It's Cloudy

It's cloudy out today. It's been cloudy all day. And not only that, but it's cool...like 73 degrees cool. I don't like it. I thrive in the sunshine. Clouds put me to sleep and make day drag. I went for a walk at lunch and was really missing the sun. I was almost chilly. I am very sensitive to the cold. Part of that is my thyroid and I think the other part is genetic. My mom gets cold easily, too. I guess it's good that she's in FL now. At least I guess that's where she still is. Hard to keep track of her when she doesn't call or even send text messages. Whatever. My mood is cloudy today, too. I feel sort of blah. The day is dragging and all I want to do is go home and hear how the Little Guy's first day of school went. I have another hour here and then I won't be home until 2 hours after I leave. Blech.

I've been thinking a lot about my mother lately. Last week (8/17) was the 4th anniversary of her leaving. She got on a bus with a suitcase full of "stuff" and I didn't think I'd ever see her again. In March of 2008 she fell ill. She was in intensive care for days. I went down for a day to see her and assess the situation. She had MRSA and walking pneumonia. She was on a ventilator because she wasn't getting enough oxygen on her own. She was out cold the entire day. She had no idea I was there. I held her hand and talked to her and cried for her. My older brother also came down. He stayed over night at the place where she and her boyfriend lived. I refused to be near her boyfriend. More on him another time. My brother and I argued in the hallway of the ICU because he wanted to unplug her. I couldn't believe the nerve he had. To come down there and play the role of responsible first born child after the history he and my mother have was laughable. He didn't take her to doctor appointments. He didn't take her to the ER. He didn't let her stay with him after her surgery. He didn't pay her rent so that she wouldn't end up on the street. He didn't buy her Christmas gifts. He didn't call her almost every day. But yet here he was, the oldest that apparently gets to make all the decisions. I have only been that furious with him one other time in our lives. I hope to never visit those feelings again. I don't think I'd be able to hold my tongue. I digress...we couldn't unplug her anyway because she wasn't braindead, she was put in a medical coma so that the machine could help her breath, not breath for her. He was being ridiculous. He had no right to even bring up such a thing. But we moved passed it. My mother got well, as well as she could get. And she was sent on her way. And she went right back to the man that (I feel) was to blame for her illness in the first place. The man that didn't come to see her while she was in the hospital. The man that got evicted while she was in the hospital and left her there while he traveled 2 hours away. And she's still with him. And I have such great animosity towards that man that my blood pressure goes up when I even think of him. I have so much more to tell about my mother and our relationship and him but I'm just not ready to go there yet. This is the story that has been on my mind lately. And I know it's because of the anniversary of her leaving. And I know it's the guilt I feel for buying her the bus ticket and the luggage and the stuff in the luggage and driving her to the bus station. I know I shouldn't have done it. But I didn't know what else to do. She wanted to go. She begged me to take her. And of course I feel immense guilt because she was living with me and BJ at the time. She moved in less than 2 weeks after he did. I was trying to start my life over and having her there made it incredibly stressful on our new relationship. I know I showed my feelings too often. I tried to be ok with everything but it was so hard to adjust. I had been living alone for a year and then in the span of 2 weeks I had my new boyfriend, his son and my mother all under one roof with me. I'm afraid that she felt like she wasn't welcome and that's why she was so adamant to leave. I told her 100 times we didn't want her to go with him but she wouldn't relent. And if you think leaving her in the hospital was bad...he left her in an apartment that was in his name that he owed 3 months rent on and she didn't have a job. Nice guy, huh? And she still wanted to be with him. I have so many regrets about how all of that was handled. I was just about to finalize my divorce, BJ and the Little Guy moved in, my mother moved in and I was a bit overwhelmed. And she left. And I feel responsible. And I hate that. BJ is well aware that if something happens to Jimmy (my mom's boyfriend) she'll have no place to go...she will come back to me. I'm the one that takes care of her. I'm the one that will cave as soon as the tears start to flow. BJ has already said that he'd build a detached garage for her to live over. Yeah, like we have money for that. But at least he knows the situation and I hope he means what he says because I can't let her end up on the street. She's my mother. Regardless of our relationship, she is my mother.

This post took a turn for the worse, didn't it? But like the title says, it's cloudy...inside and out.