zoethe

So the car is has a coolant fluid leak (hopefully a hose) and I am without transportation until Ferrett returns (thank you, Jeff, for your offer to taxi me around). I have no Christmas stuff, I have no time to shop.

But when I came home and started doing laundry Erin came downstairs. I picked up a frisbee that was lying on my sewing table and flicked it to her, in fun. She caught it and spun it back to me, and we ended up playing Frisbee in the basement and talking.

To be totally cliche?

Priceless.

I feel like I need a jumpstart, like I've given everything I had to the job that didn't work out and now I'm just not able to get myself motivated to make another effort. I know it's only been a couple days, but it's left me feeling very unsynchronious and generally out of sorts.

On the plus side, it gave me a chance to bring Erin home for a long weekend and work with her on her magick, something she has ben wanting. Good mother-daughter bonding.

Wow, I just did it again--finding the silver lining, no matter how dark the clouds may seem. This used to actualy drive my ex crazy, that in the most gloomy parts of our lives I would look for something to be cheerful about. When he was in the depths of sorrow and depression, he didn't want anything "trivial" lightening it. Wallowing was the only solution. I am about as down as I have been in years--I have occasional sad days but I generally bounce back quickly. This time I've been having vague thoughts about death--nothing alaming, nothing proactive, just catching myself thinking dark thoughts and pushing them away. Yet, even when I am totally down like this, I'm looking for those positive things.

Okay. I'm gonna get through. It's interesting that putting words on the screen, thinking with the keyboard, so to speak, can clarify these things.

Now I just need to get myself motivated....

This is a driving day. Erin is going back to school and since I've stocked her up with groceries to get through the spring semester. It's four hours each way, and the only time I wish I had sprung for cruise control.

I really, really need the day off.

Helping Jeff through all of this has been an emotional rollercoaster, worse than my own divorce in many ways. There, I felt at least in control of my own responses (and there was always the consolation fuck that could be administered to blunt the damage [I typed "soften the blows," but that was just WAY wrong {g}]). Here, I am faced with two very emotional people who seriously lack self-awareness, and I'm trying to help them stay balanced for the sake of four small children. I'm spending my time talking them off the cliff of utter implosion.

It's wearing.

Pile onto that the 55-60 hour workweeks in an absolute pressure cooker and the fact that the boss is on a tirade/rampage because she's going to be required to actually obey the Labor Laws and thereby get only 40 hours a week out of most the employees (not me; I'll actually be named a Senior Paralegal and be considered part of the supervisory staff and therefore still exempt from such rules). But she's been looking for someone to blame besides herself and there have been several times the actual management has had to talk her out of firing perfectly competent people for minor errors or "insubordination" in the last couple weeks, so it's eggshell-walking over there.

I'm surrounded with so much dysfunctionality that it makes my own life seem completely calm and sane.

I REALLY need a day off.

So, I'm doing what I always do--lemons=lemonade. I have a nice drive with my daughter and then time inside my own head coming back. Spring is creeping up on us, and it's a beautiful day for a drive, and I'll have all the solitude I could desire. This will be good.

I'm ready now. Off I go.

Goofy morning, swapping anecdotes with three 15-year-old girls as they shower and change and get ready for their day of freedom.

They are here from their all-girls boarding school. They are off to meet boys. I am driving them to this date.

It is an odd thing to be the mother of someone who has reached the age of sexual blossoming, odder still to be considered the "cool mom." My daughter keeps few secrets from me, and for this I am grateful. Her appreciation of her own sexuality is healthy, and I encourage it.

But there is that part of me that worries. Not because she is likely to end up in the back of a car, but that she will do it in a stupid way that has life-shattering consequences.

Being the source of good advice isn't easy, even when 90% of your message is one they don't mind hearing. There's still the, don't ride with a drunk, don't let the moment carry you away if there's no "love glove" available.

At least she talks to me.