Seven months later, I'm sitting in my room in Lake Forest, in the house that my mom and I rent now. A lot has happened in the last seven months. The house that we lived in for almost 14 years sold. We moved. My dad doesn't live with us anymore. My parents' divorce is almost finalized. Nathan went through a whole semester of school, and is spending his summer in Ohio playing baseball. I've visited Texas and Ohio for a week each. I spent a weekend in San Diego. I made some trips to LA to visit my friend Ashley and see a friends' band play a few gigs. I booked a flight to visit San Francisco for the first time in over a year. Sparky stopped using his back legs, and then started using one again [he's like the comeback kid, really]. I've applied to over 70 jobs via Craigslist. I got three of them [and am GLADLY only working one now]. I watched two girls who are wild and drove me a little crazy, but are so much fun. I worked 3 photo gigs. I registered for two online classes through a community college that started the same week we moved and I started working a second job. I dropped them a week into them, coming to terms with the fact that I didn't need to do EVERYTHING at once. Mom and I went to a Ducks game [and they won!]. I stopped blogging. My mom and Nate both started. I reconnected with home and people from home. I reconnected with ranch dressing [clearly the most important part]. I've started to learn how to navigate through the world of divorcing parents. I realized that I still own way too much stuff. I bought a new car.
But most importantly, my mom went through six months of every other week chemotherapy treatments, sold a house, moved, and is working on finalizing a divorce. She has been so brave, positive, and calm [at least outwardly] throughout all of it. She amazes me all the time with her strength through everything that the universe has thrown at her in the last year and a half. Through my frequent job changes, "Nate being Nate," Sparky's last-minute miracle recovery, and getting a divorce she hasn't lost her mind completely. I probably would have. Several times over.
It hasn't exactly been 100% rainbows and butterflies though, either. The move was a hard transition. Mom lamented that she wasn't completely unpacked a few weeks after we moved. I told her "anyone who comes over and has a problem with the fact that we haven't finished unpacking can just leave and never come back. They don't need to be in our lives." And, what do you know, no one said a word. We're adjusting to small-neighborhood living, where we have an ice cream truck and a dozen or so kids play outside most afternoons. Chemo for colon cancer hasn't been as brutal as we've heard that it can be for breast cancer. Mom didn't lose all her hair [but it thinned out, and looks wonderful!]. She's lost a lot of her appetite, but has handled it well on non-chemo weeks. She's still working, still sees friends, and still gardens. She naps a lot, but family has always been full of excellent nappers. Napping is one of my many inherited traits that I'm very proud of.
My dad has done really well too. He's learning to do things for himself [*ahem* most of the time *ahem*] and is really putting in an effort to still see me...even when I'm not so open to it. Plus, I can be a little scatterbrained, so it helps when someone else tells me to do something! He has his own independent schedule going on and is working really hard and doing really well over all. I know moving isn't his favorite thing to do in the world, but he got it done. Now, to work on sorting through all this STUFF that we all have in storage! Also, if any of you know him, ask him to tell you about the episode of True Blood that he watched. His description is absolutely hilarious.
Nate is doing great too. He's had an awesome summer full of baseball in Ohio in our dad's hometown. A lot of our family still lives there, so he's been staying with them, and from what we can tell they're loving having him. He's played really well, and I'm incredibly proud to be his little-big sister. He'll be home again for a few weeks before his LAST school year starts. He's smart and good and nice, and he has a good head on his shoulders. I'm interested to see what he does after he graduates.
I guess, when it comes down to it, there are a few reasons why I'm writing this now. One is to say how incredibly proud I am of my momma, on the eve of her LAST CHEMO TREATMENT. Another is to record just how much things have changed since that day seven months ago. And finally, I'm writing this to officially finish posting on Amanda Abroad. Hopefully my mom and I will make a trip to Paris and maybe a few other places in the near future, and I'll maybe blog here then. But right now, home is where the heart is, and that's where I'm at.
