The worst thing to happen to me so far in 2011, was when my Dad passed away last week from cancer at the age of 69. It’s times like this I really wonder if the universe does give us more than we can handle. I’m glad to have Julian’s love and support right now, or I think I would really be going crazy.

If anyone’s out there listening, please, please let 2012 be a better year.

The last month or so hasn’t been easy, but I’ve been hanging in there. Dad just had his testing this last week to see how well the chemo has been helping, hopefully when we get the results soon it will be good news. My more personal life has taken a tailspin again, but there isn’t much I can do but hope and try to do what I can to undo that matter, even if it seems kinda hopeless sometimes. Yes I know thats kind of vague, but it’s nothing the world needs to know about, not yet at least.

Not up to much today, wanting to get some shopping done, find something resembling food, and hope nothing decides to pull the fart and die routine. If I can detach a certain calico glue kitty from my lap, I may have a chance of getting some of those things accomplished.

Without internet and television, I had to find a new way of spending my time, I visited the library, read my way clean through entire novels in a night or two, caught up on sleep, and lamented over housecleaning. Yes there’s a world beyond the internet, its a lot more boring, I must admit, but it’s there just the same.

I am back to working on writing projects with my friends, and mulling over rewrites of the novel in my head. I’ve also been interviewing for a job in a work at home type thing and had to do three straight days of unpaid training. Now it’s on to a pile of paperwork, background checks and waiting to see if I will be accepted for the position I am looking at, which looks like it will be challenging. Any work right now would be better than nothing.

On a more personal note, I guess it’s that time of year again. Boredom hits, it’s cold, and its dark so early in the evening. It’s so easy to sit here and what if myself away about things. What if something hadn’t happened? What if something had happened differently? I think it’s easy for me especially to fall into that way of thinking, its my nature, and it can be quite a trap for me to pull myself from. Who really does know where I would be? Not being able to change it for all we know could be a blessing. If we were able, how many of the blessings in our life would we lose along with what we thought was such a bad thing? Sometimes our darkest times lead us to the most wonderful places, and people.

It is hard sometimes to tell myself that this dark place I have been in this last two years is only temporary, and there is light at the end. It seems there is always another trial to endure, more tears to cry, another test of my resolve. People keep telling me that God will not give me more than I can handle, but some days have really tested that, and shaken me. Being alone and going through the hardest times, if nothing else teaches you who your friends really are, they are few, and mostly far away. Sometimes they feel imaginary.

Here I sit surrounded by ice and snow…it’s cold, it’s lonely, and sometimes it really sucks “hugging” a computer screen.

Suddenly the line goes dead and its almost a mystery what to do with yourself. What did we do in a time before the internet and computers? Suddenly it seems I am in the middle of a struggle for thinking of other ways to keep myself entertained.

Theres always been reading, but even plowing my way through a novel a day has been leaving me bored mid-evening once I’ve run out of pages. Music is still the same old music I’ve had on my Zune for the last who knows whatever. The same DVDs you’ve watched a thousand times just aren’t nearly is appealing. I want my Youtube!

Free library wi-fi helps, but only goes so far. There’s only so much you can do, the connection is slow, and they have you net-nannied to death there. For now it is working in a pinch for the simple daily things, even if it crawls at a snails pace, and its crowded and noisy here. Forget all illusions you may have of the library being a nice and quiet place to surf the web.

I’m still looking at it possibly being as late as the end of next week before I get the net at the house repaired and up and running. I should not be such a baby about all of this, but I am spoiled now and I want my internet.

About a week before Christmas my dad was diagnosed with cancer in his liver, colon and bone, it is in stage 4 and most likely not curable. The goal at the moment according to the doctor seems to be to buy dad a couple of good years, which is what my dad seems to say that he wants for now.

Seeing dad at Christmas time I could already tell that he was not himself. He’s lost almost 70 pounds since he began getting sick back around October. It was only due to my grandparents and my mother making him go to do the doctor that he even received the diagnosis when he did. Dad is exceedingly stubborn about that sort of thing. Its sad that he was so afraid of what they were going to tell him, that maybe he put things off far too long. If they had more hope of curing this months ago if he’d gone then, I guess we will never know.

Life pretty much seems as if it is in a holding pattern for now. I keep telling myself that I should be doing something, anything. I just can’t seen to find the motivation…

It was nothing but someone’s seemingly happy family Christmas picture, that in itself was not the issue, the issue was with seeing the face of one of the men the picture depicted. This man did some horrible unspeakable things to me and several other little girls when I was a child. His mother, who was in the picture, still to this day does not know. Part of me loves her enough, that I wouldn’t wish her the pain of knowing this, even after all this time. The other half of me did all I could do to keep from calling him out as a pervert on his facebook page.

I know there is nothing to be done as far as I am concerned, too much time has passed to do anything about what happened back then to me. The part that worries me is wondering how many other children may have fallen victim to this happy and smiling child molestor, that as of Christmas day is still walking free…and no one seems to know this but me.

I started off this week being upset over the fact that I’m broke, as in too broke to get the kids presents broke, will be lucky to eat for the rest of the month broke. There’s no tree this year, I don’t even feel like having one honestly. I wish I could say this was the extent of what’s eating me this year, but it isn’t.

Three days ago we got the news that my dad has been diagnosed with liver cancer. We will find out after Wednesday just how advanced the cancer is, and what if anything they can do for him. I’m trying to stay optimistic, but most of the research I’ve done into the kind of cancer he has does not look promising, we will be fortunate if he makes it a few months to a year.

My parents are older, and somehow it seems I should have been prepared for this, but somehow at the same time, it seems as though they will always be there. I’m not ready to give up, I don’t want mom or dad to do it either. As much as I want to fall apart I’m wondering how much more I can cry this year before it never stops.