Month: May 2025

The last week of May

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After working on Friday, I had the rest of the holiday weekend off. Saturday we threw a party for Angel and Dan, kind of a welcome home and all the holidays/birthdays they missed in between. It’s been great to see them again. I haven’t seen Dan since Christmas and Angel since March, so it’s been awhile. The weather was nice and the party went well.

Alex left on his West coast tour with the band. Arabella’s friend and Alex’s love interest left for rehab. A lot of changes happened over the last couple of weeks. I had to do a colon cleanse yesterday but the rest of the weekend so far has been relaxing. I am finally finding serenity in my life. I’m refusing to take responsibility for the choices of others which has been more freeing than not caring what others think of me. Along with that, I probably made some family members upset by not going up north this weekend to open the cabin. But, oh well, they can be haters if they want to be. Nothing I say or do will change them anyway. I will probably go up north next weekend.

Angel and Dan had to have a talk with their next door neighbor. The 60 something year old guy next door who lives with his wife, daughter, and grandchildren has been prowling around the house. Earlier this year, he sent my daughter a love note and was messaging her so much on Facebook that she ended up blocking him. Then they got Ring doorbell videos of him looking in the windows and trying to get into their house. Once they returned home, they printed off the images and gave them to his daughter saying if he comes back again they will be calling the police.

Incidentally, I received a message from a high school boyfriend who sent me a screen shot of a song on Spotify called Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins. Then he sent that he was thinking of me with a heart. What a bunch of whack jobs. I didn’t respond at all. We are not Facebook friends. It’s been almost 10 years since he asked if I was happy in my marriage. My gosh, I dated him when I was a teenager. I’ve been with my husband almost 30 years now.

Not much else is happening. The next four days I will be working and on my two days off I plan to go up north with my kids.

Nearing the end of May

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Compared to the last several weeks, life has been relatively uneventful since Arabella’s birthday last week. A cold wind blew this way and I am huddled in a warm blanket. Tonight Paul is cooking salmon for supper, then we are going to enjoy an indoor fire as I turned off the heat on the warm days. I don’t have the heart to turn the heat back on.

Angel and Dan are making their way back home after being gone for months for work. I haven’t seen Dan since Christmastime. It’s been a couple months since I’ve seen my daughter. They are going to be home for a couple weeks before heading back on the road again. This Saturday we will be having a get together with some of their friends over to visit.

As Angel and Dan are coming back home, Alex is getting ready to leave with his band to tour the West coast. He will be getting back as they are leaving again. That is okay though as Alex and Angel are not all that fond of each other right now.

My extended family will be heading up north to open up the cabin for the summer. We will all be working sometime over the holiday weekend, so we will not be there. I’m not too saddened by this as I am sure it is going to be a real shitshow. My brother Luke is not sure he wants to go. He is stressed out about going and I advised him not to go. We’ll see what happens.

Otherwise lately my life has been focused around work and doctor appointments for myself and others. I had my GI follow up appointment today which was relatively uneventful. For fun I’ve been watching Alex’s band play, going to trivia night with friends, and doing stand up comedy.

Middle of May update

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The clock keeps on ticking and time seems to fly by. Today is Arabella’s birthday and I have the day off of work. We’re planning on getting our nails done and going out to eat.

Life has been eventful as of late. I ran into an old friend of Arabella and they reconnected which lead to a whole bunch of excitement. Let’s just say that several nights were spent drinking. Literally whole nights where I woke up in the morning and they were still up. Arabella’s friend was doling out shots the whole night and come morning she was totally wasted along with my son. Through their intoxication, they realized they were totally in love. Arabella and her boyfriend were trying to talk both of them to go to sleep and figure things out later when they were sober. I awoke to Arabella’s boyfriend yelling at Alex.

Alex could barely walk as I walked with him to his room. I’ve never seen him so drunk. He had to perform in his band later that evening. By this time I was fed up with the whole lot of them. That evening was more of the same. Arabella’s friend was flirting with much older strangers talking them into giving her cigarettes and buying her shots. Paul had enough of it and ended up confronting the girl and telling her she was no longer welcome at our house unless she got her drinking under control. She already has been cut off by her family and has an ignition interlock device on her car from drunk driving. I hope she gets some help and figures her life out.

This was the first time Paul told someone they were not welcome here due to their drinking. Believe me when I say her drinking was pretty out of control for Paul to say that being a drinker himself. We were both afraid it would jeopardize Arabella’s recovery and if she started dating Alex the relationship would be toxic to say the least. They probably would both take their drinking to new heights.

We were sad to see Arabella’s friend go. Arabella doesn’t have many friends and this girl has been a good friend to her in the past. The rest of the weekend was pretty mild compared to this. Mother’s Day was almost uneventful. Paul and I took my mom and Matt to her church. My mom and brother displayed inappropriate behavior both passing gas several times in the pew. My mom was very confused. She couldn’t seem to reason that she needed enough room for 4 people to sit. But in some ways I enjoyed going to my childhood church. One member said I look more and more like my grandma the older I get. It made me feel good to receive that compliment and to be around people that remembered family long dead.

The rest of the time with my mom was stressful and I couldn’t wait to leave. She was confused about her medication. Earlier in the week I received a call from my dad who said that she took too many pills and ran out. She gets angry and emotional easily. Her food hoarding has gotten out of control. She wanted me to reimburse her out of Matt’s account (I am now his guardian) for over $200 worth of food which included 8 bags of gluten free flour and a dozen containers of breading.

Some good things did happen so far this week. I met with my therapist who said I am in a good spot and after almost a decade said I didn’t need therapy anymore. I saw a quote recently I thought applied to this which said that as someone with Complex PTSD we don’t need to know how to survive trauma and pain. This is something we are used to dealing with skillfully. What we need is to know how to handle joy and happiness, something I never learned how to do. It really resonated with me.

Over the next couple of days, I am looking forward to spending some time with Arabella for her birthday. Alex’s band is playing outdoors this weekend. Early next week Angel and her husband will be back home for a couple weeks.

Mayday

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This whole past week has been hectic, almost overwhelmingly so. Although yesterday I did make some time for fun checking out area rummage sales, eating where my daughter was waitressing, and watching my son’s band perform.

The week started with taking my mom for her PET scan appointment several hours away. Hopefully we will have some results soon. Then I worked Tuesday through Friday at the ER. So far I’ve seen a lot of interesting, horrible, and sad things. I wonder when I will become apathetic towards others like my co-workers seem to be. You almost have to be in that setting to keep the suffering from bothering you.

The rest of the week went by in a blur. This next week will probably too. I will be working the next four days and have Mother’s Day weekend off. Unfortunately the Mother’s Day comedy show has been cancelled. I have this feeling that most comedians are like artists and musicians who are so focused on the creative that they overlook the structure.

My plans for Mother’s Day weekend are volunteering, going out to eat while my daughter is waitressing, and watching my son play kind of like this past weekend. But it is what I enjoy doing. Angel and Dan will not be home for Mother’s Day weekend. They moved their camper from Georgia to Alabama to spend the next couple weeks at a new job site. But they will be home soon!

I am also planning on going flower shopping this next weekend for a couple planters for my patio and as a gift for my mom. Just this past week everything got green. The buds are almost turning into leaves on the trees and the grass is starting to grow.