trying

So very weird. So much of what I am going through right now seems to trigger flashbacks to when my daughter was using actively.

My nights are filled with weird dreams of betrayal by differing members of my family. The dreams are somewhat based in reality, and so are quite disturbing.

We just bought a car a few months ago, which is a whopping $540 a month, which is putting a strain financially, but then we needed a car so what can you do?  Thanks to Calamity, our credit STILL sucks (2 years left till everything is off the old credit record).  Our son has willingly become unemployed and therefore is NOT making his student loan payments, which we then had to take over because my In-Laws house is on the line as they co-signed them (they are in their 70's). That's another $400 a month. He doesn't seem to really care. Additionally, his older sister Nursey had the cell phone bill in HER name and she is trying to purchase a home. So, to keep the unpaid and whopping Verizon bill off her credit record, we had to add that to the list of things we shouldn't be paying, but are. Another $100 a month there. Between the car and the son, that's a whopping $1140 a month. A third of our income.

What's left? enough to barely pay the bills, (mortgage, electric, natural gas, water, garbage, cable, cell phone bill, car and home insurance). Barely.

Meanwhile, Pint who is going through a rough age and has unfortunately spent LOTS of time with Calamity (remember the bad bad ice/snow storms a few weeks ago). Well, because Calamity is STILL driving over 2 hours to the methadone clinic and we leave fairly close to the major highway, she spent like 3 days at our home. Her and K, the 6 year old. So that she could get to methadone clinic easier in the snow.

And...of course, most of the time was spent with Pint, who has a queen sized bed in her room. So they could sleep together. God only knows what the conversations were. Pint has been very hostile to me since then. Kind of makes ya wonder.

Here is the hard part. Calamity has to take K (1/4 Pint) to clinic with her unless she leaves her here. So, it's logical in bad weather to have them both stay. I certainly do NOT want my granddaughter (1. going to a methadone clinic at all) and 2. being in a car at 5 a.m. before the roads are even salted and plowed and driving 115 miles.

So yes, I could say NO, but then, God forbid if something happens. Guess who would be blamed? Me. in a nutshell.

Sometimes, I feel as though choice has been taken away. And that is the reasons for the flashbacks.

As parents of an active addict, we lose our choice. And our control.  And, as parents of a non active addict, we sometimes have to make decisions which make us uncomfortable and backed into a corner. That's where I am.

It is rather taking the  joy out of the season. I hate that. Not that I am a Christmas nutso. I never have really been. I don't for the most part, decorate. I don't do alot of cooking. Thanksgiving has always been my Holiday.

I am hiding the stupid Elf on the Shelf (I would personally like to surround the inventors of that with a host, no, a HORDE of rabid pre-schoolers, and they have to hide about a thousand of those damn Elf's every night...)

The tree is up. Today is cookie making day. After an unseasonable three day spring weather hiatus, we are decently back to freezing temperatures!! Snow (or at least a chance of snow) is predicted for the next 3 days. Hopefully, there will be snow on the ground come Wednesday!

Control freak that I am, it just is WRONG to have temps in the high 60's 5 days before Christmas!! I mean, when I lived in Florida, when I lived in Hawaii, no one expected snow so it was a bit of alright. But in NE Ohio, where winter is WINTER, well, there is a 'natural order of things in the universe' which the universe just simply should NOT mess with. Okay?

It's quiet right now. Coffee. Kidlets still sleeping. It's holiday from school time so I am not giving them their ADHD meds intentionally. The ones they are on do not have withdrawals. I am trying to see if they nasty, snarky attitudes I have been presented with lately have a correlation between the meds and the behavior.  Or, is it something else?

I read recently Annette's blog http://journeyofrecoverysearchforserenity.blogspot.com/ and felt so good for her to have a NORMAL day, doing NORMAL things for the Holiday in the midst of the usual chaos we POA's go through.

I was a bit jealous!! LOL. But in a good way.

Also concerned because another of our group is having to take a newborn grandchild. Sigh. When we started, I was the only one who was doing the unthinkable and attempting the impossible, i.e. raising the children of my addict daughter. Now the close club has grown, and that is a very sad thing.  Most of us are now (at this point) FB friends and have each other's cell #'s. So that helps.

It does feel rather like I am emotionally vomiting all over this blog. Sorry. My mind is a jumble of things. Son doesn't really speak to us because he owes me over $3,000 and deep down, he knows how hard he has made it.  Son also caused a good bit of problems for us by running his mouth recently. This is a VERY small town. And so, the gossip got around (none of it true) and although I could have made the rounds of my few friends and proved everything wrong, I didn't feel that I should have to open our finances to anyone to prove the gossip wrong. So, I lost all my friends. In retrospect, after knowing me for over 10 years, none of them should have believed a word of it. But, they apparently did. So I feel a bit on the abandoned side there.

Calamity is complaining all the time she has no money. she has repeatedly disappointed the girls by promising things to them and then not being able to  produce. She called to see if she could borrow some money. While I was laughing hysterically talking to her, I suggested that she GET OFF METHADONE and she would have $1200 in just 3 weeks?  She said that wasn't an option. WOW. So you are complaining to me that you don't have money to buy 1/8 Pint and Christmas presents, but you spend $150 a week for the clinic and $250 a week for the gas to drive 2 hours each way, 7 days a week?  Since she got KICKED OUT of the methadone clinic that the medical card was paying for because she popped dirty AGAIN after the rehab, she now has to travel OUT OF STATE to a new methadone clinic which the medical card does NOT cover, and so, she DOES NOT GET REIMBURSED FOR THE MILEAGE. That, as you all know, was her PRIMARY source of income. (to the tune of $1200 a month). Sucks to be her yah?

Um. hellloooooo. Junkie thinking. Junkie behavior.

I did manage to get the girls presents. Not a lot.  But enough. We have food. Not alot. But enough. There is a half tank of gas. Not alot. But enough. We have been through worse. We will survive, because HEY! That's what we do!!

Biggest problem now? 1/2 Pint still believes. In 7th grade. At age 11. How do I let her down gently?

I am thinking just give her her presents Christmas morning, and they will all be from Meemaw and Pappy? and leave it go at that. Any ideas?

Love and Peace. A few prayers wouldn't hurt either.