savoring this hope and healing..........

Thank and praise God!!!!!!!!!

The articles are going well.

Lord willing, they'll continue to do so.

:OD.

oooh, ooh, oh, the sweetest thing

mom appears to have lost half my laptop cord. Which means i don't have it to do my newspaper article on. So i'm trying to do two articles and a police report (which i had to handwrite at the station due to the aforementioned laptop cord issue), but mom is wandering around swearing (because i'm not upstairs with her like i normally am, winding her down for the night), bubs is drunk (at least that puts him in a decent mood, but still.......) and there isn't really sufficient light to make me happy doing this on the desktop.

in related news, i actually had this conversation with bubs (something like this)after realizing that we hadn't gotten mom her tylenol pm yet (she needs it to sleep through the night, and usually that hasn't been enough, and i've been giving her fish oil pills as placcebos to compensate, else she will med seek for another sleeping pill on top of the tylenol):
"are you sober enough to take mom for tylenol pm"
"define sober"
"not going to get in an accident, or get arrested"
"i'd get arrested if i was caught, but i should be able to make it to the pump without crashing" (pump is like two blocks away)
"well, can you take her?????"
pause, pause, pause.........
"bubs, did you hear what i said?????"
"no, what"
"i said, if you stop drinking now, you could still take mom for her tylenol pm"
his answer was a laugh. at which point i decided it was too late.
him: "she doesn't need it"
me: "well, i can't give her three fish oil pills"
think, think.........
"i guess i could give her some regular tylenol instead"
At one point this conversation would have probably shocked me, or i would have been ashamed of it. To think that i would ask my slightly drunk brother to drive our mom to a store, because he's sober enough to drive and it's not likely the cop will catch him, or to think that we would discuss what placebo we'll give her tonight, would probably have seemed very foreign. Now stuff like this is just part of my life, associated with only mild bemusement and guilt.
She is wandering around me puttering. i may have to stop the newspaper article writing to settle her down, despite the fact that i have noon deadline and three assignments, one of which was an almost four hour long meeting, and i have to work tomorrow. Thank God!!!!!!!!! that at least i was able to get part of the long one written during school today, and the other one should be short, and the third just typing in the police report from my notes.

Still, i sometimes think that i might have to quit this newspaper gig soon. It just doesn't fit in so well to my life of late. The paper's been pretty patient about late assignments, thank God!!!!!!, but still..........

Lord willing this one will work out too. back to work.

the ways i've failed.....

i've been failing a lot lately, in mom's care. Or at least i feel like i have (for instance, sitting here typing this instead of hanging with her). On that note, i think i'll finish this later maybe.

carve your name here in my arm

This morning i turned things over to God. This was a good thing, and, as i said on my facebook, a relief. Things here have been good, though i'm currently in one of those moods where i'm basically emotionally..... off. So here are some of the highlights:

-concerned about bubs' drinking and depression. like really, seriously concerned. i pray for him, and need to leave him in God's hands, but i feel like i'm being inadequate in meeting his needs.

-xh. and her amazing family are helping us get a furnace. thank God!!!!!!! (praise Him!!!!!!!) (and for all!!!!!!!) i was able to get the basement ready for the furnace, i think. So heat. woohoo. now there's more room down there, and i just have trouble motivating myself to continue cleaning. this leads to

-feelings of inadequacy. in like a little over a week, i'm supposed to start my other job. and i should have someone to stay with mom at this time. but the house is nowhere near ready. and i know if i got my ass in gear, i could get it ready, or more so, but my motivation lacks, and sometimes i think i'm just a terrible person.

-subbing, lots. this is a good thing. love money.

-ignoring bills. elizabeth cohen wrote of this too, this feeling of overwhelmed, the house becoming a mess, the bills sitting unpaid, and how little this bothers you. funny how it doesn't. it's like there's this little voice, screaming, that to be a successful human you must care about all this, but that little voice is muffled under countless layers of cotton fluff apathy.

-where did elizabeth cohen go????? she isn't in my paper anymore.

-car has been out of commission for almost three weeks. running out of friends to impose on to drive and/or watch mom while i'm working. getting increasingly frustrated at the unwillingness friends show to help, though i know i've probably been just as unwilling at times, and they may have proven themselves before.

- r is about to age out of his home. they're scrambling for a family. mom, last night while i was telling this to sister (bridezilla), asked why we didn't bring him home. love to.

-my love life deserves its own post. i'm about finally ready to accept that the long running "perhaps" is over, and to be okay with it, and, at the end, it actually wasn't my decision, a surprise to anyone who knows the history. since then, i've had some suitors, but they're creepy, older, desperate, etc. like i said, it deserves it's own post, if for nothing else than the humor of it.

-please God, can good things keep happening to us, and not bad?????????

under pressure, pushing down on me, pushing down on you......

"you don't give a f***ing sh**t about me". i hear this phrase often, second perhaps to the ever present "find her a man". This does annoy me a bit sometimes, when, like today, my patience level is low, though i know that my life is wonderful (thank God for all!!!!!!!!!) and i really ought to be more tolerant (and joyful) about life in general. i live with her. i help her dress sometimes. i do not travel overseas. If i did not care about her, i probably wouldn't live here. At least that's what i tend to think. This is my life though. This is where i want it to be too. i am happy in it, and thank God for it. Though i probably wouldn't complain were mom to be miraculously healed tomorrow.

Today i thought that i feel a bit as if i'm caught between two generations. At times i feel young, and empowered- a thirty year old career professional who really could act like those people on tv, the coffees, the clubs, the fun and mischief. Other times, though, i feel as if i've passed this by now, as if i'm a sedentary adult, an adult, and i wonder if the young and wild is still attainable. Do i want it to be? Again, i thank God for who, what, where, i am, but these are just the thoughts that go through my brain.

The amazing xheni and mott, my best friend and her husband (to be differentiated from the childhood best friends perhaps mentioned in previous posts), did much to help me with this on my actual 30th birthday. we had a day of fun and frolic, going to the zoo, playing ddr, competing in air hockey, and watching cloudy with a chance of meatballs, the 3d experience. Then we had a hippie food birthday dinner extravaganza with my family. Thank You God for amazing friends!!!!!

Much else has occurred, but perhaps this shall wait for another time. The internet is walking funny. (He, he, he, walking funny, oh typos, wherefore art though, although that wasn't really a typo- i meant to say that.) Okay, it's connected, let's post quickly.

They're coming to take me away.........

My latest conspiracy theory involves my friend v's husband, who is creating an ai in their basement. Last week, in an as of yet unsent letter, i cautioned her to be careful lest it take over the world, or something. i've a small, niggling part of my brain which almost thinks the a.i. knew i wrote this, and went on the attack. Last friday my car broke. It still wasn't fixed as of this morning. As i only own a car charger, my cell phone has been relatively out of commission this week. Our oven started sparking out the back, so we shut off the breaker. The cable in our town went on the fritz, and stayed there most of the week. The internet has been off as well. Today, i mis-saved a newspaper assignment, and had it eaten. Bubs' car broke too this morning, which means i've no way to get back to re-do it unless i get a ride. Now i'm not really this paranoid, to think it is an a.i. several states causing this. Still, one gets a little nervous, right?

are you strong enough to be my man

Today has been an adventure. i could probably have been better about it, but beyond the potential changes which self-recrimination and guilt can cause, i'm tired of feeling them. i broke down, into tears today, when i realized that i had to go and re-get the police report because i didn't save it correctly. Both of our cars are broken- hence this requires finding someone to drive me. Bubs stayed home due to the broken car, and has been in misery most of the day. This involves a lot of crying, yelling, swearing, and agony. The dog is traumatized, and following me around like my long lost friend. Mom is, well, mom. She and mick aren't a good mix when he's in a mood. After my breakdown, she insisted on running around the house looking for the non-existent hard copy. i was pretty miserable.

Then i saw a post on facebook regarding a boy who is to be executed today for killing a man who tried to rape him. In the grand scheme of things, my life is good, always. Lord forgive me for my whining, though i can't promise that i won't due it again. Lord be with that boy.

at the star wars cantina

Last night i desperately wanted to call and unload on the texan (the middle sister). You see, it used to be her responsibility to care for the family. She decided at one point (we discussed while in england one day, on an honest, adult walk and talk expedition) that she no longer wanted to carry this responsibility, and i agreed to take it on.

That was then, before mom developed dementia, before bubs developed depression and a drinking problem, before murfle (eldest sister with a mental illness) lost yet another job and started asking me to move in home.

i still haven't forgiven her for running away to texas, i'll admit it. she moved across the country, knowing that mom had dementia (though bubs had not yet gotten bad). She then proceeded to get married, and pregnant, so that she wouldn't come back. Now she is harder to get ahold of. She says the baby makes her tired.

i wanted, last night, when bubs got very drunk, and started declaring to mom and i that he had no intentions to live till forty, and that he just used the booze to kill the pain, to call her and unload on her. It was a low point, as i lay in bed, on the verge of crying, though i realized that God was in control of everything.

Tonight, though, i spoke to the texan, and heard that she was worried about the baby. She was in need. So i kept my mouth shut.

God is in control. Of all of us. In Him i can do anything, including deal with life now. Better yet, He is responsible for all of it, and i don't have to take care of anyone. Lord, please take control of it. i really can't handle it (or anything) without You.