Terrifying, Troubling, Tumultuous, Ticked-off Times ... Tuesday

Tummy ache and Trips:

Charlies vet called after her labs had come back yesterday. She has giardia.

G.I.A.R.D.I.A

Oh, and she can give it to us. Probably more so the guy that lets her lick him on the face than me ... but still ...

So we took a trip to her vet this morning to pick up antibiotics for her. Hooray! Getting pills in Charlie for 10 days in a row! TWO pills - one every 12 hours. Fun times ahead.

Two Words:

PEANUT BUTTER

The vets assistant suggested it, so I dutifully crushed the pill and put it a much-too-big scoop of peanut butter then sat there for 10 minutes while Charlie slurped it all up out of a little cup. Oddly, she stared at me the whole time with this baffled look ... why she had been given this wonderful snack? She looked a little nervous too ...


Ticked-off:

Jessie moved to another home on campus and some of her stuff didn't make it with her. Do I care? Not really ... except for ONE THING. The ONLY THING over there I care about - her princess quilt. And it is no where to be found. I am more than annoyed since my good friend Linda lovingly put it together and quilted it. I am 'fit to be tied' and sputtering mad and feeling rather helpless.


Terrifying, Troubling, Tumultuous Times (and Tunes) Ahead:

You might have noticed that I have been a wee bit off lately … more antsy, unsettled than even my usual crazy self. I had a meeting yesterday and today I went to tour a home for Jessie.

A group home – where the disabled live together with a staff and travel daily to a day habitation environment to learn life skills and to socialize. Sounds like where she is, right?

Wrong. It is pretty little house, with a pretty little bedroom and a pretty little bathroom. Problem is?

Not my house.

I don’t know why having Jessie live in a pretty little house, in a pretty little bedroom with a pretty little bathroom bothers me more than her living in more of an institution environment (I am assuming it is a better environment – or I would not be doing this), but it brings home the fact so VIVIDLY that SHE DOES NOT LIVE AT HOME.

And I feel so guilty about that.

These days she has a 24 hour aide, a staff, a nurse, doctors, dentists, drivers, etc … which she will still have at the group home – that does not change – and somewhere in my logical brain I know that I was all that for 20 years and that it was time for her to spread her wings and move on, make friends, learn new things …

and for me to let go …

So why all the guilt?

Not a clue.

But the guilt won’t go away and I am headed for trouble. A huge crash landing. It feels big, bad and ugly. I am at a loss – it is like I am in a car, and it is speeding along – and I am slowly losing control … I know a crash is inevitable and all I can do is try and ride it out …

and survive …

Two sentences from songs go through my head daily … over and over and over, OK and I YouTube them since they sort of haunt me:

From Glee’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (I love this version, the harmony, weirdly the ukulele and guitar and just two voices work for me) when the words “where troubles melt like lemon drops” is sung in beautiful harmony – EVERY TIME I get a huge yearning for life to be that easy … but the song always ends and I am back to reality and a world where my troubles don’t go away that easily.



So on to the other song: Alpha Rev’s “Phoenix Burn” – there are many lines in this song that I relate to (basically since the singer is crashing and burning “I need to find a way of letting it go …When everything falls apart”) but at the beginning he sings: “I need a peace with understanding … Trying to find a softer landing” – and every time I hear that I want so bad to figure out how to crash and burn – but in a way that won’t send me off the deep end. I have yet to learn how to find that softer landing …



But, even with me escaping to Phoenix to avoid all this (I don’t believe that it was a coincidence that our planning meeting was yesterday to get this all in place and I book a flight to … well, hell – anywhere but here – for 10 days the same day) Jessie will move into that pretty little house, with that pretty little bedroom and pretty little bathroom … and it still won’t be my house.





I will let you know if I figure it out.