Sometimes life hands you options, sometimes it hands you ONE option. This is one of those one option situation. I cannot continue to pay over $1k a month to keep us all insured, the job market in Myrtle Beach doesn’t make it at all possible to stay here. So even though I WANT to stay here until the kids are out of school, I needed to find an opportunity where I could provide for us without having to live every moment of my life filled with dread that my house of cards would fall with any passing breeze. To that end I’ve found a position that is going to require us to move. Move before me or the kids want to, before I’m ready to do all the things that come with dealing with your spouse’s belongings after they pass, before I’m ready to leave the good memories behind me, before I WANT to go. This means I have to do all those things while it is breaking my heart to do so in so many ways it is nearly paralyzed with fear and adding more sadness to one that already feels like it’s killing me. This has left me unconsolable. I so much wish Ken were here to hold me and reassure me that everything’s going to be ok. Of course, if he WERE here, I wouldn’t have to make the decisions I’ve made, or make miracles happen in 5 weeks time…but if we did have to do that, I would find comfort in doing it together…we could make things happen when we needed to.

I know I need to suck it up and get things done…I just don’t WANT to. Therein lies the difference between being the adult and being a kid. Kids are so often motivated by what they want opposed to their needs. As a parent, you want to give your kids everything they want that isn’t harmful to them. But sometimes you just can’t, no matter how much it tears you apart. Staying here, in our situation, would be harmful to my ability to provide for us. My only solace is in knowing that someday when they have kids and are faced with life’s hard decisions to do things you need, instead of satiating wants, they’ll understand why decisions have to be made that aren’t always palatable. So I’m scared, I’m alone before I should be, I pray for the strength to do all that needs done, to get it done timely, for speed bumps to be surmountable and for my heart not die in the process.

And now for the warning… my husband died after a car accident…after we’d had an arguement of epic proportions…but, there weren’t any traumatic injuries resulting from the accident and toxicology tests had to be done. His heart had been racing for a few days so he’d gone to the doctor that day and gotten a prescription for Xanax when they couldn’t find any issues with his heart. When the reports came back this week…it showed that he had only the meds he was supposed to have, at the levels they were supposed to be at, in his system. The coroner and pathologist determined that Ken had End Stage Liver Disease. When you are in End Stage Liver Disease, your liver can’t filter out the toxins that your body naturally needs to expel, meds will affect you and poisons resulting from them stay in your system, your body eventually starts to poison your other organs including your brain which can cause you to have mood swings and display erratic behavior… Of course, they asked me if he drank heavily, he didn’t. He just finished a bottle of Crown Royal I gave him for Christmas over 5 years ago. Then came the next question…”Did he take a lot of acetominiphen or ibuprofen?” That’s when the light went on, Ken had a bottle of Extra Strength Excedrin in his computer bag, his office, his truck, the kitchen, our bathroom and on our headboard. He took them whenever he felt the slightest headache or felt any kind of ache. The warning is right there on the labels that it can cause liver disease. I never gave any thought to how much he took, but looking back, all I can visualize and hear in my mind is the rattle of the bottle, seeing me handing them to him, remembering how often I did see him take it, knowing that he took a lot of it that I didn’t see. Ken never went to the Dr. for anything. He’d only gone on Monday because the heart racing wouldn’t stop. I can count on one hand the number of times he went to the Dr. in the last 10 years because he wasn’t feeling well…so all through the last six months or so of his life his body has been tearing itself apart before our eyes, disguised…sadly I’m now seeing things and understanding some whys that I was oblivious to before. My warning is this…if you are, like me, one of those people that take 4 Advils when you have a headache, don’t. If you find yourself taking Tylenol or Excedrin all the time, don’t. It CAN kill you. My other warning is, don’t ever let yourself be so mad at people you love that you part with them angry, saying things you know in your heart you don’t really mean…and if someone you love starts to behave oddly, and it doesn’t resolve itself quickly, don’t assume that it’s because they are just changing…it’s far better to get them to go the Dr. and get checked out, than to lose them.

Yes, there ARE blessings to be found in even the most dire moments of our lives. For me, those blessings come in the form of my children, in whom I see an unbelieveable strength and kindness as they help me, help us, try to move forward with life, as we MUST do. Simple gifts, like coming home to them, giving the house a good cleaning up without being asked to do so, or giving me a hug when I look like I need one, to expressing love more often and compassion. My other blessing of light in this darkness is the huge number of friends, both friends I know in real life and whom I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting, yet. I have been overwhelmed by the support and kindness of so many people who have no motive to help me as a friend, just BEING my friends and lending an ear, or words of encouragement or giving me something to do so that I don’t feel so dreadfully alone as I do at times. These things and people, give me hope that it’s ok to live, it’s ok to laugh, it’s ok to look towards the future, albeit a different future than the one I had planned.

These blessings are a gift…they comfort and assure me that though I am navigating a dark and scary path…that my kids and I are not walking it alone. For that, I thank you.

And so the next chapter of our lives begin… the one where we find the paths to happiness again.

I never write about my childhood much. Mostly because it sucked. I had a mom with a severe mental illness that prevented her from being a nurturing mother, but instead an abusive monster. I feared her. I was shamed by her. The experience left me adamant that I wouldn’t ever have children, just on the off chance that I would be cursed with her illness and mostly, because I had no confidence that I would be any good at being a mother.

As with a lot of plans, things don’t always go as you intend. So I did have a child, and I have never known anything that resembles the love a parent has for a child. I hoped and prayed that I wouldn’t be the mother I had. I haven’t been.

Yet I find myself in a place I don’t understand. Ashlyn ran away tonight. Because I hold her accountable for her actions, or inactions and I refuse to bend to her will. To me, a good mother, will protect her child from harm, even if that means protecting them from themselves.

She has found herself safe harbor from me and my requirement that she be responsible and accountable for her actions in the home of her boyfriend’s mother. I suppose at least, I should be thankful she’s not out roaming the streets. I’m not finding myself able to be thankful that this woman I’ve never met thinks she knows more about what’s best for my daughter than I do. I think she’s got some balls to interfere in my family like this. But, Ashlyn’s 18, so there’s nothing I can do about it except give Ashlyn what she wants, to let her fly on her own without the interference of mom, but also without the safety net of mom.

Every action, has a reaction. I know Ashlyn hasn’t thought this through, but what she did today cannot be undone. I will never see her the way I did before nor will she see me the same. It is changed, irreversibly. I am changed. I have had two failed marriages. I have been fired from a job I loved. I failed to complete college. I have never felt as defeated as I do right now.

I’ve always been big on having a plan. I have no plan now and I feel like my path is so unclear. I fear for Ashlyn, because I know what she doesn’t know about life and how you can’t just do whatever. This is not my plan. Instead of looking forward to her graduation in 4 weeks, I now dread it. I do not know if she will get there and as of now, I have no plan to be there if she does. I cannot condone or support her actions.

Despite my good intentions, I have failed.

Here’s the deal…

A) If your kid screams to high heaven and you can’t calm them within a couple minutes…get a freaking to go box and maybe don’t keep your toddler out past what should be their bedtime.

B) If you have so little room at the dinner table in a restaurant that at least 2-3 kids (seriously, this happened) HAVE to stand at the end of the table, then run around (literally) the restaurant carting food around….Either go to another restaurant where they can accomodate you…or EAT AT HOME!

While you may think your kid’s banshee-like displays of poor behavior are cute or whatever…I don’t.

I raised Ashlyn such that she only threw one hissy fit in her lifetime in public… she was 3 years old. We were at the Houston Galleria and she wanted ice cream from Marble Slab. I agreed, but knowing she wouldn’t eat the whole thing and I’d end up with it, I told her no sprinkles this time. She threw the mother of all screaming fits.. “I WANT SPRINKLES… WAAAAAAAH!” I got the ice cream without the sprinkles….tossed her over my shoulder like a sack of taters…and took her immediately to the car…and ate the whole ice cream in front of her. Yes, I’m mean as a snake…. but you know what?

She NEVER threw a fit again…EVER.

The kids also started school this week. So we’ve been adjusting our schedules and getting used to waking up on time to get five of us out the door and to our respective destinations. So far, so good.

I’ve also been playing WoW, but I am NOT addicted to WoW as someone seems to think. I just enjoy it, I could quit any time. I just choose not to.

Our first recording of our joint podcast led Yoshi to decide that we needed to have 2 podcasts, one where he and I co-host and interview fellow bloggers about themselves and their blogs. Jenny Ryan has graciously agreed to be our first victim interviewee. I just have to get off my butt out of Azeroth long enough to help Yoshi prepare some good questions for her. If you’d like to be interviewed by Yoshi and I, drop either of us an email, we’d love to hear from you!

We’re also going to go with our other podcast idea which is a mass hodgepodge of general discussions about topics of the day, news, movies, games, vacuum boobs, what Britney Spears isn’t wearing, etc…

So some pretty exciting stuff going on behind the scenes here! I’ll keep you posted!

Oh, and the cats are fine but OC seems to be a little more verbal and needy now that people aren’t around all day again.