Rude People and Below-the-Belt-Commentary

"Do you ever feel like nothing's going right?
And do you ever feel like you've got nowhere to go,
But you tell yourself you can't quite let go,
I really hope that there's something more,
'Cause I feel I don't have much to show,
Worth anything in my life, worth anything in my life...
But there is hope in the pain,
Hope in my tears,
And even my shame,
And I have hope in my doubts,
And hope in my faults,
Even in my fear."
-from Ryan Calhoun's "Hope"

So the song is a bit dramatic, but I searched for a particular quote I had in mind and couldn't find it and I had to give up on that for the time being.

Just wanted to express my frustration with certain 'friends' and classmates who continue to feel entitled to say just about whatever they want. Obviously I'm more tired than usual and it's been a very, very rough two-ish weeks for me, and most of them at least kind of know that it's been difficult. And yet, one of them, who has honestly been the closest to me for a lot of the time I've been in grad school and who is the most like me of anyone, continues to feel entitled to continue to make comments about me being single and being the only one not married, etc. It's not the same as announcing that you're married or talking to someone about that - marriage is much more of a choice than being single, at least for people living in a small town with a horrific dating track record/history with some really scary people in the rearview mirror. But regardless of my marital status and how okay I am with it (because I really am okay with it, it was NEVER my intention to get married at 22 and I do believe that individuals should date more than one person over the course of a lifetime), it's just not okay to point this out and repeatedly announce that someone is the only person not married and time is ticking.

Who are you? My mother? How do you think you have any right to say this to me? When I informed you that it was not appropriate or appreciated, was that not enough of a hint? Do you need to make yourself feel better about your decision to get married very early (because that is somewhat unusual in academia, no matter how small a town in the Deep South we live in)?

It's just really frustrating because it's so hurtful and such crappy timing... and I just needed to blog about it, to share this experience with people that potentially get it. Or just to write it and remind myself that it is ridiculous and outrageous and most definitely, not okay.

Lessons from the Book of Job

"Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky." -Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

Sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes you have to just resist the urge to look up at the skies and tell God to take His best shot, strike you with lightning or just destroy you (a la Jena Malone in "Saved!" or any number of other memorable movie moments). I've felt close to that point the past few days.

I rushed home to Atlanta late last night because my dog from elementary school through high school and who my dad claimed was his when I left for college was very, very sick and losing gross motor control. The vets did a biopsy and there's a tumor occupying most of her snout, but they aren't sure if it's a very aggressive tumor that's pressing on her brain or has invaded it. If it has invaded her brain, she's terminal. If not, it's treatable. For now, she is leaking blood everywhere and struggling to breathe. She's lost a lot of weight, can barely sleep because she has to struggle to breathe, and the vets swear it's more discomfort than pain. I'm coaxing her to eat and drink and constantly wondering how we're going to make it until we get biopsy results on Tuesday. This is when we learn her fate, assuming she doesn't get drastically worse and demonstrate on her own that her brain is infected rather than simply affected.

It's truly heartbreaking and horrific. Worse than when my mom had her lung biopsy and they couldn't quite sew her up all the way (that's how it works with lungs -- too many alveoli and little tubes and vessels that don't get sewn up) and she would just start gushing blood from about the bottom of her rib cage. This is worse because Wilma, my/my family's dog, looks so pitiful and helpless and she herself is getting covered in blood, but doesn't want us to wash her. Sometimes she comes over and looks up at me and I know she wants something, but I can't figure it out. We go through the typical things and ultimately I think she wants someone to make it hurt less, but I can't.

I honestly think that watching another living being suffer like this might be the hardest thing to do. And as if this wasn't awful enough, it's my father's first Father's Day without his own father so I'm sure that my grandfather was thinking about his father this weekend and seeing this awful suffering can't help, but bring all of it to mind. And my dad is so close to Wilma. When my dad has been laying around with his radiation treatment, Wilma has napped with him and been there for him and just simply understood and sympathized and try to help in a way that no human ever can. She selflessly loved him and now she has to suffer like this and it breaks my heart. There's no way that she's just uncomfortable, you can't look at this dog and not see that now.

I just can't believe that this is happening right now. I just don't know how much more my family, my dad in particular, can take. And reading up on Job and struggling to make meaning out of this or just find some small comfort... well, it's just not happening. I don't know if I'll ever grow to accept this particular story that's always bothered me anyways, but I certainly can't at this point in time...

Hopefully you all are looking at a much better approaching weekend...

(And a slight update: Had to do something creative or mind-numbing because of a freakin' RIDICULOUSLY terrible email from the thesis adviser and I just can't think about it because I'm so angry and I just can't believe how shitty she is sometimes... like now. So here's a slideshow of William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job. Images from Wikipedia.)