i have a lot - a lot a lot - on my mind.
every time i get news about my dad's cancer, it changes. it's good, it's bad. it's nothing, it's serious. don't worry, everyone here is having a breakdown. don't change your schedule to visit, get up here now. in the span of the week and a half since i was told, the general consensus seems to have changed approximately eleventy thousand times.
the best i can currently ascertain - from my sister, who usually conveys information fairly well, but did get it from my mother, who frequently mixes things up and leaves parts out - is that they are on standby, waiting to hear from sunnybrook. the hospital could call them 'at any time' to come and start treatment. they are only midway through his three pages of appointments, scheduled to take place well into june, and we're not sure if those appointments are still standing or if they know all they need to know, basically. we (onica and i) aren't sure if the treatment is chemo or radiation or both - again, mom garbles things - but it will be 5 days a week, for 3 weeks. this leads me to believe they think it will a quick hard shot to shrink the thing down to operable size, or that they think they need to blast the shit out of it in the hopes of doing so. something was muttered about a fifty-fifty chance - we don't know if this was pertaining to the chance of treatment shrinking the tumour, or ... chances in general. last week, we were both told it was a zero on the cancerometer, which goes to five for those who don't know, which made it sound rather unworrisome. this week it sounds quite the opposite. i don't know what to believe.
*deep breath*
i have considered moving in with my parents for a year.
i haven't mentioned this to my mom, or my dad, or my sister. nor have i mentioned it to carolyn (the moving part, that is - the cancer part itself, yes) or anyone at work. the only people i have told, in fact, are kate, gaby, and brenna. i was at the gym last week, when i went up to see The Fam.
it was made clear to me that my old job is waiting for me with open arms. it was also suggested to me, by brenna, that sherryanne's old job as program co-ordinator could be there, too. no one else sure as hell wants to do it. i would love it, personally. not only would i like to do the job, but i would love, love, LOVE to do it better than she did, and not have everyone hate my guts in the process.
last night, i got this email -
cianne,
i hope your dad is okay. i'm starting to do some planning for next year. let me know if you're interested in coming back. i need to know as soon as possible - letters go out the first week of june.
keep in touch.
kate
you know, not only am i loved and wanted, but she's the first person who's bothered to say the words 'i hope your dad is okay' or acknowledge that anything is going on.
i laid in bed for an hour and a half trying to sort this all out. i made mental lists of pros and cons, i counted endless sets of numbers, i organized all kinds of ideas - and somehow it became about me and money. i could make so much more money coaching there. i wouldn't be paying rent. my debts would be paid off in a month, excepting what i owe to my dad (how nice). i could save money for school. i am never, ever going to get any money saved for school living the way i do, and i seriously doubt that i'm ever going to get a job that's any better than the one i've got right now. my only solution IS to go to school. if i moved in with my parents and saved some money, i could actually, maybe, turn my deplorably unproductive situation around.
but what about the dog? how do i share custody of a dog when i'm living an hour away? am i going to drive an hour each way to pick her up every weekend? is there a point to that? i could come and stay over with carolyn (yeah, and take in the frat house in action - errr, no). maybe i could take her for a longer period of time, less often.
what about my kids? i've busted my ass with them for nine months now, assuming i'm going to continue with them next year. i was on the verge of holding parent conferences to advocate for more hours, based on the plan i have for moving them up. i had intentions for them. am i still going to coach them? no, it's not going to matter to charlotte or kate - but jesus, then i'm still commuting, just in the opposite direction. why would i do that for the club that pays me less? would that be any better than staying here, paying rent, and commuting up there for more money?
what about MY FUCKING LIFE? i moved here seven years ago for a reason. i hated it there. i wanted to get out for so many years that i can't even remember how old i was when i decided. no matter how bad things have gotten before, i have never, ever considered moving back for any length of time.
mind you, when i was hunting for the job that ended up being my current hell, my dad was able to help me out. when my hours were cut back before, my dad helped me out. err, why do i owe him so much money? because my dad has helped me out, with both of us always expecting that things would improve.
my dad can't help me out anymore. the business, which wasn't doing great to begin with, is closed now. there is no safety net for me if my hours keep getting cut and i can't find another job. there is no one to lend me a hundred dollars when i can't afford my medication. i damn well better find a way to support myself, and if that means i suffer for a year to earn money to go to school and get a real job in order to do it, then i guess i have to do it.
but what am i going to DO up there? jesus christ, it's like being trapped in soccermom hell. i'll be driving 'home' to toronto all the time just to entertain myself. (i'll probably spend more time doing things i used to enjoy doing - like walking around downtown - than i do now - oh, the irony!)
and what if i get STUCK there? this is my all-pervading fear. i'll go there for a year (it has to be a year, because i'll be committing to a year of coaching), and then oh!, i just haven't had time to look for a place in toronto, i guess i'll just stay here a little longer; well, maybe i should just stay a bit longer and save a little more money; gee, i've got such a sweet job here and what am i going to do when i go back to toronto with all the money i've saved, where am i going to work, how am i going to go to school and support myself at the same time ... and i'll never get out of the fucking place.
but i can't keep doing what i'm doing. i'm barely supporting myself. my job is a pain in the ass, i hate it, and my hours are being cut. i can't seem to get a job anywhere else - i'm not perky or cute enough for retail, i am not good at or interested in selling shit, i can't work in an office because i don't have a fucking four-year university degree, i have no notable skills. I CAN'T WAIT THIS OUT FOREVER. my fairy godmother is either dead, senile, or really, really angry at me. no miracles or favours are coming my way. i need to put a stop to this endless drone of scraping by, and give myself a chance, or i will turn thirty in a few years with nothing better to my claim than when i turned twenty.
but i don't want to admit i failed. i don't want to admit that i made mistakes, i should have used my osap for something useful (acting was not it) and not fucked it up, i should have saved more money from all those coaching paycheques before i moved out so i could have survived for the time it took me to get my degree. i should have been prettier, friendlier, more likeable, and i could have gotten some cutesy job that i wasn't qualified for and learned while i was doing it. i should have been smarter and more mature and not run away without thinking, telling myself, daddy will help me, i'll find a way to make it work, eventually i'll straighten it out. i should have called a stop to this crap a long time ago, left my so-called best friend and my dog and moved back to my dad's when i was twenty-three, not twenty-seven, and straightened my ass out. i don't want to admit that i was stupid and stubborn and no fucking better than the twentysomething fuckups on daytime talk shows. i don't want to admit that i couldn't find a way to survive, while carolyn is living with her boyfriend and partying every night with all her (his) friends and working comfortably for a ridiculous amount of money, full time, with benefits, just because she can be phony and cheerful and polite to people who are assholes and deserve to be smacked. not that i want the boyfriend, and not that i want to live in the frat house, and not that i would want to have her job because she works with RICH assholes, not just assholes. but i would certainly like to get some action once in a while, and have a bit of a social life, and be able to support myself.
no, i have nothing of that sort to worry about leaving behind if i fuck off to the dull white north for a year. no boyfriend, no friends, no job that i love (kids at the gym notwithstanding). i have no more here than i did there, with carolyn gone from my life for all intents and purposes, save for kerry and some acquaintances at work. the old gaggle of degenerates - christian, cassy, callie, val, jacob, marcus, deanna - rarely meet up or make contact. i could keep in touch with them just as easily and see them just as often living in antarctica, because the majority of communication between us is done sporadically through email, voice mail, and instant messengers. the same can be said for kerry. i could easily call her once a week, visit her another day, and there would be no difference in our routine. at least i'm not leaving anything worthwhile behind.
but i still don't want to admit that i fucking failed, that i need to start over, that i need to backtrack and get my shit together, that i can't straighten myself out with the normal everyday pressures of paying rent and looking after my own bills. i should be able to just toughen up and get by.
except i can't. i'm actually unable to. there is nowhere for me to go in the state that i'm in. it doesn't. fucking. work.
and then, after an hour of this shit, back and forth, with the cat staring at me and listening intently through half-closed eyes, i realized why i had said it to kate in the first place.
my dad is sick.
my mother is going to have to take care of him. my mother is not in the best emotional, mental or physical condition to start with. my mother is a fucking alcoholic, if i may be brutally honest. has been since i was a kid. my dad used to be, too. he still drinks a little, a couple of times a week, but not to excess. my mom, though, has never stopped. she is an alcholic because she is unfucking happy, and she has never been able to overcome that. she drinks to shut up her problems. well, her problems just quadrupled and then some. there is an actual honest to god crisis now. not 'your sister is going to drive your niece crazy' (not that i make light of that one), but 'your dad has cancer'.
my mom hates driving on the highway, and goes into a state of panic. put her in toronto, and this gets worse by a hundred. she is going to be responsible for getting my dad back and forth to treatment. i think we can all agree that it would be best to take this off her hands, if it all possible. one thing i can fucking do is drive.
my mom is going to be a big, weepy, anxious wreck until the day this is over. she is going to be rattling around in the house alone with my sick dad (who has always had to pacify/entertain/reason with her). she has no friends, they don't speak to any of their family members. my mom is going to need to be looked after. who the hell is going to do that? my sister? HAHAHAHAHA. ummm, yeah. she might be ten minutes down the road as opposed to my seventy, but she's not much help or comfort even when she's trying - and she will only try when it doesn't inconvenience her. my mother would kill her.
i'm going to have to be there all the time anyway. what, i'm going to sit at home in toronto and read a book while my dad's having radiation therapy? yeah, no. who's going to distract my DAD from my MOM? jesus!
i don't want to be around to see my dad puking and losing his hair, quite frankly, but i can't blithely skip through the whole thing without getting involved, either. and if god fucking forbid something happens to him, do i want to be sitting here carrying on my pathetically unexciting and barely adequate life, visiting him once a week until - oops - suddenly something goes wrong? i don't KNOW how seriously i have to take that prospect, i can't get an actual fact-based straight answer from anyone, and maybe that's because there isn't one yet, i can't even say that for sure. but if my dad's life is actually in jeopardy, maybe i ought to be around???
maybe it's just a nudge at the right time - here, be a good girl and go help your mom out while your dad's sick, you can save up some money and start over while you're at it. maybe it's god's way of saying HAHAHAHAHA FUCK YOU YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO GET ANYWHERE, YOU'RE GOING TO GET STUCK THERE FOREVER, HOW DARE YOU HAVE TRIED TO LEAVE THAT SHITHOLE AND YOUR CRAZY FAMILY AND BE YOUR OWN PERSON WITH YOUR OWN LIFE?! maybe i'm just running home to mommy and daddy like a great big wuss who can't take care of herself and using my dad as an excuse. i don't know.
i need to make up my mind without much time to think about it, though. kate needs to know by next week. if i were to move in august, i would need to give my roommate notice by june first (even if it were to be september, i'd like to give her as much notice as i can). i need to decide what to do with my girls - is everyone on board to move up? is charlotte going to give it her okay? is it worth it to consider doing the two-club hokey-pokey again? do i just say i'll be back in a year, and i hope you're still here then and please don't let one of the other coaches teach you bad habits and do i still get you all back? i need to talk to my mom, and my dad, preferably separately before together. if i'm going to consider trying to get a transfer to video rental hell up in the homeland, to pull in some extra money until i know how much coaching i'll be doing and until i get something else lined up (hardy har har har - as if i'll find a job up there if i can't find one here), i will need to ask awfully soon, because i don't think an out-of-region (never mind distract) transfer is an easy thing to arrange. i don't even know if they're obligated to do it, but i can bloody well lean on them to try.
i can't believe i'm even considering this. i wish i could just find some other solution. i wish gas wasn't so expensive so i could just commute to the gym there to work without having to put in two hours just to make up the gas cost, and use that great big fat paycheque to save money for school instead, and visit my dad whenever i needed to. i wish there was just less distance between here and there. i almost wish i was content to go back there with my head hung and my tail between my legs and not care if i ever come back home. but i'm not.