update-y-ness

Haven't posted here in a long while. Ended the semester on a good note, overall GPA of 3.7...would have been higher if I hadn't procrastinated. My dad's voice in my head still tells me "That B should have been an A" and since in this case it WASN'T math, I have to agree. It should have been an A. Kicking myself on that one.
I'm not attending this semester. Didn't have the money. Spent months trying for a job and didn't get one until late December. So, that makes me sad. And a bit morose. And...feeling like I fucked things up and that I put yet another delay on my dreams when I'm not getting any younger.
Most of the time my age is just part of who I am. It's not a negative...until it comes to this. Because I'm so much older than most of my classmates, hell, I was older than two of my teachers last semester (though one of them, not by much). I'm so much older, which means that I'm going to have less time on my chosen path and it just makes me anxious. So anxious. Because I don't know if I'll have the money to pay for classes over the summer, and if that's the case it'll be a good 8 months before I get back in school. Which is a big chunk of the year.
I started training for the job I got. It's work from home, which is nice. But the schedule is not the most conducive to school. And I'm feeling so hopeless I can't even write my silly drabbles lately. I don't know how much is the job itself, how much is the school situation, and how much is just crazysauce. But...I just feel hopeless...and adrift. I fear that I will become comfortable in the rut of working a job like this (customer service for a big ol' company) and give up my dreams. I fear I'll let my fear of living like I did with my ex (one step away from eviction, surviving on ramen and peanut butter) make me make a bad decision. But I can give no less than my best, because that's how I was raised. I can already tell that I could progress in this company quite easily if I wanted to. It wouldn't even be a bad thing, necessarily, because mine is a personality that is great for a business like this. But it wouldn't be the best thing. The best thing would be to achieve my dreams and see more of the world than I currently do.
But I wish I could write right now. That would make me feel so much better. I spent my twenties mostly not writing, when it's always been one of the things that makes me happiest. I've never needed to be published, or needed acclaim, or needed recognition of my skills from any but my loved ones. I just...feel better, more whole, when I can write. Even when it's a senseless little romantic drabble. Maybe particularly then. Because those senseless little romantic drabbles are written for no one but myself, even if I do end up sharing them with my friends. But they are written solely for me, because it makes me happy to create those scenes.

When cancer wins...and when it doesn't.

Awhile back I wrote a post about "FUCK CANCER" in regards to an amazing lady I knew. Earlier this week I found out that she died last Saturday. It was a long battle, it was a hard battle, and I feel so bad for her family. I grieved in my anger when I made that fuck cancer post. I still get teary eyed when I think of her death, but it isn't the shattering grief I had before. Before it was just so hard to accept that someone like her, a FIGHTER, could lose her battle. I accepted that she was going to die, and that I was unlikely to be able to see her before it happened due to my financial situation. Oh but I wish I could have gone to see her. But...it would have taken money away from moving. I literally have JUST enough. Even ten dollars less and I'd be screwed. I knew she'd rather I saved the money for its purpose, so I did. But it hurts that I didn't get to hug her one last time.
That's not what's hurting my heart the most though. I keep thinking about her family. Her two older kids? Their bio-dad is an ass and they had such a great relationship with their mother. How could they not? She was awesome. Her younger boy with her second husband (the one she was married to for ten years before getting all the paperwork squared away for her church wedding) is so young and vibrant and...he's just a great kid. He has to be hurting so bad now. But her husband is honestly the one I'm hurting the most for. I didn't know him that well, but I know that he has a great sense of humour, is a loving father to all the children, is generous, and positively adored Connie. And I also know that when they married he was a widower. I'm so glad that he's the man he is, because I don't know how he and his family would survive otherwise.
So why the title of this post? Because not too long before Connie died, good news was heard from another source. I'm really hoping that Connie was told about it before she passed, because I think it would have made her happy. Another dear coworker from the same place I knew Connie, well, she's had a tough life. Shortly before I left that area it was discovered that her son had a brain tumour, and it was right on the ocular nerve. This has been something that she's been dealing with for the past two years (with lots of drama involving her ex). Well, her son celebrated his last day of chemo last month. So this four year old has had his vision saved and the growth of a tumour halted by some truly fantastic doctors and nurses. I'm so glad, he's such a funny (and adorable kid).
So sometimes cancer wins, and sometimes it gets its ass kicked.