i need a vacation after my vacation

i realize that i'm terribly inconsistent with this blogging thing. that's why i stopped using xanga after awhile (that, and it just got too damn complicated). but just because i forget to make time to come online and write random poop, doesn't mean my mind isn't constantly rolling out thoughts. but with tv being so good these days, who has time to just write? but now that i've finished reading the 4th twilight book and my dad is watching tv, guess i could spare a few for my 3 followers.

i'm indecided on where to start. i mean, sobriety is always there, lingering around everything that i do. every time someone asks if i want something to drink, even if they're referring to a non-alcoholic bev, my first thought is booze. i want to drink. but i say no. i was at this awesome party recently and the last time i hung out with all those people i drank till i ran into a wall and passed out. i wanted to drink with them. but i didn't. and i just kinda hung out instead and was a little less social than i could have been. it's hard. at least one person noticed and told me he was proud of me. that felt pretty good. in fact, most of the time it does feel nice when people comment on how well i'm doing. but sometimes it means nothing and i just want to drown my self-pity in a bottle of something delicious like asti. sobriety sucks.

so i finally got my chance to visit my gramparents in america. even though i took the time off and bought the plane ticket and was there, i feel kinda crappy in retrospect because i think i could have tried to spend more time with them, but i also wanted to have fun on my trip so i didn't. although, one day that i meant to be there for my gramps, i was completely thwarted by circumstance so i had to go babysit a newborn instead. great baby, so easy, lots of poop. so the first time i got to see my gramps, i went to their house with one of my cousins. she's been helping them clean out the house they have lived in since they moved to america. no joke, this house has more crap than the dump. she goes there for a few hours a week and just cleans out stuff. on that day i helped sort through boxes of old magazines and calendars, shoes, clothes, and documents. you have to flip through all the crap just to make sure there are no hidden treasures. and my gramma just comes around once in awhile to tell us NO! keep those! but the problem is that if she could have it her way, she'd keep everything! i found a calendar from 1994. there were suits from when my uncle was a small child. my grampa has more clothes than i do. he was a very dapper dresser in his day though, so i think that's actually pretty cool. let's backtrack. when i got to the house, after greeting my gramma, i went to say hi to my grampa. usually when he sees me he is very surprised and delighted because even though my gramma always knows when i'm coming to town, he never does. but it's cool because he lights up like a kid at christmas. i have always known that i'm one of his favorites. i know that people aren't supposed to have favorite anythings, but he couldn't help himself. i used to live there and he was my babysitter. he hung out with me when everyone else had to work. kinda odd now that i think about it because - why didn't he work? lol. but he'd take me with him to do his random shit, see his random people, and hang out while he played mah jong with other old people. he used to make fun of me in the car, where i rode in the front seat without a car seat because back then no one knew that it wasn't safe. i remember he had a blue town car and there was a doggy thing that had a bobble head that would sway as he drove. he used to make me sandwiches and cut them into 4 strips so that they would easily go into my little mouth. back then, my grampa was my best friend. i was only 3, what did i know? so this time i walked in and he was just sitting there, in his chair, eating some food, watching tv. and he was surprised, but not in his usualy delighted way. even though when he went home a month ago, they said he was going to be alright and he was doing his exercises and ready to go home, in that month he deteriorated to a zombie. ok, maybe not that bad, but it wasn't good. he couldn't remember my name. he knew that i was my mother's daughter, but he couldn't remember my name. and then it didn't seem to bug him that he couldn't remember. he just wanted to get back to eating and watching tv. and even when i went to sit with him after we did our cleaning for a couple hours, he still didn't seem to know or care that i was there. he looked up when i started channel surfing his tv, but then he just seemed resigned to watching whatever was on because it's not like he understood any of it anyway.

that made me really sad. i know it's not about me. and i know that i should not be sitting here feeling sorry about it because i'm not there. i haven't been there since the first day that he fell. i could have gone down there sooner but i couldn't handle visiting him in a hospital so soon after my evil gramma died in one. i waited until he was back at home. that was completely selfish. if i had gone sooner, he might have even known who i was. i waited till he became this person to go see him.

he went back into the hospital a few days after that. besides his state of being, which was making my aunts and uncles consider finding him a home to live in because it was getting too difficult for my gramma to take care of him and he was refusing to do anything, he also developed some sores from sitting and not exercising. and something got opened and infected so he needed a surgical procedure to remove the abcess. did i spell that right? i went to see him as soon as i could. as i said, i was thwarted from going the day he went in because i had to watch a newborn -my uncle had to go see a dr himself and my aunt had to bring in one of their doggies to be put to sleep. it wasn't a good day. well, maybe it kinda was because i got to spend time with my new little cousin and she won't remember this time, but i will. so i went to see him in the hospital before i left. his dr had recommended a home for him to move to because he makes rounds there regularly. somehow, it's the same home that my great gramma was living at before she died. the same home where my sister put the car in neutral and it rolled and she was lucky no one got hurt including the car. the same home where i saw my mom cry for the first time because there was a time in her life when her gramma was her best friend. but i'm getting ahead of myself. i went to see my grampa and i didn't know what to expect because he had been really tired the day before and wouldn't wake up even when ppl went to see him. he'd just gotten out of his procedure that morning and i just didn't know how much energy he would have or what meds he was on. but it was not at all bad. he woke up when i went in and he knew who i was. my aunt asked him what my name was and he looked at her like she was stupid and said my name like it was the most obvious answer in the world. i didn't know how badly i was feeling about him forgetting me until i realized how great it felt when i remembered. and i think he was about as lit as one can be while on meds and post-surgery. and even though he fell asleep after that and i couldn't even wake him up to eat, i know that he opened his eyes when i kissed him goodbye and i know that he knew who i was. i went to see my gramma after that and i checked out the home he'd be moving into. as i walked up the front steps i knew that was somewhere i had been before, even if it was over 25 years ago. my gramma seems to be doing well, i'm really not worried about her. but i hope with all of my heart that i will see my grampa again. since i've been home, i know they had him moved into the home. i've heard that he doesn't really like it there and that he's having a harder time remembering people. i wish i could have stayed longer. i wish i could go back. i wish a lot of things. i know that he is a stubborn old man and that he can be mean. but i hope that he's comfortable.

the sad thing is that as we grow older, so do all the older people around us. i'm not really prepared for any more losses. and while i don't want to talk about my gramps like this is the end, because i don't think that it is, it's like i have been preparing myself for it. i was caught so off-guard when my evil gramma died; maybe i'm just trying to be mentally ready for when it happens again. is that morbid? awful? i don't even know. but i also don't think that i'll ever really be ready for it. guess i can only hope that every time i go back he'll still be there, hopefully lighting up when he sees me.