Wednesday, December 12, 2012

BAHUMBUG!

So, I haven't told anyone this, but my dad lost his job two weeks ago. No this wasn't the other job I talked about in my last entry, he lost that one too a while back. This job was about an hour away from me. He was doing fantastic, and apparently the reason for him getting fired from this job was because the board wants to do a psych evaluation on him to see if he is ok to practice medicine. He was doing so fucking good guys! He had given me control of his money, which surprisingly is not a hassle at all for me, he had been sober for about the 7 months he had been working there, and he even had a nice place on a lake. He looked healthy, and was coming to see me about every other weekend which I loved because it is good to see him doing great. He relapsed the day he got fired. A friend of ours and me have been helping him recover, and lets just say that is a hell of a thing to watch. Merry Christmas to me right?

So he calls me last week and tells me that he got a job offer for 4 months in Afghanistan, and he thinks he is going to take it. I was like "WHAT?! Dad, I don't think that is a good idea. I think you need to get everything squared away here, that way you can practice medicine with no bumps in the road." He was silent for a minute and just said "It's $10,000 a month babe." Who the fuck cares? When did money become the most important thing in the world? How about getting yourself right so you can make something of yourself here? I wish I would have said that to him, but what am I supposed to do? Tell a grown man how to live his life? Act like a parent towards my own father?

He came to visit me that same day. I was making dinner with him and I stopped stirring the home made guacamole I was making, threw the spoon in the sink and said. "Dad, you don't need to go to Afghanistan! You haven't dealt with your PTSD, you're running away from your problems that you need to handle here, and I don't think it's a good idea!" He looked at me and he saw I was on the verge of tears. He simply said "Ok, I don't really want to go anyways. I guess money isn't everything, and you're right, I need to put on my big boy pants and deal with my problems here." Yeah, that's what he told me, but he's still telling people there is a possibility of him going.

So needless to say. I am an emotional wreck. My family is so spread apart, and I won't get to see my brother, mom, or my dad on Christmas. The other day my husband and I put up Christmas decorations in our house. When we were done we turned on the Christmas tree lights, and our little Christmas village lights and turned off the house lights. We sat there looking at them listening to Christmas music, and I just started crying. My husband looked over at me and asked what was wrong. I just looked at him and said "Christmas just isn't the same anymore. I don't get to see any of my family, and it hurts." I get to go and put a happy smile on my face for my husband's family (who I love) but still. My brother and dad are going to be in freaking Texas, or there's that slight possibility that dad will be in Afghanistan, I'll see my mom before Christmas, but not on the day of.  I won't wake my brother up out of bed at 3 am so we can get a head start on what is in our stocking. I won't wake up 5 hours later to the smell of coffee cake and the sound of Christmas music going while my mom sings along, I won't go out to my granddaddy's farm and play football with my cousins. I won't do any of the things that were important to me, and on top of that, I get to worry about my dad the entire time.  So I've decided to be scrooge this Christmas. BA HUM BUG everybody! Anyone want to join?