It’s that time of the year again. I will be visiting this post several times over the course of the week. My birthday was on a Sunday this year, but I also had to work which sucked. I honestly didn’t want to write but moving forward I’m going to find pockets of un-ideal time to write in because I think it’s important. My stance on writing hasn’t changed at all. Even though I haven’t published anything since last year, I’ve had many motivated moments prompted lengthy diatribes. As I type right now, I’m at work and I shouldn’t be doing this at all, but this is what I mean by un-ideal. I’m writing this post birthday this year. I want to give myself the opportunity to really look back at different aspect of my last year and reflect on it.

When you’re living in the moment (as I feel I am) it’s hard to look back and remember all of the things I’ve done. I’m going to look back on the things I wrote and even some pictures I took. Let me start with some of the biggest things that I can’t forget even if I tried. Dad being in the hospital, friend trip to Canada, going to the gym. Let’s start in the order since some of these things continue to occupy my mind. If fact I’ll actually stop right here and reflect on those things in particular since it took me no time to come up with them.

I’m back some half hour later and let me focus on my dad for a bit. 2018 has been the year of hospital visits and unqualified nursing(on my part). As early as I could tell in the year my dad as been in and out of the hospital for different procedures. To be a little more specific and a bit graphic, he has had his gallbladder removed, pacemaker installed, and toe amputated. All of this just recently being wrapped up. I was there for all of it and I’m still in it. Point blank, he is not doing well. It’s crazy how just the year before he was out and about working on things inside and around the house. Seemingly in the snap of a finger his energy is sapped and he is bound to a bed unable to do anything for himself or for others.

For context, I think it bears saying that my parents are old. I briefly read some of what I wrote for last year’s year in review and I also mentioned it there. At this point, neither of my parents can leave the house. In the past year, my mom was provided a variety of caretakers. It took a while but we finally found someone reliable so she is mostly taken care of(at least while I’m at work). My dad currently has no one but me. In this past year I’ve had to grow a lot. I took over all of the “paying” responsibilities around the house. Some of the things made me feel our right uncomfortable. I’ve already described how their declining health was affecting my overall mood, but this past year it was compounded. I want to share a moment of pain. As part of my dad’s gallbladder procedure there was a protruding tube with a pump installed that allows excess liquid to be removed. To be clear, there is a seemingly random tube that pops out of the side of his abdominal ready for the purpose of removing excess liquid. I’m not a squimish person, but the fact that I had to interact with this several times made me feel pain I haven’t felt and do something uncomfortable thatI’ve never thought I had to do. There were bandages holding the tubing in place and every 2 hours or so the bandages would get wet from all the liquid coming out. So that’s what I did. In addition I was required to keep track of the liquid and squirt it out every time it got full. Perhaps I reacted better at the time.

Looking it back at it now hurts even more. I almost forgot I did all the shit. To center this a bit let me condense how I felt in that time. Honestly, I was used to not doing much as far as personal responsibilities. My parents did everything and I just came home to eat, and then left to go to work. I don’t get much from home anyway but even the little things like garbage being thrown away, and picking up milk was handled by them. They handled bills, maintained the house, and made the food. This year some of that changed. My free time didn’t feel mine anymore. When I’m at home, it feels like I’m a butler sometimes. It’s like my parents are the babies that need to tending to. That change threw me off. I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t want to do it. There was immutable things home and I can only choose to leave or deal with it. I didn’t like that now my parents get to do nothing and everything fell on me. With my dad specifically, he has removed everyone else from his family, so the entire time he was outside of the home, I had to bring him there and I was the only one that visited. Keep in mind that he’s been in some kind of facility all year. He’d come back, recover a bit but then something else would happen and then I’d be involved. 2017 was a year I wanted to be a bit more selfish, but I mostly failed. While I did do something to my personal benefit and growth, I think it is overshadowed by what I felt mentally.

It wasn’t all grim though and I think that transitions into my next thing. My trip to Canada was an experience for sure. It’s planning is as much of a story as the trip itself, but needless to say about 9 people were planned to go and only 4 of us ended up going. It’s find though because I found a way to make the most out of it. It was the first time I went on vacation with friends and I had a good time. Honestly, an aspect I enjoyed was seeing my other friends get to know each other better. I won’t say any more for fear they could be reading this and start putting pieces together. Never been to Canada and now I won’t forget it. My other trip was another solo one to Oahu. I picked…

Me in 2020: This is where I stopped writing. That’s all I have. I will not complete this because I’ve lived too much after this to give you a perspective of where my head was at, at the time. I think it will give you an idea though. Enough to understand my next year end review.

Written in in 2018, Uploaded in 2020