This is just a quick posting that I have made the weather website live again… This is the site I used to have up a long time ago and is still very beta and needs to have many more improvements made, but for those of you in the local area who need access to the current data on this side of New Braunfels, please have at it:
Monthly Archives: June 2008
Puppy Love
In case you haven’t seen my Twitter or Facebook postings, I picked up my 7-week old chocolate lab puppy named Rudy (after my grandfather Rudolph Jaks, and also my father’s middle name – Wilburn Rudolph Randow) from a former co-worker last weekend. This has been an interesting experience due to the fact that this is:
1. My first indoor dog. Well, let me rephrase that. He stays inside with me at night. He’s outside while I am at work. And that is probably how it will stay. I eventually would like him to sleep on the foot of my bed, but I am a LONG way from that right now.
2. Caregiving. The thoughts of almost everyone who knows me has been that I need a puppy to keep from dwelling on the past. This ALMOST worked.. I’m not dwelling as much, but when I do, it goes very deep.
We’ll see how things progress. I love the puppy. I wish he would stop using my finger as it’s own personal chewing toy, but I’m starting to break him of that habit. I took him out walking in the neighborhood in front of my house tonight (I walk with him nightly, but have been varying the route to let him see more) and he got a lot of socializing. I think that we had about 10 children of various ages come to pet him, three parents, and two other families. I was getting a bit concerned about finding children for his socialization, but when he is at the “cute puppy” age, I guess that isn’t an insurmountable problem.
In other matters this past week:
1. I went to church with Stephen today. I go to church every weekend, but this is the first time I actually went with somebody. Actually, I picked his church today since the Comal Community Band, of which I am a member, had a “thank you” concert for the church for using their facilities for our weekly practice this past month. Nice service. Methodist churches are not too bad, but they take a while to get used to. Also, the fact that we were singing patriotic hymns was also a pleasant experience.
2. After church, I attended the band wrap-up party for this season. We do have one more rehersals and two more performances on Friday (July 4), but it made sense to do the wrap party on a non-holiday weekend. In the past, I wouldn’t have attended. However, in an effort to make myself do more, I am forcing myself to leave my comfort zone and do things. I still need to do more and my to-do list for the summer and fall is still very very long.
3. Work sucks. I’m sorry to be so blunt with that statement, but it’s the unfortunate truth. We (me and Stephen) have so much work piled on us between now and August 8 and it will be a daunting task for us to actually finish it all. So as you can surmise, the stress level has gone up considerably, which is exactly what I do not need at this time. Oh well… I’m starting to run a countdown clock to August 8 and then want to take a trip after that time. Plus, I have so much unfinished business that I need to take care of, like probate and other legal matters.
4. Friends rock. Another short but profound statement. I’m afraid to think of what type of shape I would be in at this point without the bedrock of support from others. I feel so small, though, in that I haven’t been the person that I could have been in the past. I consistently concentrated on issues around me (and my family) and generally ignored everything else externally. That needs to stop as of now.
In closing I want to add a reminder that you can also keep track of me via Twitter, Friendfeed, or Facebook. On Twitter and Friendfeed, my alias is JeffreyCentex and you can find me by my name on Facebook.
Thank you for reading and may God bless you and your family!
How I Feel
I have now completed two months since my own D-Day. I’m still grieving, hurting, in pain, and suffering. I fear that I will for some months or years to come. My biggest problem is one that I wasn’t expecting, but I guess that I should have – GUILT. I have found the following article on the internet – “Guilt after caregiving for a spouse” that has described in detail exactly what I have been going though. Although my situation wasn’t that of a caregiver of a spouse, the points still apply to me because I was in the surrogate role of a spouse during the caregiving process.
Now I just need to get over this guilt. Yes, I even made a promise two days before D-Day to not be sad or guilty. It is just hard to follow through on that when guilt has been ruling my life for years in almost everything I do or have done.
Grief Sucks and Other Musings
Well, I’m quickly approaching the two month anniversary of my mother’s passing (one week from today on Father’s Day). I have had my ups and downs. Some days are incredible. Some days involve me dwelling in places so horrible that I can’t believe my mind can conjure them. I know this is a process and that everyone has to go through it. When my dad passed away a bit over ten years ago, the grief process wasn’t as involved. It was there, but was abbreviated since I wasn’t that close with him over the years. Living the past six years as a caregiver, especially the past four years has made me have an attachment to my mother that basically borders on co-dependence. The normalcy of my life has disappeared. Cope, I have. I still have outbursts of pain, sadness, and dejection that border on depression, though.
This past weekend was one of the times when I searched the depths of my soul. Today, I spent about three hours crying and yelling and about seven hours total this weekend. To quote Thomas Paine, these are the times that try men’s souls. Although I am not undergoing the struggles that Thomas Paine meant in The Crisis, I am fighting my own internal war. I see a light at the end of the tunnel, but the journey there is fraught with difficulty and pain. I realize that this is therapeutic and I will end up being a better man for going through it, the process still is extremely painful.
I’m striving to be strong through this experience. I have some incredible friends who have done much to help me deal with all of these crises I am undergoing. I can’t thank them enough for being there, for putting up with my stubborness and naivete, and for forcing me to push the envelope so to speak. I may struggle and resist, but the experience is worth it.
So, as I complete the second month anniversary this week, I must reflect on my experiences thusfar:
My promises and their Status:
- Try new things… This one is probably my hardest, but it is one that I am actively forcing myself to do, sometimes with a bit of prodding by others. I give myself a solid C+ here.
- Attend church weekly… This one I have done… I’m looking for a church to call home and have been “church shopping” the past two months.. I think that I may have a permanent solution, but it has to be right for me and my theological viewpoint.
- Exercise more… I started well, but have back slid a bit lately. I have been averaging about 2.5 miles every time I go out on a walk, but lately it has only been 3~4 times a week. This is partially due to heat and also partially due to other problems.
- Take care of my health… Like above, I’m trying to do this…
- Don’t dwell… I dwell. I always have. I think I always will. This requires a major change in my psychological makeup. I’m better than I used to be, but most would say that I am a pathological “dwell”-er. This is a solid D+ here.
- Reconnect with friends… I’m trying here… This is a bit hard because I burned quite a few bridges.. A lot of my problems relate to my naivete and I don’t realize that I may have offended or off-put someone and I don’t fix it immediately. I’m working on this.
- Meet people… I still chicken out way too easily here. I need a “social security blanket” before I feel safe to go out and try. So my likelihood of meeting someone and get into a real relationship is a bit dreary.
Other Thoughts
- My brain is the source of a lot of my problems.. I overreact and over-compensate way too much.
- I have a lot of work to do. It will take forever to get everything under control.
- I’m too stressed out to be very effective. I’m adjusting to stress and am trying not to force myself to do more than I can handle, but then I upset others.
- My temper is much shorter. I seem to have no problem telling others who have pushed me too far. This is new.
- I miss both of my parents very dearly and know that I will see them again in the future.
Thanks for listening and reading as I rambled on here…