The weather here in NH has been nutty for the past twenty-four hours or so. It's been raining for a few days, but last night the wind became so strong it blew the screen off the second story window to my Mother's bedroom. A tree was felled in the yard across the road, and we lost electricity around eleven.
Luckily we had a fire going which created enough light to see by. We were able to gather candles and flashlights, enough for each of us to get to our rooms. And luckily the night was more or less at an end by the time the lights went out. Hours had gone by since we cleaned up from dinner. And because we live very near by the Exeter Hospital, our electricity was restored by about two a.m.; but the rest of the town was dark still when I began my drive to the clinic at six-thirty this morning. It was a traffic disaster because none of the traffic lights were working, people were charging intersections all at once, yielding to no one. And even worse, the gas stations were out of commission. And I was on empty. I thought that I could make it a few exits down to the next area with a gas station, but as I approached I realized that they too had no lights, and their pumps were also down. I was a bit worried at this point. It wasn't until I made it the entire forty miles to Manchester that I was able to find an open gas station; I putted in on fumes, just barely. It could have been a bad scene since I was alone and I still don't have my license back. If I had run out of gas on the side of the highway and a State Police Officer had driven up upon me, I would have had problems for sure. But luck was on my side, as usual.
I should have my license back soon though. My Mom has been helping me out so much, I feel absurdly indebted to her right now. I try to do as much around the house as far as cooking, cleaning, and various other chores and errands to make up for a small chunk of what she has given to me. Of course, as children, we can never really fully repay our parents for all that they have given us. In essence, we owe them a life, which is priceless. But just because I'll never catch up doesn't mean I can give up trying. It's important for me to show my gratitude as often and genuinely as possible. I think my Mom appreciates how much I am truly grateful for what she does for me. Because my siblings are often short in the gratitude department, I think it means all that much more for me to show thankfulness since she doesn't get it often enough.
But I still feel guilty and pathetic for having to accept her generosity to begin with. I know that for me to move ahead, I need to clear my blemished past. I need a license to do anything. I can't get a job without a license, and I can't pay my fines without a job. So I'm stuck in this vicious cycle. So I know that without accepting her help, I may never be able to help myself enough to ever repay her. So the fact that she paid off my NH fines is AMAZING! And she has promised to help me take care of the other states as she is able.
Even though in some ways I have reverted, like by moving back in with my Mom, and not having a job, accepting money to live from Mikey and my family, I still feel as if overall I am moving ahead. Not having the closest relationship with my family, harboring resentments, was blocking me from being happy and healthy. Working as hard and as long hours as I was just to scrounge by was causing such high levels of stress that it was making me physically ill. I was not happy being so isolated from my family, hours away with no license. If anything went wrong we were basically on our own. We were at least a half an hour from any of the few friends we had out there. If our car broke down, if we needed to borrow ten dollars for gas, if we needed someone to go to the doctors with us, it was always an ordeal. Now we have a support system in my family. They can be annoying, they can be lazy and emotionally volatile. But they will make sure that someone drives me to the clinic every day, no matter what. There is always someone there to talk to or ask a favor of, and it's a really satisfying feeling.
I'm beginning to feel as if I'm regaining a physical and emotional balance that I have not had for quite some time. My body is readjusting itself to not have to deal with as much stress and anxiety ALL THE TIME. I can finally relax, I don't feel like I'm fighting just to keep my head above water anymore. I don't have to take care of everything all by myself, I know my Mom will make sure we have food and electricity, whether we pay her or not, those things will be there. That's an amazing luxury that I have not had for over ten years. When my Mom doesn't see me struggling right in front of her, day in and day out, it's easy to think that we're doing fine. Especially since I won't tell her we're not unless something horrible has happened. So all this time, my brothers and sister have been benefitting from my Mom's generosity and I've been trying to go it alone. I should have accepted her help when I was younger and maybe I wouldn't be here now, in this humbling situation, at thirty-one years old. But here I am, Nellie the Late Bloomer (has anyone ever read the children's book, 'Leo the Late Bloomer? It's awesome.), but at least I feel as if I might actually be blooming, finally.
Anyway, here I go on and on, yap yapping about myself, as usual. I am, generally, my favorite topic. Aren't all Bloggers a little self-centered? We have to be to think we're interesting enough to publicly present our thoughts. Who are we to think anyone cares?
It's Mikey's Birthday today. He's thirty-two. He's been wanting to go to the casino in CT for his B-day for a while now. But, in typical Mikey and Nellie fashion, we didn't do our planning ahead of time and now we have to go a week after the original date of his actual birthday. It's also my brother Sam's birthday on March first, so we thought, since Sam and Mikey get along so well, that we would invite Sam along. He got wicked excited about it and then we realized that you have to be twenty-one to go to the CT casinos, and he's just turning twenty. So we found a place in upstate NY, called Turning Stone, and you only have to eighteen for that one. But it's, like, five hours away from us. And I didn't think, because I AM an idiot, about getting my methadone. Because we want to get a hotel room and stay for the weekend, so I'll need to set up host dosing somewhere. But since I just transferred clinics I'm not sure how cool they are about setting up guest dosing at another clinic. I imagine they'll be cool enough about it but since they have so many patients I don't think they'll be up for rushing the paperwork through on my account, and due to my own poor planning. So we're setting it up for next week. Hopefully it will be fun. I'm not really big into gambling, but I'll keep myself busy while they do guy stuff. That's kind of why I want to make it a group trip, so Mikey really enjoys himself and can play the games he wants to play.
But for tonight we're just making the dinner of his choice and this raspberry cream layer cake. Then he's getting some money to go toward the casino trip. And I think my brother's getting a laptop, thanks to me. My Mom was all talking about getting him a drum. And I was like, "Mom, Sam doesn't even know how to drum. And I've really never even heard him talk about wanting to learn". And she replied something along the lines of "Well, maybe he'll get into it, if I get him one. It will give him something to do". So I suggested a new laptop might be better because he spends all his time on the computer making videos and stuff. And he's been bitching, like, every day about how old, slow, and crappy his computer is. So, now, I believe that is what he's getting. I love him, but he's a spoiled little brat for sure. But at least I won't have to let him use mine anymore. Thankfully, because I spent, like, fifteen minutes this morning wiping the goop spots off the screen. I don't know how they manage to destroy things as quickly as they do, and with so little contact. It's a skill really.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a good day ahead of them. Everyone likes Friday's, right? It's the end of the week for a lot of people. It's almost March, almost Spring. Happy Friday.
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