What am I supposed to do without you?

This is probably not the most flattering story about myself that I’m about to tell, but I’m going to tell you anyways, and I pray that you won’t hold it against me. I’m just going to confess: I was born in 1985, I am a millennial, and though it pains me, I follow, and enjoy following, lifestyle bloggers. I judge myself. But they speak to me: tell me all about those plants that I can accumulate and take care of instead of children, tell me all about millennial pink as a decorating theme, and inspire me with all of the holiday decorating. Cut out bats and ghosts hung on a string as garland! Pumpkins and mums decorating the front steps! I want it all.

Pottery Barn heard me. Interspersed in all the Instagram posts of bloggers who were getting me into the holiday spirit (fall spirit is like Christmas spirit come early!) were ads from Pottery Barn flaunting their fall harvest decor. I have been simultaneously seduced by lifestyle bloggers and Pottery Barn. Look:

So why do I tell you this? At the checkout counter in Pottery Barn, I confessed my obsession with these recycled glass pumpkins was largely fed by the decorating I saw on the lifestyle blogs, but I wasn’t sure how those bloggers could keep up with the lifestyles they present.

And then this wonderful woman (with awesome glasses and a megawatt smile) told me something that was a little bit life changing: these bloggers buy the items in their posts, take the carefully curated photos, tag the companies, AND THEN RETURN THAT SHIT, OR SWAP ALL THE STUFF WITH THEIR BLOGGER FRIENDS FOR MORE PHOTOS. In the meantime, I’m questioning WTF I’m doing with my life, working really hard at an awesome job in strategy and finance, feeling like a few glass pumpkins at Pottery Barn is an indulgence. But, oh yeah, Instagram isn’t real life; it’s curated to tell a story. A specific lifestyle story to make you want to buy the things they advertise.

Which brings me to this post. On one hand, I promised myself that I would only post about topics that I had already done the work on - via journaling, therapy, living through it. On the other, my goal was to share my (raw) journey of living through my dad’s prognosis and (eventual) death. I don’t want to become an outlet that is curated, and only presenting my best foot forward. I want this to be real. So to start, here’s my version of the pumpkins:

It’s exactly the same, but different. Could probably use some work aesthetically, and from a photographic perspective. But listen, spending money on this and setting them up made me feel REAL GOOD.

So here it is - something else that I’m not done working through, and it’s not going to be “worked through” for a long time.

There were so many things that went through my head in the first few days after that meeting with the doctors when they told us to count my father’s life in terms of months - and a silly one, that has to this day consumed my thinking: who is going to help me sod a 10 x 30 foot patch of dirt on the side of my house.

I can hardly write this post without tearing up.

This spring, Bleecker ate some gravel and had to have surgery. As I handed over my Amex that day in the vet’s office to remove the rocks and save her life, I also swore to clear my backyard of any potential dangers to Bleecker. If I could put her in a bubble, I would. And I did the best I could - I cleared out all the gravel and the small rocks. I had sprinklers laid in the dirt, ready for the sod to be laid. Holding a soft spot for Bleecker (and I suppose, me as well), my dad said he’d help me with the sod - I just needed to measure and then we’d go to the sod farm (there’s only one place to go, that my dad knows) and we’d lay the sod together.

Then my dad got sick. He went into the hospital with a stomach ache, and came out with a colostomy bag, and the diagnosis of metastatic peritoneal cancer that arose from his bowel cancer.

A month later came the prognosis that there was nothing they could do.

And I can’t stop thinking about that sod.

Taylor Swift (I know, I’m the best millennial there ever was) has a new album, and there’s a song she did with the Dixie Chicks (!!!) that has my attention, called “Soon You’ll Get Better”. It’s about her mother’s battle with cancer, and the lyrics that made me feel she was living my life are as follows:

“I know delusion when I see it in the mirror

You like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal

I just pretend it isn’t real

I’ll paint the kitchen neon, I’ll brighten up the sky

I know I’ll never get it, there’s not a day that I wont try

And I’ll say to you

Ooh-ah, soon you’ll get better

'Cause you have to

And I hate to make this all about me

But who am I supposed to talk to?

What am I supposed to do

If there’s no you?

This won’t go back to normal, if it ever was

It’s been years of hoping, and I keep saying it

Because

Cause I have to”

I hate to make this all about me - but who am I going to talk to about laying sod? Who is going to talk to me about the finer points of making green chili - Big Jim hatch chilies and ground cumin? Who is going to teach me how to ride my scooter if he can’t? And not the weaving between cones to pass the riding test, but the real riding, where I have to make judgments about what to do, and who to watch for? Who is going teach me how to decide when I should just say “fuck them!” in any given scenario? Who is going to make me have courage and do what I’m scared to do anyways?

What am I supposed to do if there is no you?

He won’t get better, there’s no more delusion. I don’t know how to face this future. I mean, I know I am resilient, and I can hire someone to do the sod, or my (amazing, wonderful, amazing again) group of family and friends would help, but it will never be the same.

You make the best of a bad deal; it’s the only way I know how to honor my dad.