I'm much better now. A couple of lazy days helped a lot.  I guess I have had just a bit too much during my chaotic life?  I always knew there had to be  threshold somewhere that I shouldn't cross, or my body would rebel and start to pay me back for all the years of being, well, me?  But now that that threshold has appeared, it has taken me quite off guard!

It's difficult to only be able to handle two or three things simultaneously when one is used to handling 7 - 15 things simultaneously.  But how weird is it that I used to be able to do that and think absolutely nothing about it?  Last night, as I was cooking supper, taking care of all three girls (because it is 3/4 Pint's day to be picked up after school and then DH takes her in at bedtime), watching the news on Fox news and generally cleaning the kitchen, DH asked me why we are broke and it's only 1/2 way through the month.

Well, THAT put me right over the edge LOL. Literally. And there was nothing that I was hiding or anything like that. It was just the one thing that added to the little stupid things I was doing and put me right into overload.  It's like that now.

The car, the other night, on the way back from karate lessons, I stopped at the gas station.  When I started it up and got on the highway, it sounded funny. So I slowed down, put on my flashers and looked at the Tachometer.  I was at 4500 rpm's.  I hadn't shifted out of 1st gear!!  Which, by the way, is one of the reasons I absolutely HATE automatic transmissions.  I prefer to drive a standard stick shift.  Anyway, that was it.  Right over the edge I went. Drove the 10 miles on the highway to the next exit at 20 mph with the flashers on, and then stopped at Autozone and checked the trannie fluid which didn't even register.  ***sigh***

 
It would be nice to have a DH who handled things like that. But alas and alack!! No, it is not to be.

Ran into Autozone with the girls, bought a quart of trannie fluid, and a yellow cone thingy to stick in the tranny dip stick hole to pour it through and tried to shift into reverse.  It went in. Then drove around the parking lot till I was assured that all three forward gears were shifting when they should. Then went home.

Not really a horrid thing...but it did put me quite over the edge. There I am, darkness surrounding me and with two little kids in the car, $20 left in the bank until unemployment which is a day late due to Veteran's day, 1/4 tank of gas, a cell phone which doesn't pick up a signal all the way home, and I don't know if driving around on low almost GONE transmission fluid has done something to the old PT Cruiser and I will break down on the way.  Called DH as I left the highway and went into the dead zone and said "give me 25 minutes. If I am not home, this is the route I am taking, call the Tattooed Love Puppy from Hell (our mechanic who fortunately lives on the way home) and send him out to find me.

We only have ONE car that runs. LOL.

So now, I have discovered the joys of taking a long bath at 11:30 a.m and having a bit of good red Shiraz while in the bath. So what if it's 11:30 am?  It's not like I do it everyday, and so what if I did....

I am trying to teach my body to relax a bit.  And, my mind as well.  It's a slow process I think.

Also, I am remembering what my doctor told me years and years ago.  After Nursey daughter was born, I was bemoaning the fact that I didn't return to my pre pregnant body immediately.  He said, it takes 9 months to get your body that out of shape, it will take the full 9 months to get it back in shape.

I guess it is sort of like that.  What Junkie daughter put us through since Pint was born cannot even be realistically written down. Stealing from us, guns, video cameras, digital cameras, money out of my purse every time I turned around, even taking the money out of the babies piggy banks, lying, emptying bank accounts, writing forged checks on her sister's accounts, bringing drug dealers to our home when her little sister and brother were there....it just goes on and on, drug overdoses, being dead in the hospital parking lot when she O'd, then they called a Code Blue and got her resuscitated, well you get the point.  During this, her two pregnancies, two babies born addicted, one in NICU for three weeks, husband going to prison for dealing drugs out of OUR home....

But the point is, it took 8 years for the stress to break me down to this point.  I think it is going to take the full 8 years for me to recover from what happened.  But, I am trying, and I can feel it's working slowly, day to day.

Financially, we won't probably ever recover.  We had over $20,000 in savings when she graduated from high school.  We had good credit. We had credit cards. We had two rental properties and our house was paid for.  Now we are in debt up to our ass and filing bankruptcy.  We are buying a house on what is called "land contract" which means a bank won't even LOOK at us for a mortgage.  She took everything.  And then, alot more.  Thats the bad part about having a junkie kid who was the smartest in her graduating class.  Then, we paid over and over at $125 a week plus gas for an hour drive there and an hour drive back for methadone treatment for two years, which didn't end up working cause she started using again and again.

Plus, we supported her through the whole time, supported her kids as well, which was a good thing for the kids.  Thank God they always lived with us.

Anyway.  I am trying really hard to recover. I have let some of the hatred go, some of the bitterness go.  Somewhere, deep inside, I remember the child I gave birth to, and still love that person, but she died 8 years ago.  I am slowly trying to accept the person (shell) who remains, and trying hard to find things about her to like.  It is difficult at best.

Meanwhile, we are getting by. Older now, not in the best of health and raising two little kids.  Maybe some day three, depending on how Junkie daughter continues to do with the new baby who will be 1 in February.  But we have food, and I can afford the basics. We laugh, we cry and we hug alot.  We go to church together, well, at least the girls and I do.

Life is still good, just different.