Memorial Day
I've never been a big fan of Memorial Day.
It marks the start of summer, which was always a difficult time for me as a kid. I didn't like school as much as I hated not being in school. I need to keep my mind very busy. If it isn't busy, it starts to go to strange places to keep itself occupied. Most of these places are unpleasant. I start worrying about irrational things.
When I was old enough to drive and get a job during the summers, it really helped the overactive mind thing. I was either working, sleeping, or out doing other things. But I still felt a sting of depression around Memorial Day, probably residual from when I was younger.
When I was in college, Memorial Day weekend always meant the start of a new job the next few days. One summer I worked at a daycare. One summer I worked as an intern in DC. The next I worked at OU doing housing studies all over the state. I wasn't necessarily dreading the jobs, but starting a new job is typically one of life's more stressful events, so I spent most of these Memorial Day weekends just trying to deal with my nervousness.
My first Memorial Day out of college was a bit depressing. I had only been in Tulsa a few weeks and the only people I knew were from work. I stayed at my apartment alone all weekend, except for going to try out All Souls Unitarian. There wasn't much going on there that weekend to get involved with. Also, that was the weekend of the I-40 bridge collapse, which killed about a dozen people, mostly from drowning. I have always thought that drowning would have to be the worst way to die so I kept replaying in my mind what those people must have gone through. And like I said, I have an overactive mind that gets worse when I'm alone and don't have much to do.
Since then, things have been better. The most stressful thing over the last 3 years was doing tech support for our international offices, who do not celebrate Memorial Day. So on Tuesday, we could always expect to have to do 2 days worth of work. So all in all, not too bad.
Last year, my dad came up to visit us from Oklahoma City. He read to Emerson and we ate hamburgers and hot dogs. It was a pretty decent day, except for me having a 102 fever and being lousy company. I know tomorrow will be tough, since I'm (obviously) big on remembering anniversaries of things and remembering what we were doing a year ago today, etc. I'll probably spend a fair amount of time thinking about how Dad isn't around to come see us this year.
And this year, we are struggling with Cricket. I've talked about Cricket before - she's the dog my family got when I was 14, and my dad has kept her since I left home. Rod and I took her in when Dad went into the hospital. She has a nasty skin infection that has not yet responded to antibiotics, and this is the 2nd or 3rd skin infection she's had in the past year. She doesn't seem too happy with her life anymore - no animation in her eyes. She likes to be pet, but I think it's only because it relieves her itching momentarily. She yelped and cried during her bath yesterday. She barks often, but I'm not sure if it's out of pain or just because she wants to get our attention. I am dreading taking her to the vet on Tuesday. I'm just going to write down everything to be sure I don't forget it, weighing my concerns about her pain with my fear of putting her down prematurely. She is a lot to deal with, and I worry that part of me just wants the convenience of not having to mess with her anymore. It's sad that I have to wonder if I'm really that bad of a person. I'll just take my cues from the vet to see if there's any financially feasible way to improve the quality of her life, and if not, do what we need to do to end her pain.
It marks the start of summer, which was always a difficult time for me as a kid. I didn't like school as much as I hated not being in school. I need to keep my mind very busy. If it isn't busy, it starts to go to strange places to keep itself occupied. Most of these places are unpleasant. I start worrying about irrational things.
When I was old enough to drive and get a job during the summers, it really helped the overactive mind thing. I was either working, sleeping, or out doing other things. But I still felt a sting of depression around Memorial Day, probably residual from when I was younger.
When I was in college, Memorial Day weekend always meant the start of a new job the next few days. One summer I worked at a daycare. One summer I worked as an intern in DC. The next I worked at OU doing housing studies all over the state. I wasn't necessarily dreading the jobs, but starting a new job is typically one of life's more stressful events, so I spent most of these Memorial Day weekends just trying to deal with my nervousness.
My first Memorial Day out of college was a bit depressing. I had only been in Tulsa a few weeks and the only people I knew were from work. I stayed at my apartment alone all weekend, except for going to try out All Souls Unitarian. There wasn't much going on there that weekend to get involved with. Also, that was the weekend of the I-40 bridge collapse, which killed about a dozen people, mostly from drowning. I have always thought that drowning would have to be the worst way to die so I kept replaying in my mind what those people must have gone through. And like I said, I have an overactive mind that gets worse when I'm alone and don't have much to do.
Since then, things have been better. The most stressful thing over the last 3 years was doing tech support for our international offices, who do not celebrate Memorial Day. So on Tuesday, we could always expect to have to do 2 days worth of work. So all in all, not too bad.
Last year, my dad came up to visit us from Oklahoma City. He read to Emerson and we ate hamburgers and hot dogs. It was a pretty decent day, except for me having a 102 fever and being lousy company. I know tomorrow will be tough, since I'm (obviously) big on remembering anniversaries of things and remembering what we were doing a year ago today, etc. I'll probably spend a fair amount of time thinking about how Dad isn't around to come see us this year.
And this year, we are struggling with Cricket. I've talked about Cricket before - she's the dog my family got when I was 14, and my dad has kept her since I left home. Rod and I took her in when Dad went into the hospital. She has a nasty skin infection that has not yet responded to antibiotics, and this is the 2nd or 3rd skin infection she's had in the past year. She doesn't seem too happy with her life anymore - no animation in her eyes. She likes to be pet, but I think it's only because it relieves her itching momentarily. She yelped and cried during her bath yesterday. She barks often, but I'm not sure if it's out of pain or just because she wants to get our attention. I am dreading taking her to the vet on Tuesday. I'm just going to write down everything to be sure I don't forget it, weighing my concerns about her pain with my fear of putting her down prematurely. She is a lot to deal with, and I worry that part of me just wants the convenience of not having to mess with her anymore. It's sad that I have to wonder if I'm really that bad of a person. I'll just take my cues from the vet to see if there's any financially feasible way to improve the quality of her life, and if not, do what we need to do to end her pain.
posted by Amanda Shankle-Knowlton | 7:15 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home