Tick Tick Tick.....

I'm anxious for 2008 to be over...

Yule was pleasant if quiet here, then we got enough snow to fell an ox and my fadder came and took me to the cuz's house and I've just now made it home - the parking lot is a mess so I don't know when I'll get out...but I don't have to go back to work till the 5th...so it's all good

Ya'll may remember that Christmas is not one of my favorite times of year for one reason or another...

This year so far has been different in that I spent it with the cuz n family...we ate too much, laughed a lot...and talked frankly about most of the people that were missing - there was just enough chocolate, just enough goodies and just enough quiet (hard to imagine in a house with an 8 and 10 yr old)

Also frankly...if I was any more relaxed I'd slide offa this chair into a puddle on the floor.

This season has been a time for reminiscing for me: it was a year ago that I called the bother from the side of the road (on my way to work) suffering from as close to a full breakdown as I ever have...I told him that I couldn't do this job of caring for the VOD alone anymore and that for the first time in my life I was not asking, but begging for help.

He advised that he would...but nothing happened.

Fast forward to July and I'm in the interior on holidays when the bother calls to say there's sommat "wrong" with the VOD. He advises he will check up on her and call me back. He didn't.

When I called him the next day he advised that there was still sommat wrong. So instead of him driving 200 kms on the same Island to check on her (cos really...he's "a busy man with a full life you know"), I came careening back some 700kms and found her laying in a puddle of her own piss, completely dehydrated and incoherent, not having eaten for days and drinking only scotch.

It was me that cleaned her up enough to keep her from being embarrassed at the hospital, and it was me that took her to the hospital. And it was me that told the truth when she lied to the Dr's and nurses...and it was me that let the bother know..

The very next day the bother shows up, his teenaged daughter in tow and wham bam! he's in charge and gonna fix everything. It was off putting and dismissive...but in the end his decision to take her up to his home was what I wanted/needed and she of course rose to the occassion (of course she would for her "golden boy") and off she went for 2.5 mths.

Two and a half months of alone for the first time in almost 10 years. I found I liked it...so ya'll will understand how upset it was when it ended. Abruptly.

It started out that the bother came down and tore apart the spare room in her apartment for his 17 yr old son to live there while attending University. At no charge of course...cos the golden boy is broke...(fuck...he still does broke better than any human being I know)

So there's boxes of crap in the livingroom, so many piles of crap in the bedroom that she simply has a path to her bed and can't actually get in one of her dressers...and a pile of bins in the yard to show how much the bother cares. He dropped the boy off and that was the end of it....hasn't been back since.

So the VOD moved home. She says she moved home to give the bother and his new woman "space" but mostly it's cos she can't keep up the facade there and continue to drink...and she likes being able to hover at the window when the boy don't come home, or do his laundry, or pay for his grub (where was all this money when I was paying her rent???)

So I'm back to being the beck and call girl...and I don't mind telling ya....I don't much like it.

In the meantime the fadder and his partner of 10 years split up...and the bother offers to let him park his trailer in the bother's yard while he's getting things back on track. But the bother's new woman has issues with the fadder and will not allow the fadder in the house when she's there...and of course she's gutless enough to make the bother do the lockdown...so here's the poor fadder at 77 yrs of age...living in a 17 ft trailer and holding his piss till the woman goes in to work in the mornings.

How very welcoming. How very family oriented. How very christian. (what's that line about casting stones?)

I've tried to talk to the bother, but he's so busy following in his mother's footsteps that he laughed at me when I told him I was ashamed of the way he was treating our fadder. I'm appalled actually. Even though my fadder wouldn't have won the kinds of parenting accolades that the bother seems to be so sure that he himself deserves...he's still our fadder...and common garden variety courtesy wouldn't be remiss.

The bother is so much like the VOD it scares me sometimes....put yer head down and bull through it...even when you know from the onset that you've made a mistake....and if that don't work...drink...cos that always helps....

fuck eh?

that's my family...they put the dys in dysfunction.

And then there's the ex-friend that broke my heart and almost broke my mind. Thirty four years ago I gave a daughter up for adoption. It was not an easy decision and I agonized about it plenty over the years. For 34 years everything I knew about her was supposition. And beleive me when I say...I thought a lot...as in every single day for 34 years.

In the late spring the woman whom I cherished most as a friend and sister in the world chose to (without my knowledge or consent) find my daughter for me.

Because I'm so sad she said. Because in her whole career she's been told by oh so many people "how did you know I needed that? I didn't even know I needed that!"

I simply do not have the words to describe how this one little arrogant step on her part brought my world...and that of many of my family members crashing down around us. Over the course of the summer I tried and tried again to salvage some semblence of friendship with her and her husband...but it didn't work and eventually I had to face reality and understand that they are both incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions. They defer accountability at every turn...

So I am left with more knowledge of my daughter than I had before...but no permission as yet. So I am less than "in supposition"
I am now "on hold" in the daughter portion of my life...(a small thought though...wouldn't a 53 yr old plus sized, bald, tattoo'd biker be a shock to you if you'd just discovered that she was your birth mother? Maybe some day she'll be able to get by that and find out who I really am)

On top of all this, I have had some very stellar people rally around me...not take my side, but rally in love and friendship (they build and burn their own bridges - thank you very much) and I am honoured at the trust and respect I have found in them....still....

Suffice it to say...I'm about done with 2008