Catching Up…a bit anyway

I brought my laptop to Kamloops with me last Thursday hoping that the wireless internet signal would still be available at my mom’s house from the neighbors. It wasn’t there anymore. I had visions of writing diary entries while sipping coffee on my mom’s deck each morning. A few problems with that vision though…a) no internet (could have used Word I now realize and pasted in later), b) the weather kind of sucked and it was far too cold to be doing any deck sitting morning or otherwise and c) uh…I didn’t get out of bed before noon the 4 days I was there. Oh well…

I had a relaxing visit with my mom – it was a nice change since the past few in recent memory sucked goat balls. Rob didn’t come with me this time and while I know he’s not the “cause” of the bad visits with my mom, not having him there made a huge difference – it’s really hard to balance being a wife and a daughter (to a needy mother) at the same time. So it was nice to only have one hat to wear for the weekend there. I was a bit worried before I went that the trip was going to suck. I called her Wednesday night (after 3 tries evenings previous without getting a hold of her) – when she picked up I knew something was wrong. Alarm bells were screaming in my head as we got the “how’s the weather” and “what did you have for dinner” out of the way. She was upset that my brother didn’t call her on Easter Sunday. To compound this was the fact that he had been in Disneyland the week before and hadn’t called to day they got home or anything like that. Also, the little note that my mom wrote in his birthday card about enough being enough with this rift between them and how she would like more time with the grandkids and an invite to Disneyland would have been nice. So, no phone call on Easter Sunday had her believing that he was avoiding her. My trip there was almost cancelled because I wasn’t going to put myself in that situation – I feel that pain when I’m around her and even though I’m not supposed to be involved in this…conversations like these get me heavily involved. Turns out, once I got to Kamloops Thursday, that my brother had called – they didn’t get back to Medicine Hat until Monday and he waited until Thursday to call because it was my mom & dad’s anniversary. I’d like to think that my mom and I would have had a good weekend together even if my brother hadn’t called and eased my mom’s mind, but I’m not sure that would have been the case. Thank the Lord it worked out the way it did…I’m not sure I could have taken another weekend like this in the past year and a half since my sister-in-law disrespected my mom in her own home.

We had a nice dinner Thursday night – lamb chops, Greek salad – shared 2 bottles of red over chatting for 4 hours after dinner at the table. I was doing the dishes at midnight that night. I slept in Friday and got up around 11:30am. My mom made breakfast while I got ready and we went downtown – she had to work at the CCS office and I had a nail appt. My nails went quicker than I thought, so when I went to the CCS office to see my mom I decided to get a pedi at the Esthetics school right across from the office. For $30 it was fantastic! It took a long time, but I had time to kill and the girl that did my toes is well into her schooling, so it wasn’t her first pedicure (like the other girl that was working). After my pedi and mom’s shift was done we went home for a beer and some of my fave salsa and chips. OMG I love that stuff! It’s delish. After a beer (or 2!) we had a nap and got up to get ready to go out for dinner. Unfortunately the place we were going to was closed for staff holidays, so we ended up at Earls. We still had a really nice dinner and I got my seafood craving fixed with the scallops and prawns in my pasta. More good wine with dinner and even more when we got home. We ordered “Rachel Getting Married” on PPV. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be, but it killed a few hours and another bottle of wine! My mom golfed Saturday morning, so I slept in again. I had a totally lazy day – watching Super Channel movies in my PJ’s. We bbq’d Saturday night and watched Australia on PPV. Funny, Australia wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be! Sunday my mom went to Mass (and it wasn’t even remotely an issue that I didn’t go with her YAY!) and when she got home we went shopping. The original intent of shopping was to pick up some make-up remover from the Estee Lauder counter, but we ended up in the clothing section of the Bay and $400 later I got spoiled with some new clothes! It actually was a really good sale – we got $400 worth of clothes – Jones New York, Liz – for $250. I say “we”, but my mom treated. We did get the makeup remover too, but ended up being from Clinique (Cleansing Balm = Amazing!). We had a quick but nice dinner and some more good wine and following that I met up with Jill & Kelly at Earls for a drink. I lov

e, love, love these girls! It doesn’t matter how much time has passed, how many trips I’ve made to Kamloops without being able to see them, and it still feels like it was just yesterday where we left off. We did have a lot of catching up to do, but some really good laughs – I needed it. I was going to bail – in hindsight, I’m glad that I didn’t. Monday morning came quickly – fruit salad and a bagel, some quick packing, finding another suitcase to fit my new loot in and off to the airport. It was a bit bumpy coming over the rocks, but in the West Jet planes it’s not nearly as bad as those little puddle jumpers Air Canada operates. So, I wasn’t too badly scared by the time we landed.

I was back to work Tuesday and it’s already Friday again. I’m not sure I like how fast time is passing these days, but what can you do really?!

I’ve been doing some reading about Dysthymia Disorder and it’s so relieving to feel the puzzle pieces fall into place after all these years. It sounds like the plan is to continue for the next 20 weeks or so with some CBT sessions and homework and then we’ll do the same tests over again to see if there has been a significant change. I’m struggling a bit with the knowing now and wondering what I should do next… I have a possible job offer coming down the pipe and thinking about getting pregnant – I’m not sure that this is the best time for these big changes. I’m really trying to just give myself up to whatever will be will be…and see where that takes me. It’s a huge departure for me to do that, but as someone pointed out – there’s no use getting ahead of myself until there’s an offer on the table or a bun in the oven! For now…I’ll try to focus on today.

I have found myself returning to prayer again recently. Maybe it was the freedom of finally being able to choose whether or not I attend church on my own, without any input from my mom. Now that I know it’s ok to have different beliefs, it seems easier to talk to Him. I never lost my belief in God…it’s the church and their interpretation of Him that I lost faith in. Maybe one day I’ll go back. I pray for direction – but either way He’s there for me whether I’m alone or in a church filled with followers. These small little enlightenments are so freeing. I’ve let go of the guilt I’ve been carrying since the wedding, and not being “allowed” to get married in the church. The church itself might not bless us, but He does.

4 more hours until the weekend. 4 more hours until the weekend of wall washing and steam cleaning furniture begins! Here’s hoping the motivation vs. the need to do doesn’t get blurred. We need to do this…are we motivated to do so, no. But, we will.