Monday, 2:01 PM

As predicted, it's hotter than hell out there
today--heat index of 105 or something.

Started the morning at the high school registering
Wes for his senior year. I have a difficult time
thinking my baby will graduate next May.
Though I am terribly excited for him as he starts
this final year and starts the journey away from home,
away from adolescence and into adulthood, I am
also sad. For all the years that have flown by too
quickly, and even as present as I was in his life,
and still am, I have also been away far more often
than I had intended to be. Between school, work,
and some travels without my family, I have missed
out on many days that I can never have again.

Msot of them just ordinary days.

Today I am as tired as yesterday. Maybe the heat
is getting to me. It would help to sleep well
for a night, but that doesn't happen much. Weird
dreams last night. Thankfully, I've forgotten
them today.

I feel like I've been drugged (of course, I am drugged,
but my Xanax has never made me feel drugged--it's just
kept me level). I tried to read some of Food & Wine
magazine, but I couldn't concentrate. The letters
all looked like they were swirling together, so I gave
up on the reading for now.

Had lunch at El Bracero with Wes and Ashley. Ashley
is the only former coworker who stays in touch. I love
her dearly and always have a great time with her, but
she's busy with work and a new boyfriend and with just
enjoying her life. She just got back from Gulf Shores
and then a two day trip to Cincy to see Jimmy Buffet.
She has to be one of the wittiest people I know. It's very
hard to feel down around Ashley, and I am grateful
the she wants to be with mopey me.

Lauren seems to care a great deal about her new guy--John.
I am glad she was able to end the relationship with Ville.
Though I cared about him and enjoyed his company, they were
not very good for one another. So after 4+ years, they went
their separate ways. The good thing is that they remain
on speaking terms and that she still performs with The Mattoid.

Christopher, Jess, & Isaac will leave for their vacation this Friday
(his 30th birthday). My first born is turning 30. Now that makes
me feel old (though I did start out at a young age--19, almost 20
when I had him).

For the most part,my mom's ok. Sometimes when I am lying in
bed, her face just comes to mind, and I can more clearly see
the pain of missing my father in the recollection than I can
when I am actually looking at her. It makes me cry. We are
not close, we have never been, and we will most likely never
be, but she's my mom and she's lonely and terribly sad and she
misses my father so much. It hurts me to see her hurt.

Yesterday morning cried for over an hour, and off and on for
most of the day. For all the losses over the last 2 years,
for all of the regets, for all of the ways I let myself and others
down, for the sense of hopelessness I feel.

Today, I have no more tears. I am too tired to cry. Too tired
to read. Too tired to do things around the house. Too tired
to care.

So, I think I'll go lie down and look at the ceiling for a little while.

Sometimes it's the best therapy for me. I can just lie there
and look at the blank ceiling and go through so many scenarios
in my head, so many conversations with people I have lost
to death or to just a mutual parting of the ways, so many issues
I am dealing with daily, so many ways to try to see beyond
the pain of the past or to just allow myself to understand
that it's not the pain that is the bad thing, it's the not knowing
what to do about it and where to go from here.