Still here, still trying

So… I haven’t blogged in a while. A very long while, as it turns out. I blame depression, anxiety, health issues (both mine and family members), the world being on fire, and other problems/issues that have been sucking up my energy and generally making life very, very difficult.

Most of this I just can’t talk about. At least, not right now. The work stuff and one of the personal situations I doubt I’ll ever talk about online — work because it’s not appropriate, and personal because that situation isn’t something I want to talk about publicly. (Friends can DM me on Twitter or FB if they want more details.)

The one thing I will say is that one of my aunts is dying of cancer and will probably be gone by the end of the month. Her condition has deteriorated rapidly since they did a procedure to put radiation directly into her liver. And we found out last week that the cancer didn’t originate in the liver but in the pancreas. (That’s basically a death sentence.) So the procedure only weakened her and made her condition worse. I should add that this is the aunt who took us in for weeks after Hurricane Katrina — so there are lots of complicated memories and emotions tied up with thoughts of her. It still feels kind of unreal, probably since we haven’t seen her since Christmas. Dad went to see her a few weeks ago, but only he and his youngest sister went; my cousin felt like her mom wasn’t up to seeing many people, and she could only manage a very short visit (less than an hour). I’ve accepted that I won’t see her again, and I think I’m okay with that. I don’t know that I want to see her in her current condition, and I know we wouldn’t be able to have any conversation that would mean anything. I wish our last visit had gone better — I was too depressed to interact with her in any meaningful way — but she was a saint, so hopefully she understands.

I thought 2017 would be better than 2016. Clearly, I thought wrong.