CRAZY IN CALIFORNIA

I've been feeling more relaxed and focused lately. Is this some by product of age? Why exactly is this? Don't know and really don't care. I haven't been sleeping any better but I wake up in the morning and I feel good and I want to accomplish things not just ignore them until they get so bad I want to cry. Check back with me in a week and I'll let you know if this is a temporary state. I'm going to take advantage of it regardless. I think I had some sort of a nervous breakdown while I was in California and I'm finally ready to share. Well my father wasn't looking to well when I first arrived I guess that is to be expected when you have part of your brain removed but I wasn't prepared for it. I was shocked and sad and the sometime pessimists that I am, I start imagining that he will never be as he once was. It was hard to see him relatively helpless. With each day that passed he improved by leaps and bounds but I did not get much rest as I was staying at his house which was an hour away and I stayed by his side as much as I could. Whenever he awoke and my brother was not there he asked where he was, but after a while it began to annoy me as he did not ask where I was when I was their. (That's a little example of me being petty at an inappropriate moment.) Well my fathers girlfriend took us to one of my fathers haunts to show us a flag that he had there for my brother and the bartender there was surprised to meet me because she only realized that my half sister and brother existed and knew details of their lives. Ordinarily I would not care but I felt my brothers hand on my back and that acknowledgement of my pain was all I needed to allow myself to hurt. So my feeling like a stepchild added to the stress of worrying about my father and then I was trying to enjoy my brothers company knowing that he was going back to Iraq in a matter of days. Well the day before he left some things happened that might have pushed me a little over the edge. I was sitting in the ICU waiting room and I got to witness a woman going through a paper bag that contained her deceased fathers belongings. She did not cry, she half smiled as she ran her finger around the rim of his black felt hat. It took a lot for me not to cry as the whole time I was imagining myself in her place. Well immediately after we went to my uncles house, We ended up being there for hours and I was very tired by this time and anxious to get back to my Dad so I was getting really bitchy. My brother and I started bickering. Well the next morning we only had about two hours sleep I caught my brother asleep at the wheel and instead of being thankful that I caught him he was embarressed and mad, he denied it. So we hugged goodbye in less than chipper spirits. Okay nervous breakdown coming very soon. Well the important part about going crazy is that you never really realize it til your totally immersed in your illness.

I noticed that the male nurse in the ICU had a voice that reminded me of my brothers. The more I listenedto it, the more he sounded like Paul. Before long he sounded exactly like my brother. I thought that this was pretty cool and a coincidence but nothing else. As the day progressed I herd my brothers voice every where coming out of all kinds of men. No they were not talking to me or looking at me or anything else. Still not thinking anything is weird. Didn't notice how I really was not tired after days of miniscule amounts of sleep. By the evening I had atributed the brothers voice thing to me thinking people sounded like my brother due to his California accent. Nothing out of the ordinary. I finally realized that I was having auditory hallucinations when men were talking but they were far away and I could not make out what they were saying. My mind started filling in the blanks with audio clips of thing s that I had heard my brother say to me. Click! That's when I finally got it and I knew what was going on so it was not that scary but still pretty freaky. I knew I just needed some rest so I decided to get as much sleep as I could. On the way out of the hospital I even the rustling of the leaves and the squeaking of doors sounded like my brother. I didn't turn on the radio during the drive home because I really didn't want to find out if my brothers voice was going to be coming out of the radio. I did turn the A/C on so the cold could keep me alert. Finally made it back to my Dad's house and as I'm turning the keys I can here my brothers voice again talking to other people. I know know one is around so I just go inside and I can still here his voice outside. So I go inside make myself an excellant margarita with tequila and amaretto. It tastes like heaven but I am too damn tired to drink it. So I get in my Dad's bed and pull the covers over my head and hope that morning will come without incident. Just as I was about to doze off I had to get up and hide my Dad's gun and ammo justy in case my brothers voice tells me anything involving a gun and I decide to listen. Well I woke up sane the next morning. Apparently when you do not sleep or eat often enough even "normal" people start to hallucinate. Although I don't know of anyone that was not a diagnosed schizophrenic ever hearing voices. More on this later.