There's just something about this time of year.

While there's some excitement anticipating summer's arrival, I also liken this time of year to a video game.

I feel like some sort of unending sequence of events is happening to me, and suddenly some unexpected obstacle is thrown in my path and I have to add that to my list of things to navigate.

Only, I have no idea what the finish line is.

The end of the school year? Maybe.

But, summer and everyone out of school brings it's own challenges of get there, go there, pay for that, do this, get that done, relax or else, etc. So, who knows?

Part of it is living with a teacher.

It's not just the kids who have a whirlwind of end of the year activities and exams, Busy Dad does, too and that just adds to the, "Arghhh!"

Part of it is me.

While I've kinda always felt like this in May, it got worse back when my mother was sick.

Most of you were spared the tale of my mother's illness and death almost 3 years ago, because, well it was nearly 3 years ago and I had another blog where I wrote about that stuff.

It was about this time of year when it became apparent that, after a 3 year battle with lung cancer, the end was approaching. Her cancer had metastasized to her liver, but there were 2 events that really sealed it for me.

First, it was a day in May when I realized she couldn't/didn't want to do crossword puzzles anymore. Now, that sounds trivial, but if you knew my mother, she did puzzles all the time.

As a matter of fact, there were many hours spent in the ER when she couldn't breathe, yet she was propped up on a stretcher doing crossword puzzles much to the amazement of the staff.

The other event was when she agreed to take morphine for her breathing.

My mother was a recovering addict and alcoholic with 24 years of sobriety behind her, so she didn't make that decision lightly, so I knew something had changed.

I spent many, many hours at the hospital as I had to stay with her at night, I worked all day and took care of my family in the evenings. Though I'm neither the first nor the last person to have a family, a job and aging parents, looking back on that time, I have no idea how I did it.

It was about this time of year that she was discharged for what would be the last time, since there was nothing else they could do and that started several weeks of living on pins and needles. Each time the phone rang, I never knew what it would be, since my dad was taking care of her at home with hospice.

It's this time of year that haunts me more so than her death in July. I have no idea why, it just does.

Come to think of it, it was also this time of year when Busy Dad's dad was diagnosed with cancer here in town when my older kids were very small and that was another insane time.

Again, I really do realize that things could be worse, I guess I'm just predisposed to being squirrelly this time of year.

At any rate, my dad called this evening (some of you may be familiar with his call history), and he's in a wheelchair yet again.

(Summary: right after my mom died, he had back problems, couldn't walk, was in wheelchair for month and had surgery. He works full-time, there's only me and he lives alone, so we had a lot of togetherness then as I hauled him around. A few months ago, he hurt his knee and was back in chair for a bit.)

It's just his knee again, and they can fix it (I think), thank goodness. I fully realize how lucky I am that he's still around, but this just ratchets up my constant state of, "Arghhhhh!" which is not helped by the fact that I have to pick him up at 6am for work.

(No, I have no idea why I'm not asleep right now.)

It's like having a giant mushroom dropped on you when you're about to finish a level.

Thank goodness I live in an age where you get unlimited lives and I don't have to keep putting quarters in like in the olden days when I was growing up.

ADDED: Heh, right after I turned the computer off after writing this, Busy Dad woke up sick.

Sigh.

Am I a middle-aged cliche, or what?