This doesn't happen often, and when it does it's usually in private. I am feeling introspective and incredibly grateful, and I am going to share my feelings on that. Feel free to look away, but I am hoping these feelings ring true for many of us. We need to embrace them and share with others so it becomes more of the norm.
I am no different than anyone else - in 2010 I had good times and bad times and then good times again. The usual. But somehow this year felt different.
I rang in the New Year with my best friend and her kids. It was a genuine good time. We played games, laughed and made resolutions. As the new year progressed, I continued to feel more and more mired in my financial difficulties and couldn't get a grasp on it to be able to pull myself ahead. It just wasn't happening. Then a few months into the year, Oscar had a very bad asthma attack. He has attacks periodically but this was bad. I called my mom and sister, who within minutes were in front of my apartment ready to drive Oscar and I wherever he needed to be, which was at an emergency animal clinic since it was late in the day on a Friday. In case you missed it, Oscar is my eldest cat at 16 years of age. It was pretty scary. He wasn't sick to where he needed to, thank goodness, be put down but he needed to be treated! Long story short, he ended up doing okay and I was forever grateful to my mom and sister for their support. They never blinked an eye. They were not working at the time, so their financial times were tough also. After that whole experience, I decided to take them up on their previous offer of having me move into their rental house with them. I'd have the basement to myself, basically. I felt the time was right - I could help them with rent, etc and they could help me get back ahead of the game. Not to mention my mom had used her credit card to pay the vet bill, so I could pay her back and then some.
For the first six months or so, things were awesome. Aside from my sister smoking in the house, I really had no grievances, and even that wasn't much of a complaint after a few strategically placed fans and candles. She seems to think that the smoke goes right out the window which she leaves open right by her and doesn't grasp that smoke goes e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. When I get out of the shower, my towel reeks of smoke. I decided to pick my battles and that was pretty much off limits. You need to know my sister to understand why I let that go. Soon after I moved in, she got a job and that helped a lot on many levels. On the other hand, my mom wasn't working so she was doing my laundry while I was at my part time job, and then when I was at my regular full time job, where I work from home, she would make me dinner. It was a pretty sweet setup! In fact, I started thinking that maybe I could get used to this for life.
Here we are about a year later. The sweetness is giving way to some tartness. I must say most of it must be coming from me because I am now starting to get those itchy-scratchy feelings of needing my own place. I don't want to ask friends over and say, "Umm..kay, wanna come play in the basement where I stay?" Everyone who enters the house must enter through the front door and go through the living room, where each evening my mom and sister are at their usual posts, one on each couch, watching their stories. I have no problem with that - more power to them and whatever makes them happy. But it's time to have my life back. As a grown woman.
My mom is now working again. My sister's working again. I'm still working two jobs, but I am back ahead of my financial distress. So I think we are all ready for fresh starts.
Still, when I think about how grateful I am that I had the opportunity to get caught up and to help my family in the meantime, and the fact that they are truly happy to have me here in the house with them, I do get a little veklempt (I don't know if that's the way it's spelled, but you get my drift). There aren't a lot of people who have the type of family to be able to work through all this, and even though I feel a need to break free, it feels good because it's not out of anger or frustration that I feel a need to leave, but rather a greater appreciation for what it takes to not get myself in a bad situation again - I really learned a lot from how they run their household and hopefully I've rubbed off on them as well, in my own way. It's how it's all supposed to work, and if you'd asked me a couple of years ago if that would be possible, I would've laughed a very loud, tip my head back and open mouth - HAHAHA...no way in hell! But growing up teaches us that we are all capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for.
Ahem...I should add that I am not perfect because I am still quite petty when it comes to the relationships with my cats - MY kitties. I take great pride in having raised Oscar to be 16-1/2 years old and a sweet little old man (although a bit dramatic and perhaps a bit of a wuss), along with all the others. I do get a little peeved from time to time at being informed of the patterns and personalities of my cats by my mom and sister (which I have been familiar with for years, but whatever) and they seem to be almost daring me to get mad at the fact that they think my cats are going to be unable to live without them. I know differently. Oscar has moved a zillion times with me and has always enjoyed the new places as much as the old. Cats are curious so they like change and finding new fun things to enjoy. But that's for a different blog post because I just now remembered that I am supposed to be feeling grateful. Oops! I slide back into being sort of pissy so easily! Practice...deep breath...ahhh.
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