Hmmm. Hope you all are enjoying the holidays. Personally? I’m finding this year’s merriment a tad too stressful to claim that I’m enjoying it. Oh, yes….I’m grateful for so much. I really am. There’s no doubt about that. But, on the other hand, there’s only so much pressure that I can handle at any given time, and I think I’ve about reached my limit.

I am definitely feeling that dark, gloomy cloud descend…and it’s hovering there, right above my left shoulder. Hovering and quivering and threatening to drop down and bury me. Okay. It won’t. I mean, it won’t, because it can’t. I have no time to fool around with dark clouds. The moving van will be at my door tomorrow morning, and while I have a LOT packed, there’s still stuff to BE packed. I had to work yesterday and today, and last night I got some sleep, but Christmas night I hardly slept at all. Christmas day was horrendously chaotic - more chaotic than any of us would have liked. We had dinner at DD2’s, and while DD3’s in-laws always come from Connecticut, this year they also brought DD3’s DH’s great-aunt, whose DH died this past year. She is in her nineties, and has quite a bit of money. My DD3’s DH’s mother is “Aunt Barbara’s” neice. There is one other neice - DD3’s Dh’s mother’s cousin, who is divorced and lives in Connecticut with her unemployed adult son not too far from Aunt Barbara. Now, this neice was planning to visit family in California for Christmas, but when she heard that Aunt Barbara was coming to Worcester for Christmas with her other neice (DD3’s Dh’s mother) she quickly cancelled her own plans, and announced that she and her son would drive Aunt Barbara to Worcester. (Yay). And then there was my EX-husband and HIS wife (ugh!) and my DD2’s mother-in-law, who enjoys poor health to such a degree that she has retired (at 59) and is living on a very small disability check (she had knee-replacement surgery this past summer) and relies on DD2 & her DH to supplement her income each month. While some people who perhaps couldn’t walk for long periods of time (although she had this surgery six months ago) might conceivably offer to maybe peel some potatoes or fold napkins, or some such sedentary undertaking while everyone else was bustling around trying to get everything done before the *real* company (translation: extended, as opposed to immediate family) arrived. But her? No indeed. She has become quite adept at biting the side of her lip and grimacing (as if in pain, but trying to hide it) so that her son (DD2’s Dh) immediately appears at her side, saying, “Oh, Mom. You’re in pain again, aren’t you? Let me help you to the couch. C’mon, now, you just get off that leg. Lie down…” which she of course gratefully does do, asking only that he be sure to hand her the TV controller before he goes back to what he was doing. However, if DD2 & her Dh have somewhere to go - as in a vacation, or even just out for the evening - she is always right there, clamoring to be taken along. Oh, blah! So DD2, DD3 and DS and I were running around doing everything - cooking, cleaning, etc., etc., and then everyone arrived dressed in their holiday finery, divested themselves of their coats and mufflers, and sat chatting merrily as they sipped their wine and sampled the trays of crackers and cheese and assorted little nibbles that DS was walking around with. (Yes, I KNOW I’m sounding like the grinch. I am feeling so grinch-like as to be quite indistinguishable from the grinch, and that’s the truth).

Just some highlights:

My EX trying to give me and my NOW-DH a gift card to Applebee’s, “Let me buy you a nice meal”, he says. I refuse. You know me - just can’t forgive and forget - as in, “Boy, she REALLY holds a grudge, doesn’t she?” This, let me remind you, is the same man who had to be dragged into court at the time of our divorce and have child support deducted from his pay by court order because he refused to pay it voluntarily. Also the same man who earns over $100K a year owing to my having written all his papers and course work to enable him to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree. AND he is the same man who was ordered by the court to pay half of his kid’s college tution and never came up with one red cent. Every penny that I got from the sale of our house went to their education while he travelled to Europe and South America and to super bowls and every other danged place.  And he wants to buy DH & I Dinner???? I think NOT.

My eldest daughter, whom I believe should be taking anti-depressants because of the side-effects of her MS medication. She has become progressively more angry and yes, even paranoid in her thought processes. At this point in time, she has shared with her sisters that “Mummy ALWAYS favored you over me, and she does far more for all of you (including my ds) than she EVER did for me.” Are any of you old enough to remember the Smothers brothers? I think they had a comedy routine back in the ’70’s. One of them always used to say to the other that “Mom liked you better than me.” It was pretty funny. Not so funny when your eldest daughter, herself a family therapist, starts saying it - and apparently meaning it. Of all my children, she is probably the most comfortable financially. She is divorced from her first husband - the father of her two children - who owns an electrical contracting company. He pays $1,000 a week to her for child support, plus covers their health insurance and pays their tuition to private schools. Her current husband owns a plumbing & heating business, and HIS business is very lucrative. And, of course, she works, as well, and SHE earns upwards of $125 an hour. In contrast, my other children live fairly comfortably - they are teachers, social workers, fundraisers and the like - but they simply aren’t in her income bracket. She forgets, of course, that when she divorced her first husband, we ALL rallied around and helped with child care, mortgage payments, car payments, school tuitions, etc. That’s what families do for each other. But she is in a bad place right now, feeling sorry for herself, angry at the rest of us, and no doubt even angrier because she hasn’t offered to help with this move of ours - not that we need any help, you understand, but an offer is always nice to get - and she feels guilty, and therefore angry that *we* have made her feel guilty. Woe is me! She arrived after everyone finished eating (They always go to the in-laws first) and made a grand entrance - kissing the air in everyone’s general direction, dramatically throwing her mink coat (YES, a MINK coat, which even if she had one, she would know better than to wear it in our presence in the past, knowing how we feel about abusing animals to dress yourself in fur) across the couch, and directing her children and Dh where to place the dozens of gaily-wrapped boxes that they’d carried in. Oddly, most of them were very large, but contained very small and insignificant things - one big box was packed with those nasty little styrofoam peanuts and contained ONE candle in a glass jar - the kind that you can buy at any supermarket. VERY off-key, very scary, actually. How do you approach your adult daughter who is clearly experiencing some sort of break with reality, and talk with her about getting help? In the end, there was little that I could do beyond saying, “I love you” and giving her a warm hug that she received with backbone held straught and brittle, face averted. I know that many people with MS DO need anti-depressants along with their other medications. I suspect that her doctors have advised them, and she either has them and won’t take them, or she refused them outright. I prefer handling things directly with my children - not going around or behind them to address problems with their spouses, but in this case, I may have to talk with her Dh before this gets any worse. And, it didn’t help that she started drinking wine from the minute she arrived. The LAST thing she needed.

So, we finally left for home, and I was awake all night thinking about DD1 and our move, and everything else imaginable. I think I may have drifted off around 4 AM, but had to be up at 6 to go to work. Had to work yesterday & today, and now I’m off tomorrow through next Tuesday. I imagine I’ll spend all that time cleaning the old place and getting settled in the new place.

Already, having gotten the above off my chest, I feel lighter and more optimistic. 2008 is bound to be a good year, yes?

Sorry for unloading all of this.

Next time, I promise to be cheerful, witty and wise!

Much love to you all - Happy 2008!

E!