Keep Melancholy and Be Calm On

I find myself to be a bit of an emotional heap today, and I keep ranting to anyone who asks me how I am, so I have decided to stay home for the rest of the day and just pout in private rather than embarrass myself further.  Oh wait.. no... first I'll blog about it  - on the world wide web! - you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway!

I'm mad at cancer today.  I think I have been most of the week, but it is really pissing me off today.  

Two years ago to the day, in a dumbfounded haze of fear and panic, I prepared to be away from work (for a few months?!) for surgery for stage 3b melanoma.   I had only been at my new employ for eight months, was just settling in as nicely as anyone could expect in the environment I was in, managing a busy cash office and payroll system, constantly jumping hurdles to keep shit together PLUS being a mother and home owner and all that regular good stuff.    

My boss and I chose a team to cover my work in my absence, and I had full confidence in the leader(s) we picked.  I still do, though we rarely see each other (I have needed it to be that way) and we have managed to pass months into years - two years - and the store is still standing and everyone is still alive.  Including me, which is great.  Well, in my opinion.  

Today it is my replacement friend's last day as Acting Front End Manager, and I am a mess.  I wish her well in her future endeavours, and I certainly harbour no hard feelings! I have changed jobs many times along the steps of my career so I understand why she is going.  Hanging on waiting to see what my schedule is going to be is hard enough for ME to do, I certainly don't expect my friends and co-workers to pause life and wait as well!  But it still sucks.. I should be there today.  I should be in there counting cash and slugging carts and working my ass off.  But I'm not.  

This SUCKS.

Thanks for listening.  

On a personally-melancholy day like today I typically kill myself listening to sad jazz music that makes me reminisce, or I pore over photos, wondering at all the antics my friends and kids and I have caught on film, and I remember what a great life I have.  How far I've come.. And what I feel I have left to do.  

But today I distract myself with some images I have been collecting along my journey of stealing - ahem borrowing - graphics for my blog.  I have noticed a trend: I have always liked the "Keep Calm and Carry On" adage, and I have giggled lots of times when I have come across a new adaptation of that saying, and have saved it to my files.  

Enough pouting, this is what I need to do:

Oh yes.... and this too:  

PS - If anybody out there comes across the code for an image I have posted that is theirs please comment below or email me some hate mail and I will happily add your link to my site - apologies in advance, I stole them yes, but in malice? No.   

Oh and one more.... GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR