Scattered Showers

It's funny - the way life is. My mom and I went for a walk yesterday. My mom and I have this unique relationship. Sometimes I just want to call her up and tell her all about things, all about my life, all about my feelings. Sometimes I visit reality, which tells me that that is not the greatest idea.

My dad and I are closer - we have this special bond. I am the most like him. But as I have gotten older, I have grown closer to my mom too. My mom is great to hang out with. To go shopping with and walk with and drive with, and just anything. She gets me. She laughs at my jokes. She laughs when I make fun of people. Even if she completely disagrees or thinks I am being a heinous bitch, she laughs. It's wonderful. My dad won't laugh. He has to be in right mood. Otherwise, he will look at me in annoyance and ask if that is how he raised me.

I love my parents deeply. They are everything to me. So when I walk with them or hang out with them, I savor it.

When I was walking with my mom, she asked how Chris was doing. I said good. He seemed good. I know that sounded to her like I had no clue what I was talking about. "Seems?" But I don't want to claim to know when what if I don't? And I don't want her to think I don't know anything either. It's a slippery slope. She said he seems ... and she couldn't think of the word. He is eating a lot more, she said. He is talking a lot more as well. I said that he got a little pot belly when he started to eat like a normal human and she laughed. She doesn't know that I love that pot belly.

I love his little belly, with his treasure trail. It is the softest part of his body. Or one of them. It is so smooth and so beautiful. I love it.

Sidetracked. And as I was talking with my mom, I thought to myself how interesting that we have already been married 1 year. Already. And then I thought how this year was absolutely nothing like what I thought it would be. It was perhaps the exact opposite. Already, in my first year of marriage, we have dealt with my husband being a crack addict. It is so beyond anything I would have expected. I don't even know what to type now. I am just staring at the screen in awe about what has happened in my life already.

I am not this girl. I am a boring person. My life is simple. I have not experienced what so many have and already I am miles away from what so many experience. I married an addict who lied and used and stole and hurt for months and months and I am still here, with that same addict, telling my story. I am still here, alive and well, and have pulled myself through it. He is here; he is making steps; he is making progress. For the rest of our lives he will be an addict. For the rest of our lives, he will forever be addicted. And every day for years and years he will have to consciously put those things behind him and choose wisely and differently than in the past.

It's a strange feeling - the feeling of being thrust into something you cannot control and did not expect and yet still coming out. And then to look back on it and see what you have accomplished...I am proud of myself. I am proud of JW, and MPJ, and Married to my Ex, and all the others I am forgetting for sticking with what is so hard and not giving up.

I cannot put into words how I feel right now. But this year was a whirlwind, and a tornado, and a hurricane, and finally, the closest thing I have known to calm in this year - scattered showers.

Bad news

Well I didn't come back to anything good that's for sure. I come home to find out my computer crashed. A huge monstrous crash, and nothing is working to fix it, and like a typical moron, I didn't save anything to a disk. I have thousands upon thousands of things written in that computer that could be gone forever. I have pictures on there and just ugh. So much stuff. I won't speak too soon because my dad is taking it to his computer guy today, but in the meanwhile, I am just thinking of how I am going to have to pay to fix it, if it's fixable, and that leads me to my second bad thing.

I just checked out our money situation. Lately we have been doing so good - saving so much money and paying all of our bills on time and being good adults. But I see that our bank account has dwindled down to practically nothing. And that is mainly because we missed a week of work when we went to Florida. I know I should just calm down and take it as it comes. I mean, Chris gets paid tomorrow and so do I and we will be right back up to where we should be, but in the meantime, I wanted to get my hair cut for my new job. We need groceries. I think we have an automatic bill payment tomorrow and what if we haven't deposited our checks yet!?

I need to take a deep breath. This is how we lived the entire first half of our marriage yet. Paycheck to paycheck, wracking up the credit card bills. If worse comes to worst, we will simply have to use those credit cards again. After all, it's only one day. Tomorrow is when we get paid. We'll be okay after tomorrow. I still don't know how often I get paid at my new job though, and I don't know if there is a waiting period for new employees and I don't know if we'll be able to make it until I get paid there and on and on and on. I want to go get my hair cut just so I can feel good about myself. But then I think I might regret spending money. We will get through this.

Tomorrow we get paid. And if they try to process a payment from our account, doesn't it take a bit to process anyways? So that gives us time? Ugh. I'm freaking out. I hate this. I need to settle down. It's only till tomorrow.

Still here

I am still alive and apologize for not writing sooner!

An update on my previous post "Oh, addicts": S was not on a bender. S skipped out of work. He called into work at 3pm, saying that he just took a day off. The short of it is that he wanted to prove to B that if B wants to dispense of him, he can do it. He didn't want to put up with B's constant criticism. He didn't want to come to work and deal with it.

On the one hand, I could completely understand. I could even agree. B is just...it's hard to even come up with a word that single handily covers all of the issues. I can see why S would not want to come in. I didn't want to either.

But. On the other hand, to go about executing your plan like that is selfish. I was worried sick. Rae and my office manager were worried as well. And to simply call in at 3pm saying you were golfing gives one relief but it also filled me with so much anger. How could he be that selfish as not to think that other people are really worried about him?

B never got ahold of him and they haven't spoken yet. I am going out of town tomorrow and Wednesday and will not be around to see what happens.

That is the short version. B also apologized to me for his rude behaviour though he continued to act the same after his apology was over.

I just wanted to let you all know that I will be back in full-fledged action on Wednesday night or Thursday.