Hopes and dreams

It’s been a rough couple of weeks with my Dad, it would take far too long to write all the drama thats happened with him, but something has gone on every single day for 10+ days solid. My sister Keeley is exhausted and as Dad is now refusing all help, we have reached the point where there is nothing more we can do. But he is very unwell physically and mentally and frail. I am most distressed by this as it feels like a replay of what happened with my Mum. She refused all help and declined and then died alone, and it appears that is what Dad is doing too. I don’t think I can go through all that again though. Keeley has said we just have to let him get on with it as he says he doesn’t need our help and go and live our lives! Easier said than done though right? But all this has made me think, what does it mean for me to go and live my life? It’s quite a bit of a deep question really and one that could be answered in a variety of ways. Firstly it’s impossible to just forget about Dad and not worry about him, so firstly thats not gonna happen anyway. What I have realised however is since John died I have deliberately and consciously held everything very lightly, so that my hopes are never dashed. Whenever I feel I am getting too invested in anything or wishing or wanting something to really happen I immediately pull myself back and make myself hold it lightly. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing cause as I have said before I am an ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ kind of girl, so once I’m in I’m all in. What I haven’t articulated till this evening thinking things over is how exhausting it is to hold myself back from really wanting anything or really desiring anything. Apart from finishing my degree I don’t actually have ANY dreams for the future. How sad is that? Gosh, I could almost cry. It makes me wonder how fragile I might still be after losing John and that annoys me, cause I don’t want to be fragile. It’s a tiring thought for me. On one hand I am like, “Nothing can hurt worse than losing John, so bring it on! I have a deep resilience!” and then on the other hand I can’t even let myself hope for anything good to happen in case it doesn’t and it makes me sad. It’s a little crazy as I cannot protect myself from getting hurt, thats impossible and the nature of life is that we will be hurt. I’ve recently found myself wanting to have hopes, dreams, desires and being invested in things. And I’ve found myself wanting to throw caution to the wind and risk being hurt. I’m also aware that my life does feel quite open at the moment, like I could take it in whatever direction I want to. Not sure how based in reality that is though. I make myself laugh when I do let myself half wonder about the future cause I switch between ‘Life is short and we have to do what we have to do while we can’ and in the same breath, ‘Woooaaahhh this is the whole of the rest of my life we are talking about!’ Why am I so complicated? Why is life so complicated? Where’s God in all this? Good question. Sadly I have no idea and weirdly I’m not too worried about that. I think it is just the season I am in. Everything feels in the air (not just with me but everyone due to covid!) I just wish somethings would start to land, and I would start to have some hopes and make some decisions. Still, chin up Vickster, onward!