I just had the thought that I more or less kicked off my 30s with the death of my mom (she died a few weeks after I turned 31) and the fallout and upheaval and personal/life change that followed ultimately kind of came to define my entire 30s.
And now I have more or less kicked off my 40s with the death of my dad (he died less than a week after I turned 41), and now I'm looking down the road at the rest of my 40s with the feeling of dread that comes from having a major anchor suddenly ripped away, instead of the optimism that I used to feel about this decade, and I just can't fucking believe I have to do this all over again.
I'm sure by the time I'm 50 I'll be looking back on all this philosophically to some extent but right now I just want to scream at the universe "SERIOUSLY HAVEN'T I HAD ENOUGH CHARACTER BUILDING LOSSES FOR ONE LIFETIME?"
I have a much deeper understanding than I used to of shock as an immediate protective mechanism after someone dies. Because it's been a couple of weeks and the shock and the dissociation are starting to wear off, and in the moments when other feelings start peeking through they feel like massive open wounds. As if I become suddenly and horrifyingly aware that I'm bleeding out and there's nothing I can do about it.
There was grief when my mom died. It was nothing like this.
my dad died peacefully in his sleep yesterday morning.
I've taken the week off of work.
I haven't gotten out of bed today.
if you have a compelling reason why I should get out of bed, let me know. if I have enough good reasons hopefully they will overrule the extreme apathy I'm currently feeling about doing anything ever again.
Since June 8th, when my dad had his last meeting with his doctor, the prognosis has gone from 2–3 months to less than a month to 1–2 weeks to 3–5 days.
I'm visiting today and nothing has roused him the entire time I've been here. He only sleeps now.
It's been less than four weeks since he stopped treatment and I'm already at the point of having to preemptively decide whether to take this week off of work because it's seeming so likely that he'll die this week.
I should be having feelings about this latest development probably, but it's all been moving so fast that at this point my reaction to every new development is just, "...okay."
I've never shared the hatred for small talk that seems common to a lot of neurodivergent people
but lately when a cashier or whoever greets me with the obligatory "How are you today?" I want to scream "TERRIBLE, THE WORST I'VE EVER BEEN, MY DAD IS DYING" and then punch or kick something in the vicinity and collapse into a sobbing screaming mess
but instead I just mumble "I'mfinehowareyou" and continue with my day without doing any destruction at the poor clueless rando who asked the question, so I guess that's another thing social scripts are good for
my dad's condition is progressing unexpectedly fast. the initial prognosis after he stopped treatment was "a few months," but the hospice nurse has visited three times and expressed repeatedly that he is declining faster than that, and the plans about what level of hospice services he and my stepmom are going to be receiving are being revised head-spinningly quickly. no one has given us an updated prognosis or anything, but my stepmom (who has been his main caretaker throughout his illness) thinks he has less than a month.
this is one of the most brutal things I've ever experienced, and my stepmom's and my relationship is already becoming strained as we attempt to navigate his care, my schedule/how often I am able to visit, and our shared grief (which doesn't feel very shared to me right now because we are experiencing it from such different vantage points).
my lifeline right now is being in frequent contact with a couple of offline friends who have gone through this specific thing—friends who also lost parents they were close to, after watching them go through the decline of a terminal illness. my other friends are great, and I have a therapist and she is also great, but these specific friends are able to normalize the emotions I'm going through in a way that no one else really can. they are able to notice and speak to fears I hadn't even articulated and give me reassurances I didn't even realize I needed.
one of them told me yesterday that my relationship with my dad will not be defined by these remaining few weeks or months, but by all the decades that came before, and I didn't even realize how desperately I needed to be told that until she said it and I felt something inside me become calm and still for the first time since he was diagnosed.
another was able to put an upsetting interaction with my stepmom into perspective in a way that I was finally able to stop inwardly raging at her and remember that she is also in uncharted territory right now and fumbling through this situation as best she can. that just because she's the closest thing I have left to a parent in this situation doesn't mean that she magically knows what I need or what to say to me, any more than I magically know what she needs or what to say to her.
I'm planning to request reduced hours at work for the duration of my dad's hospice care, however long that ends up being. fortunately, my boss is also seriously good people, and he's already told me to do whatever I need to do and they'll handle it at work.
this is awful and I hate it but yesterday I felt so alone and insane in an intense grief reaction that left me crying uncontrollably for the better part of a day, and after talking to my friends last night I feel...fortified, I guess. they both told me that I'm doing great, that I'm going to get through this, that nothing about the way I'm feeling or reacting is abnormal in the slightest. and they would know.
having father's day brunch with your terminally ill father who just started hospice care and your stepmother who very clearly has caregiver burnout is a fucking lot, I'm getting myself some sweet treats and going to bed for the rest of the day
(and yes I will be visiting a lot over the next however long to give my stepmom some relief wherever I can and also to spend as much time with him as possible, but today I was just there for brunch and was getting hit by all the emotional tornadoes and I'm so tired and sad)
Being a calm, gentle, non-reactive person is really hard work, which is probably why many people are none of these things. Personally I think it’s worth it but sometimes one does want to just roll around on the floor wailing at the top of one’s lungs
The most annoying thing about being a person who has had a lot of therapy is that when shitty life things are happening I still WANT to do the unhealthy coping mechanisms I used to do because they satisfied my most dysfunctional impulses, but
I can no longer un-know the fact that there are healthier ways to deal with my problems, and
At this point the easier unhealthier ways don't even bring me the same dysfunctional satisfaction that they once did.
And both of these are unequivocally good for my overall mental health and my growth as a person, but they're still REALLY ANNOYING facts to contend with when I am stressed and anxious and sad and wishing for the old easy copes.
Welp, it's been about a month, and I finally have the energy to try to convey my thoughts on the Good Omens finale. Yeah, I know, old news at this point, but what's the point of Tumblr other than talking to myself about my feelings?
Anyways, this is coming from someone who isn't a massive, longterm GO fan. I did not wait years for this finale. I am not heavily bound to these characters (though I have developed my usual maternal feelings towards Crowley pretty quickly, so there's that). I didn't go through the emotional upheaval surrounding the news that the writer is a vile sexual predator. Essentially: I don't go here. I'm not an appreciable part of this fandom.
So I feel like it means something kind of negative when the finale had even me - all but an outsider - kind of grimacing at her screen.
Again: I don't have an extensive history with this series. I watched S1 years ago, liked it fine, and promptly forgot about it. Fast forward a few years later, and it's February 2026. I get the sudden urge to rewatch the David Tennant era of Doctor Who from my college days, but I am also cognizant of the fact that I am an emotionally delicate little cupcake and don't really want to sob on my couch for multiple hours. So! For some silly reason, I decide that watching Good Omens will provide me with some Tennant enjoyment without the emotional commitment.
...this was a mistake, obviously. Y'all can see that coming, but I did not at the time. So I went ahead and fired up S1, enjoyed it again, and followed it with S2. S2 was... well. That last bit, eh? What do y'all call it... the Final Fifteen? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, that was upsetting.
But! Fear not, sad little me, for S3 is just around the corner! I managed to get into this right before the conclusion, escaping years of doubt and longing and potential disappointment.
Aaaaaand then I watched it.
I watched it like... a week or two after it came out. After watching the general reception and just kind of steeling myself for it. I'd become attached to Crowley. I enjoyed Aziraphale as well, and their relationship had grown on me significantly in just a few months. I'd read bits and pieces of the original book, and I enjoyed them there, too. So I was trying to prep myself for the emotional disappointment, y'know?
But when I finally watched it, I was less disappointed and more just... weirded out? I think that's the best way of putting it? Like, the whole thing felt so disjointed, so strange, so thematically removed from the S1 and book that I enjoyed, that my normally canon-focused brain just kind of rejected it. I wasn't sad simply because the whole thing just didn't feel like an actual, in-character, thematic conclusion to the story.
The whole conflict surrounding free will: S1 and the book made it pretty clear that free will existed? I think? Like, that was part of the comedy: Heaven and Hell go through all of these motions to influence things, but at the end of the day, humans are just like "meh, we'll do what we want, thanks." Like, that was funny! Crowley doing dumb, annoying things to try to foment evil while simultaneously sabotaging himself and also never coming up with the level of evil humans came up with was funny! Angels kind of being bureaucratic assholes was funny!
It was funny, and it was wholesome. An angel and a demon forging a longterm bond simply because they felt more understood by one another than by their "sides" was wholesome. The Antichrist telling Satan to fuck off so he could go live a normal kid life with his newly-liberated hellhound was wholesome.
And now, as of S3, those things didn't matter? None of it happened? What? Why? What in the world was the point of *gestures* All Of That? Why even bother?
The whole concept of fighting for your current world, of striving to survive and repair things the best you can, of valuing the people and creatures around you for what they are... all of it is just gone. Everyone is gone. None of it ever happened? What. Why would you write it that way. Why would you essentially destroy the entire everything of the actual, canonical book that had established themes and a satisfying conclusion? Why would you rewrite it as "nah, this whole mess is too far gone, so we have to let it die and also destroy ourselves in the process; give the audience a bunch of body doubles living happily afterwards in a world that means nothing to them"?
And S2! Like, S2 on its own seemed less organized and realized than S1, but I figured that that was because it was to be paired with S3 in completing its arcs and developing its themes. Instead, literally everything that happens in S2 is just... pointless?
Like, what the hell was the point of Gabriel and Beelzebub? Why in the world did we spend six episodes chasing Gabriel's memories around and learning of his relationship with the Duke of Hell only for it to not matter in the slightest?
Then there was the Job flashback: a whole plot making it very clear that killing everyone and replacing them with new versions was not the same. Both Azi and Crowley knew this. It was emphasized heavily. And then S3 comes along and we just... ???
God was changed from a creature I actually kind of liked in S1 (passive, kind of eldritch and unknowable, not actually malicious) to the sort of asshole I interpret (and hate) the actual Christian god being. Callous and vaguely entertained by the trials and sufferings of what were essentially her own children whom she was supposed to love. Her detached amusement over Crowley and Aziraphale's entire relationship was actually infuriating to me. Her children were in such distress, and the way she treated them was repulsive to me. The idea that Azi spent his whole life trying to live up to the expectations of this narcissistic twit was... ugh.
The fact that no human characters even knew anything was going on, let alone were able to have agency in their world's fate felt so, so contrary to the vibes of the original work. And that's coming from someone who generally doesn't care for human characters: I was bothered by their omission because it upset the themes the story had so championed.
Gosh, what else... I feel like this is all so disjointed, but I have issues with basically all of it...
Jesus was pointless. Could have been removed from the plot, and nothing would have changed.
My sweet baby Muriel never had a chance to leave their sheltered existence.
Nina and Maggie are just gone? Anathema and Newt and The Them are gone? None of these people, who witnessed and were involved in supernatural affairs, had any sort of involvement with an attempted second apocalypse? Really?
The relationship between Azi and Crowley was just so sad in the end? Like they realized that there was no point in fighting for their own lives and their own relationship and just... gave up. After spending the whole S3 plot angry and upset and afraid and so unhappy with one another. None of it resolved before they both decide to die.
But CF, you may say, what did you expect to happen?
Jeez, I don't know. I'm not a writer. I'm not even a legit GO fan. I don't even go here. But from the way S1 was written, and the was S2 happened, I had some vague ideas of what would make sense.
I thought that Jesus would be a sort of parallel to Adam. In S1, Hell tried to initiate the End Times by sending their child to Earth. Said child took his free will and said "fuck off." Now in S3, it would have made sense to me if Jesus played a similar role: Heaven's child sent to end the world, only to take charge of his own destiny and tell his mother to fuck off. Would have been poetic for the two of them to come together somehow, y'know? Hell's child and Heaven's child coming together to say no and to save their world. A parallel to one of Hell's demons and Heaven's angels doing the same thing.
I thought that Gabriel and Beelzebub would have some bearing on things. Their love and their own, personal choice to leave and pursue their own freedom would act as proof that Crowley and Aziraphale aren't just weird outliers; all angels and demons have the capacity for free will. All have the capacity for love. All can decide to reject The Establishment and pursue their own happiness.
Oh, and the 25 Lazarii miracle! Dang, I thought it would mean something, that an angel and demon working together could achieve such a feat. I thought... I dunno... if the writers wanted to turn God antagonistic, perhaps it would involve some sort of reveal that the sides of Heaven and Hell were purposely being kept apart so that the angels and demons didn't realize the sort of power they had if they worked together. Power that could defeat their creator.
It may just be years of JRPGs and the enjoyment of His Dark Materials in my youth, but I was expecting them to kill God. Or something similar. Christ and Antichrist, aware humans, angels and demons coming together to wrest control of their freedom and their lives from the capricious asshole who created them. All of the people - mortal and immortal - who were oppressed and controlled and contained by this deity and their supposed plan waking up and realizing that they have the ability to free themselves from it.
I guess that's what I ultimately wanted: for all of these people to just be able to live their own lives. Peacefully. Without the fear of their masters hanging over their heads. The humans. Animals. The angels and the demons. Michael and Muriel and Beelzebub and the Erics. And especially Aziraphale and Crowley. Gosh but I wanted Azi and Crowley to just be able to live as themselves, share their lives with one another, without constantly worrying and fearing that they'd be found out and destroyed. I wanted them to have their cottage and their garden and their peace after millenia of doubt and fear. I wanted Azi to be able to enjoy food without guilt. I wanted Crowley to be able to do something kind without getting all defensive about it. I wanted peace for them, the poor dears.
And that's just after thinking about these characters for a few months. I can't even imagine the pain visited upon people who are Bound to this story and these characters. I am so, so sad for people who waited years and had their hearts broken.
There's more I could say. More plot details that are weird, character details that don't work for me. A lot more, but I think I've reached the limit of my coherence for now. Maybe I'll post more later, if I can organize my thoughts again.
*sigh* The only saving grace for me personally is that it all feels so contrary to the established themes. Even to the general vibe of the characters and story... so much so that I can actually reject it in my brain's understanding of canon. Which is normally incredibly difficult for me to do. I'm normally such a canon purist, but this... this feels so off. To the point that the rejection of it doesn't even feel like coping to me; it just feels like a logical conclusion.
The only saving grace for me personally is that it all feels so contrary to the established themes. Even to the general vibe of the characters and story... so much so that I can actually reject it in my brain's understanding of canon. Which is normally incredibly difficult for me to do. I'm normally such a canon purist, but this... this feels so off. To the point that the rejection of it doesn't even feel like coping to me; it just feels like a logical conclusion.
I DO go here and this is exactly how I feel about the finale. I watched it once, it felt to me like terribly written fanfic that completely missed the point of the original story for all of the above reasons and many more, and I immediately decided it was not and would not ever be canon to me. There was a lot more anger for me to process, as a fan of the show since S2, but the automatic rejection of it as a canon ending to the story that made any kind of sense? YEP.
And the saving grace of THAT for me is that I don't feel a need to argue with anyone about the ending. I'll just be over here playing in my "only S1 and a few snippets of S2 actually happened" sandbox.
when i was allegedly a woman i was briefly married to a cis guy before coming out as a lesbian and getting a divorce. my now ex-husband, a genuine sweetheart of a man, was very kind about it all and we remain good friends.
twenty-five (!) years later I came out as a trans man.
now. the important thing to know about my ex-husband is that he loves nothing more than 1) horrible puns, preferably bilingual ones; 2) terrible dad jokes; and 3) committing to the bit until the end of time. he absolutely lives for Shenanigans and Japery. i do not know how his long-suffering wife puts up with him, but they've been married for more than 20 years so presumably she manages.
so, to break the news to my ex, i texted him. the exchange went something like this:
me: "great news, i'm a trans guy now"
him: "oh, congrats!"
me: "thank you. now for the better news: I insist you refer to me henceforth only as your ex-husband. do you accept this challenge?"
and my cis, straight-as-an-arrow, lives-in-the-midwest, married-to-a-minister ex-husband was like
AND HE DOES! gleefully and completely straight-faced, as I understand it. confuses the hell out of everyone, none more than cishet conservative people who've known us both for decades and know for a fact he's only been married twice. I hope he never explains.
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