It's Monday.

In thirty days, I will have been quit smoking (is that grammatically correct? I don't think it is) for three years. Oh, and in twelve days, I'll celebrate my thirty-first birthday. Looking back on my blog entries and life patterns, I can now say that the end of winter is usually the hardest part, and that most transformations take place soon thereafter. (Including quitting drinking, which was the first thing I put down, a year before I got sober, a year and a month to the day). February is horrifying. Then things light up through spring. Maybe that's what happens to everyone? I don't know.

I need health insurance. I need to seperate from my mortgage job completely, because I don't want to do it anymore, and as a result am doing a bad job. There's nothing wrong with that, it's pretty commendable and leap-of-faith-y of me, but it will leave me without insurance. Right now, I'm paying out of pocket about $350 a month, plus copays (including $100 for brand-name Wellbutrin, because the generic they replaced Buproprion with is junk). That's like, $4000 a year plus. I think I'll get COBRA if I quit, which is good for a year and a half... it's just not working for me anymore. The mortgage job, that is. I think if this new gig doesn't work out, that I'd rather get some job at Yale with benefits and pensions and whatnot, instead of doing sales. Fuck sales. Seriously.

The new gig being Catering Manager for Koffee. I love using capitals for that, although it's probalby not technically necessary. I got over the hump of current payscale not affording me much in the way of owning a home and popping out babies, but since that's not happening right now, I'm not going to worry about it. And the potential to go from base to that plus a percentage of regular customers' orders is valid, real, and attainable. It's not sales to me, even though it technically may be - I'd be taking all that marketing and people skills experience and using it to go out to people in the community, to promote something I believe in, for people I believe in. I mean, Duncan (who owns the place) is basically sustaining this whole little mini-community of people, and makes decisions around that. I mean, he's not going to blow his business or anything, but the main purpose is about being good and doing what's right.

So, I think this is going to work. I don't think I have to worry about insurance, being that COBRA is probably cheaper than what I pay now. So that's that, I guess. And the other thing about it all is that good, honest, hard work is... well, working. Getting up early, working hard, paying dues, earning my keep. It's good for the soul, as far as I can tell.

I'd love to be smoking right now.

I found out today that my mom knew she was dying after that last surgery she had. I've since written about it, when she went in for surgery, and there was more there than they had seen on the x-rays and scans and stuff, so they couldn't operate on it. And they were going to put her on some other stuff, and go back in in six months or whatever to operate. And I wrote about how none of us put it together then that it meant that the current chemo wasn't working, and it wasn't different, it was getting worse. Apparently, she had talked to my aunt on my dad's side then and told her about it, only the truth of it was that they told her there was nothing left to do. And when she was getting loopy in the emergency room, saying snippets of conversations with other doctors, she wasn't going crazy. How there was a spot on her lung or something, and then later in a dream-like state in her hospital room, when she said that someone had said they were sorry because there wasn't anything they could do - it was coming out. The truth.

I suppose the truth is that my mother, until the very end of her life, took care of everyone else. I used to think it was some kind of escape mechanism, that she was neglecting self, over-mothering, being a caretaker, and all that sort of stuff. But I've been pondering it since, and especially with getting this news today - I think it's just who she was (is?) and that it's not a fault at all. She was selfless, down to the bottoms of her feet. It's who she was, it's what she did. And she did it to the very last day.

It's just such drastic information that I don't quite know where to put it. It's comforting and disturbing all at once. I cried, and then I did some laundry, and now I'm just kind of sitting here. Writing. Turning things over in my head, like cards. One at a time. Thoughtless, but totally aware. My head is turning inside out. St. Elmo's Fire is on, and everyone is drinking liquor and smoking cigarettes all over the place. And I've been walking to work and replacing my lightbulbs - baby steps. I'm doing what I can, whatever that means on any given day.