#life lessons all year long

[tinyshe]

huzzah! the centre and crucifix came for the Lenten rosary I want to make ... but being of an indecisiveness nature bc I have to *touch* Every Thing to 'visually see' it come together so I can then mentally put the pieces together -- I have two sets of centre and crucifix. The one I make for Lent and the other will be dedicated to some rose quartz beads that are rolling around my box for what seems ages (gifted to me so I could make myself a necklace ... that never happened).

So got the pairings; going with organic esthetic (round beads and round centre and round st benedict metal behind on the crucifix) then thought, 'o, I'll go with barrel knots and unbreakable (cord), be so cute and symbolic' ... no, no ... not happening ... cheap chinese beads I impulsively bought can only accommodate pins. This is indeed a pre-Lenten practice of something I don't have a load of: discipline, patience and money. *Breathe*. I know I have pins somewhere (what size? how many?) when Sal was going to recreate a stations rosary for me but the amethyst were too small for pins and would have had to go to the lapidary shop to re-drill all those tiny stones. Where am I going with this?

I have what I need whether this rosary is done or not. Life lessons continuing....

[every-sanji]

[vaguely-concerned]

kremy 'assigned elderly citizen by the witchlight carnival' lecroux

[fadeintolight]

pont pont vesszőcske

[ca-d]

.

[orcelito]

I think I cried harder today over my dad's jackets than I did at his deathbed. That was a miserable time of course, a memory that will likely be seared into my brain until I die, but I cried... I think a normal amount, all things considered. More than I ever usually do of course, but I typically don't cry At All. All this free crying is certainly surreal.

The jackets, though. I was put in charge of doing his laundry, because we don't want to pack up dirty clothes. I was expecting it to be unpleasant bc my dad's dirty clothes - gross. But really, it was much more unpleasant in that... those were his. It felt wrong to touch them. Felt wrong to treat his jackets as gross. Because they were just his jackets. They weren't even in the hamper. And then I was remembering him wearing them, and then I was crying. Again. And again. Weeping over these damn jackets.

Then I found a shirt on his bed that still smelled like him. It smelled like a Hug From Dad. And that set me off crying even harder.

In total, I think I cried like 6 times within 40 minutes. It took me that long to finish sorting the damn clothes bc I just. Was a wreck. Like, what are you supposed to do when you're living life like normal, vaguely hopeful bc you're taking steps to secure your own happiness, and then 4 days later you're sorting your dad's laundry because he fucking died. Suddenly. Without a goodbye.

And you have to worry about his lack of a will (even under an ideal situation, only 2 heirs and no conflicts between us, probate's a fucking Bitch), and arranging the funeral, and prepping his obituary, and picking out pictures, and writing a speech bc you want to talk at his funeral, of Course you want to talk at his funeral, but even just thinking about anecdotes you could share has you crying yet again.

I've cried more times in the past 3 days than likely the entirety of last YEAR. And that's WITH my cat, and uncle, and family friend dying. Those all hurt, my uncle most of all, & I was real fucked up over it. But this? This was my Dad. Likely the person I'd have named 2nd closest to me in my life, second only to my sister. He wasn't perfect, but he did so much for me throughout my entire life. All he wanted was to raise us to be happy and independent. And he accomplished it, we're getting by without him, but we still wanted several more decades with him. He was only 57. We should've gotten several more decades with him.

But here we are now. Playing investigators to his life, digging into all his shit, trying to find documents and take inventory of all his things, and learning Many things about him in the process. In his lockbox of sensitive documents, like his SSN and birth certificate and all that stuff, we found an old letter. About a decade old now, written in my hand. Right at the very top, we found that he'd kept the letter I wrote to him telling him frankly about my struggles and the things I wanted him to do better. He kept it. He tried to take it to heart. He looked at it again, sometime more recently than all the rest of the documents. That was on top.

His love for us is evident everywhere. The pictures he has hanging up all over the place, majority of them with us in them. The old fathers day cards placed on display in his bedroom bookshelf. The gifts we gave him, even stupid little knick knacks, placed around his apartment with pride. I wish we'd taken more videos of him. I don't want to forget the sound of his voice. I don't want to forget his smell either, the smell of a Hug From Dad, but I still tossed that shirt into the wash even though it felt like saying yet another goodbye.

It's the suddenness that hurts the most, I think. We were planning on having him help me finally get my license this year. My final words to him, the last thing he would've seen from me, were messages asking up on whether he'd called his car insurance company to make sure there wouldn't be problems. I should've called him more. I don't know if I'm going to learn from this.

I cut my 2 weeks off early to have time to grieve and to work on things for the funeral and settling the estate. The last thing I'd wanna do right now is selling fucking bubble tea in a job I already decided to leave. So here I am without a job, though with potentially two life insurance policy payouts to come. Inheriting half his 401k. Inheriting couches, knickknacks, keepsakes, paintings, art pieces, maybe even his guitar and other furniture if we can figure out what to do about space (I don't have room for this furniture, I don't know if I even have room for the couches, but God do I want to keep so much of this furniture). It has me even considering keeping one of his guns, just one. A tiny little revolver, it sits so comfortably in my hand. I don't even want to use it for anything. I just want to have it, keep it stored in a drawer with its ammo kept separate. I don't like guns, but this is a part of him. He loved collecting guns. He was about as responsible with them as someone can be, keeping them locked in a lockbox and impressing upon his children the importance of gun safety (I've known the basic gun safety rules ever since I was a little kid. Of course, of course, of course.) It reminds me of him. It's horrifically easy to have a gun in Indiana. I apparently don't even need a permit to carry anymore. (I have no intention to ever carry this in public.)

It's all a cycle. Business, grief, thoughts about my future. Round and round, like the most nauseating carousel in existence. I don't know how I'm still so functional. My skills with compartmentalization have been my lifesaver.

And im just thinking about the story my dad's best friend shared today. About a friend of theirs who lost her father. She reached out after hearing about my dad to share his words with her: "it's okay to grieve, but don't make his death your life".

He explicitly referenced himself in this, saying if he were to die suddenly that he wouldn't want us to define ourselves by it. Grief is expected, but he wants us to be able to move on. He's always wanted us to establish ourselves and make ourselves happy. He wouldn't want to be a weight holding us back from that.

So every time I start to feel guilty for thinking about having nicer furniture or using his life insurance payout to fund the rest of my college, I remind myself of that. Thinking about the material isn't a bad thing. I'm only human. And in the end, he'd Want me to be thinking about it. He never intended to die, certainly not without warning like this, so he would've only encouraged me being pragmatic about it all.

He only ever wanted us to be happy. So I need to do what I can to live up to that.

I love him. I miss him already.

[the-little-crab-in-your-pocket]

Idk I just think that treating your child as less-than on the basis of them being your child (whom you are responsible for having) is kind of very shitty

[drawnecromancy]

Velial Telren, at age 21, is already part of the elite of Nesean wizards.

He wishes to study spatial magic. Has wished so his entire life. He is incredibly competitive and skilled and works relentlessly towards his goals.

Spatial magic, however, is not a field open to just anyone. It is highly volatile and dangerous, and, crucially, only a court wizard can do actual work on the subject outside of theory. And theory is good, certainly, but it's not what's going to bring leaps forwards, at least according to Velial.

So he works to become the court wizard.

He is told, years before he's a wizard, that it's impossible. No one in their right mind wants to become court wizard unless they have some kind of strong attachment to the royal family. He shrugs and gets back to work.

Velial Telren, at age 21, is the youngest court wizard Neseah has ever known.

He's been better than anyone else on technical, theoretical, and practical tests. He has lists and lists of ideas, of theories to protect not only the royal family but the kingdom itself, and despite barely knowing them he gains their trust incredibly fast.

And so he asks to take the oath.

King Nelvaren and queen Nakaveh are hesitant despite their trust in the young man - he is only twenty-one. Taking an oath like this is no small undertaking. It would, quite literally, weigh on him for his entire life unless it was broken by a royal or by his own skill and willpower - something incredibly hard to do even for the best wizards.

But he assures them this is what he has wanted his entire life and they relent.

Velial Telren, at age 21, is the sole expert on spatial magic in Neseah who is allowed practical experiments as well as theoretical.

And he shares his findings with the rest of academia and participates in lectures and discourse and seminars.

He's bound to the royal family of Neseah for his entire life, and he considers this duty worth it.

However, Velial Telren has a problem.

At the height of twenty-one years of age, the oldest he's ever been, the smartest he's ever been, the most knowledgeable he's ever been...

Velial has beef with a 14 year old with too much wits for his own good.

[the--days]

so it's like this.

you're young and you're scared and you're trapped in the feywild (happens to the best of us) with the love of your life. You're a half-elf and she's a fullblooded elf but you don't think about it very much because you're barely surviving day to day. And you get offered a deal to get yourself home again, and you take it. And the price of your freedom is that you leave her still trapped there, alone.

And then five years pass. And you age a century in that time, and you grow, and you change, and you find her again, and you're still in love, and you meet people, and you lose people, and you love them too, and you learn, and you start wanting a future again, and caring again, taking care of yourself, taking care of other people--

and after all of that, at the end of things, you find out the man responsible for all of the misery in your short, sad life has cast a spell which gives him complete control and ownership of you- mind, body, and soul (again. this happens to the best of us). And you are given the choice to stay under his thrall, and live a thousand years-- or to age and die, like humans do, and to be free of him.

And the love of your life is there, and you're married now, and she's still a full blooded elf, and you're still a half-elf, and you think about what that means a lot more than you used to.

And still, after everything you've learned-- you choose your freedom. You choose leaving her behind.

[indestinatus]

why is life so hard

[green-mountain-goose]

whatever happens i cant fail is an *abysmal* strategy for living life. and yet rn....

[persephoneflouwers]

-

[queers4years]

every time it rains instead of snows in the winter I wanna kms ngl

[girlivealwaysbean]

my dad woke me up at 6.45 to give me green tea what the fuck😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[orcelito]

I do find it so funny that I will graduate college days away from my birthday. Like my birthday is literally in between the end of the semester ("graduation") and commencement

It really will be like a joint graduation & birthday party for me lmao

[anguilliforme]

because how of the autralian linguistic culture around respect works i haven't called any teacher anything but their first name in nearly a decade. the exception to this was when i spoke japanese, and now its hardwired into my brain to call any teacher-figures sensei. it's something i have to actively and constantly have to avoid doing in educational settings but i still slip up and get a chuckle from the teachers.