Life Comes at You Fast

Some may have noticed an absence from my blogging duties as of late but it was for a reason that I think I have mentioned before, and if not, I have meant to mention it.  Life happens and there really isn’t any controlling it.  You just have to ride the wave and hope you don’t get pulled under and that would probably be the best possible outcome from all of it.  In essence, I have been riding a huge wave life sent my way and it isn’t until now that I feel comfortable enough that the shore in which I stand on isn’t going to be ripped out from under me.

About two weeks ago, in my own family, there were a series of rather frightening visits to the hospital that rattled me pretty hard.  I don’t think anyone is ever really ready to deal with a parent becoming violently ill and coming pretty close to some very serious and possibly life-threatening problems.  Luckily, that issue died out with relatively few problems but right on the tails of this issue came my girlfriend’s grandfather becoming very ill.  We had just recently celebrated his 95^th birthday and I had just met the whole family and everyone was feeling really good.  But then life happens and there is nothing you can do about it.

Shortly after the 95^th birthday, my girlfriend’s grandfather deteriorated rapidly and no more than a week-and-a-half later, he had passed away.  I needed to be there for my girlfriend through all of this but obviously she and I both still had school to deal with.  Taking off a week-and-a-half in grad school can put you pretty far behind and this all happened right before midterms.  This means missing class now could be very costly.  So, through all of this, my girlfriend and I had to keep going through the motions and though we got some sympathy from professors who understood that maybe we wouldn’t be our normal selves in class, work still had to be done and projects still had to be completed.

Life seems to have a nasty habit of not letting up when it should but it is important to know how to work through it and try to stay on your feet the best you can while things are going on around you.  This has been a rough few weeks for me and those I care about in my life but it seems that things are starting to get back to normal.  Thankfully, I have a week off for Spring Break to recover and catch up on some things that were not essential to get done throughout all of this.  I think that is my best advice through all of this.  When life happens, you can’t avoid it and you usually still have commitments and responsibilities to live up to so it is important to get done what absolutely must be done, but let those other things you would have normally be doing slide so you can deal with life otherwise.  It is hard but I guess you can make it through it.  After things settle down, though, make sure to take a break to make sure you are okay.