the 8 hours to Evansville, IN to see her, perhaps for the last time. We hugged, said our goodbyes. Lots of tears. Lots of emotions. Lots of pain. Driving back alone, sobbing on the way. Talking with friends. Hanging out drinking, cleansing the pallate...

Cut to today: I woke up at my friend's house, hung over. I drove home through the slick roads and just stayed here. I spent a day with myself. Turned off the phone and just opened up my pens and markers and got to work. Here I am almost 12 hours later and I got my card set done. I sent in scans, got an invite to be a guest at an upcoming show. I even have started to branch out more on the net and talk to people. I just want to feel fucking normal for once! Ya follow me?

This has been the craziest time of my life. Seems like the last 13 months I have lived lifetimes of emotions and events. And its not over. Just called dad. Gloria is still with us, thank goodness. But it is inevitable that she will leave us soon. Maybe a day, maybe a week. But sometime within the next two months, it will be so. The same events of 14 years ago play out again. She's lived a great life and has beat the odds again and again. But time will eventually hunt us all down. She's facing that now.

One day I will have to face that too. Its a scary concept.

I saw something while I was there that made me think a lot about things in my life. I sat and watched my dad, who just turned 70, caring for her in the hospital. He would hang his head and cry, but he would get back up and swab her mouth out and feed her ice. He would reach over and and hold her frail hand. I've watched someone I love die. Its fucked up. There are no words for it. But I couldn't help but think that what I observed between them has to be the greatest example of true love I have ever seen. I watched him do that with my mom too, almost 15 years ago when she died. My heart goes out to him, having to watch his love die twice. I cannot even imagine it. I can't bare to.

But you know what? In that brief moment, I sort of felt envious of it. My dad has been through a lot in life. Some major fucked up shit. He's human. He's made mistakes. but he's a great man. The greatest man I've ever known. And he has love. He is capable of love. so much so that he gives himself out again and again, even though he potentially could be hurt for it like he has before. I've seen people do him wrong and disappoint him. But he keeps loving them back. He has the type of heart that can be hurt but keep on loving. And he pursues the type of relationship where he can watch his loved one die before him, and still want to swab their mouth out. Because he loves them.

I wondered in that moment: Will I have someone to swab my mouth out when I die? or will I be there to watch someone else I love pass away and be as strong?

I knew in that moment what I have known all along. Recent events have derailed it for me, but my mission is clear. I was listening to "I will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor a while back. Great disco tune. And I heard the line: "I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give." It struck me. I wrote it out and stuck it on my bathroom wall by my mirror. Cause its true. I found truth in a fucking disco tune. And I am now going to pursue that truth. Perhaps I have been all along.

Things happen for a reason. Good and bad. And I've had a lot of bad in recent years. But I am slowly becoming a better person for it. Maybe thats the reason. When my mom died 15 years ago, it made me want to be an artist for a living. Because I realized that life is short and it can be taken away. The lessons I am learning from my current path are coming into clarity and I am ready to face it.

But for now, I am anxious to keep artworking, working my jobs and getting my routine going. Sometime soon I will have to drive to a funeral and maybe help my dad out in some way. But I'll cross those bridges as they come. but I got my head up and eyes wide open. Ready to face it.

So thats my week so far. How have you been? ;)

T