Mom Died on This Day One Year Ago

     This was the day one year ago that I got word of my mother's death. I am glad I went to see her 3 times during her last illness. She was in Florida and I was in NJ working full time. We knew it was serious but we thought she would live longer than she did. She had end stage heart disease.

  It seems as though all of the sudden, we are so much more alone. We always lived near and were involved with our families. Although my parents wintered in Florida, they spent the rest of the year within walking distance of us. My husband's parents lived right next to us as did his sister. My mother died and both of my in-laws died in the last two years. My sister- in - law has her house for sale and spends the winter in Arizona. She had also lived on the same block.

Actually, I am relieved that this is the end of the day on Feb 26th. Ever since I got the hospice card at the beginning of the month marking this milestone in my life I have been uneasy about this day.

I will start over again tomorrow and try to pull myself up. Today I gave in to the wallowing. I remember my mother saying.....let the dead bury the dead and move on with your life. Tomorrow I will try.


  

And So It Goes

Well, it took me about three days to get back to normal after my last visit with Beth.


 Apparently she was a little shook up by the entire affair as she has texted various times to apologize and to say she is working on getting into an outpatient program. On the other hand she is still not willing to attend AA or NA meetings unless they are part of the outpatient program and at the same time. She will not waste any of her other time on that. By the way, one of her friends has promised to buy her a car.

DH says that she is stringing me along by making statements that she knows are not true to give me hope. That sounds about right to me.

Anyhow, we are painting the family room and kitchen so we are living in a huge mess. My classes are doing well. The students are learning a lot and I enjoy being with them. It is my great fortune to have a professional interest which is also a hobby and gives me a little extra spending money.

 My youngest is thinking about applying to graduate school in Tampa. My husband is talking about retirement. And so it goes, life goes on.

Cried Too Many Tears

I took Beth to social services on Friday. We had a confrontation over the same old things but it set me into a crying jag that lasted for most of the weekend. I thought I was past that kind of behavior but I guess you might call it a codependent relapse.

For some strange reason I thought that she could just act normal for an hour or so but that was not to be. She got into my car with a young man in tow. He was very polite had a handsome face, multiple tatoos and blown off front teeth. So many crack addicts look that way but not usually polite in my experience.  Beth smelled bad and started needling me about how she needs a car about three minutes into the encounter.

At some point, after being bossed around and then having them tell me how they were not using drugs I just lost it. I said that the constricted pupils, bad smells and the terrible rush to be left off in a drug zone were pretty good clues and that I resented being treated like a stupid idiot. I am not 10 minutes but more like 10 years into this hell hole of a life and I am not good at pretending I do not see what I see. I told Beth that she had ruined my life. Then I cried to the point that I should not have been driving and then the guilt set in. I told her the only thing more painful than seeing her this way would be to have her dead. She said but dead would only hurt for a little while. I said, and that is where you are wrong. My whole life is ruined one way or the other unless you stop.

I know that I am supposed to rise above this and that many times I have but this weekend I could not.

Via e mail I found out that Beth has been talking to the married son of one of my best friends. He wrote to tell me that she seems clean but is sad as she does not have a car or money. She is manipulating him and he is getting sucked in. He used to care for her back when she was beautiful and accomplished. I had to tell him  the truth which deeply humiliated me. Why am I humiliated by her disease or her choices? What is he doing trying to rescue her and tell me what she needs when he has not seen her in over 6 years?

It is also very near the anniversary of my Mother's death. My grief has increased this month instead of decreasing. Maybe that is just an anniversary thing.

On Saturday Beth texted me that she would do a 90 day outpatient program but she is just talking not doing anything at this point.

I think that next time she needs to go somewhere I will send a cab or have her take the senior and disabled bus though she refuses. Sorry to be such a downer. So much for my so called strength.

Ripped Off By Dollar Rent A Car of Tuscon

    The car was advertised at 140 per week. We added an additional driver and two more days. The two additional days were only 47 dollars.  My credit card bill just came in with the total charges for the rental car at 1029.00.

My husband and I were completely exhausted and in pain when we got off the flight. Some how we agreed to all of these charges. That is what the customer service woman said but it still amazes me. There were items on that bill that I never would have agreed to like road side safety. I have AAA so why would I?

Lesson learned just never do this stuff when you are tired and then check over and over again. I am sure that I bear some responsibility here but I am also sure that all was not made perfectly clear. Yikes!

Addict Wants A Vacation

     Beth left a message on my cell phone today. She heard I was going to go to Florida and wanted me to know that she would sure like to come with me. She even offered to pay her own way.

     My response was, " Someday we will travel together when you get  a little more clean time.  I would love, love, love to travel together. The first step would be for you to provide twice weekly drug tests to document your progress."  There was no response from her which I take as positive as she has an amazing capacity for negative persistence.

     As far as I know, she is still using crack. There is some possibility that she is not using heroine. I found her message quite disturbing. After giving it some thought, I think my response set boundaries without being cruel. I answered her via text which seems to deflect some of the begging and pleading which tend to occur on a phone call.

Shifting My Focus to Recovery

     Today was as pleasant as could be given there is an addict in our family although not living in our house. I spent the morning huggle buggling with my husband of 30 years. It was soooo cozy under those covers and so brisk upstairs that we lolled around in bed till almost 10. Then my best friend came to pick me up to do our 3 mile Sunday morning walk around the inside of the mall.

     I was telling her about the dinner that I enjoyed on Friday night with a girfriend from my old school district. Much to my surprise Flo and I talked for about 2 hours during dinner and before our movie mostly about her work situation. It was fun catching up with her and it did not occur to me right away that I did not learn a thing about my old responsibilities in that district. Flo did not tell me a thing about what has happened and who has taken charge of my numerous responsibilities. She did not tell me because I did not ask. I did not ask because I did not care. Wow, I am very grateful for that. How soon we forget the work world!

After the walk in the mall my husband and I were looking for something to do. We decided to go to a free jazz concert at our local community college. The musicians and vocalists were wonderful. None of them were paid but they love to play together. They practiced for over a year and then put on a free show. That is what community is all about.

Our expectations were not high but they were greately exceeded. Every single musician was proficient and a number of the soloists just blew us away. After that, we came home. I made a simple dinner of boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce, tossed salad and a tortellini soup. So that was a concert and a pretty good dinner with no cash put out today!

The rest of the evening was spent watching the superbowl with my youngest daughter, her boyfriend, and my husband and son. It was a good day and a good weekend.

Beth called me 3 times during the last week. I was not able to pick up the phone immediately but I called her back and texted her back to which she did not reply. You know the old phone tag thing. She talked to my husband once and told him something about a check which he just referred her to me. It is tempting to worry about her. OMG if I checked on her every time I got worried that is all that I would do. She made the calls so she was ok at those times and did not indicate any emergency. Notice how I still must justify living my own life to myself.

A therapist I once saw told me that healing from the trauma of her addiction would be directly proportional to how well I could shift the focus of my attention to something else. That really shocked me. I remember saying "IS THAT ALL THERE IS TO IT?" I thought that there would be some kind of deep meaning or majic involved in working through my issues. Well, don't think that it was easy because it is now about 5 years after talking with that therapist and I am just now starting to do what she said. LOL  When you think about it, maybe shifting their attention to something else is also what the addicts have to do to stay clean. They have to keep substituting other actions, activities, prayers, meetings etc. for their addiction. They have to learn how to enjoy other things in life. Hmmmm, the addicts are addicted to their drugs so they have to always resist the pull. We get pulled toward an obsession with them which we also have to move beyond.

Birthday Lunch hosted by The Son

     We just got back from celebrating my husband's birthday. He asked our son to take him to his favorite seafood restaurant. DH drove hubby, myself and my youngest daughter down by the Greater Egg Harbor Bay. We sat by a big fireplace at a wooden table that was dimly lit with a ship's lantern.

     All of the food was fresh and just wonderful but the best part was just being together as a happy family. We used to spend most weekends together on a boat in this area when the kids were little before the toubles began. They had a lot of good memories from thier childhoods which they shared. We laughed and talked the whole time.

    At the end of the meal, I pulled out my wallet to pay for myself and my daughter who had already taken Daddy to lunch on another day. My son insisted that he would pay for the entire bill and he did.
At lunch he told us about his serious attempts to look for a full time job. He currently works full time hours but is only considered seasonal so he does not get benefits.  He also told me that he realizes that he must protect himself from the big medical expenses that will come his way on his next birthday when he will no longer be on my insurance. Today it seemed like he is finally maturing. I remembered how sweet it is to be a normal family. We had a great time. Addiction only came up  once when we all chimed in at once......'let's change that subject right now" and then proceeded to focus our attention on the good times.