Spring Forward, Fall Back

Well, dad left the rehab center to go home today. I'm exhausted and burnt out. And in a way I didn't expect, it was incredibly lonely.

This sense of being really good at taking care of him, and wanting someone to take care of that isn't my dad--a partner, a child, someone of my generation or the next, not the last.

The experience made me have all the cliched realizations about not taking life for granted.

But it also made me feel old. That and my 25th high school reunion (which I missed cause of dad's surgery).

And I have this weird, weird thing of feeling like I missed youth. I don't look back on youth with any sentimentality. But it makes me sad for what I missed.

Fall always feels like the start of a new year--maybe I didn't get over school. I want to find some way to get out of this rut. I realize that I don't necessarily want to have kids--I was sort of starting to think of my own life as a failure and that if I had kids, I could give them opportunities that I didn't have--mostly the opportunity to believe they could accomplish something great.

My brother went for a job offer and he didn't like the terms and he said "Look--I'm top shelf--I deserve better than this" and I was shocked because I've never thought of anyone in our family as top shelf. Good, yes. Top 1% of the population, probably, in terms of brains, but not the top .00001%. And I keep feeling like if I can't both get in that and also believe I'm in that, I haven't got a chance.