Hell on Earth

So the idea was to write about our trip to New Orleans, and one day I will, but for now all hell broke loose and I am trying to get it back in its pen. My last couple of weeks, since the day after we got back from New Orleans, to be precise, life got hard. It got the kind of hard that breaks hearts and causes throbbing headaches. The very day Michael went back to his other home in Chicago, the air conditioner broke. It was a balmy 105 degrees. Having pets that are heat sensitive, I spent the day passing out ice packs and running fans in every corner of the room. Yes, I had to go out and buy fans, an expense that although was not an account drainer, was still unexpected and a pain. The next evening, more than 24 hours later it was fixed. Luckily, it was a simple thing that needed nothing further for now. The next travesty to come was the fender bender in my own driveway. One child hit another child's car and then proceeded to have a complete breakdown at midnight on July 4th. We had fireworks of a completely different kind. After making a loud and out of control scene, we all went to our respective corners. My cat, my lion king, suddenly had out of control diarrhea, leaving him and my bathroom a smelly, disgusting mess. At first, we all thought it was a stomach virus, a small and inconvenient thing. "Stinkopotamus better not come in my room," called my eldest daughter. She made many jokes with me making me laugh as we surveyed our very sick cat. We both knew he was in trouble. Had she not made me laugh, I would have probably cried for a week. Four days later I had to call the hospital to take him in to put him down. At twenty, he didn't owe anyone a damn thing. As I sat outside getting myself together enough to make the trip, my youngest son informed me that he was moving out, quite suddenly, and with what I thought was a ludicrous plan. Stunned, I sat staring at him trying to comprehend what he had just said. He had been making plans to move out and had failed to let me in on any of it. I had been blindsided. Thoroughly pissed, I got up from my seat and said, "I have to go kill my cat now," and left with Matches wrapped in a towel. In retrospect, after many conversations with his siblings, who I must say, had a very reasonable tone and demeanor, I decided to stop being angry and let go. I do not understand why things had to come down the way they did, like he was escaping from Alcatraz, but they did and now he is off in the world either going to make it, or not. At 21 years old, a man, he is on his own to figure out what he wants for himself. It is not the way I would have done it, or even understand why it went this way, but it did, and I found myself nursing another wound to my heart. He does not see why I am a little brokenhearted about how it all came down. He thinks I am controlling, while I think he is being thoughtless. He thinks I want to stifle him, while I think he doesn't plan enough. We are at an impasse for now. Michael talks to him, calmly, I might add, while I cannot. For now, I just can't. I don't think it is for lack of love, but rather lack of understanding of the others viewpoint. As his mother there will never be a day when I am completely objective. Where he sees adventure, I see danger. Where he sees possibility, I see homelessness and despair. I will grant you this makes me sound like a giant piss pot, and to that point I will concede. I have always looked very far down the road and pointed out hidden dangers to my children, terrified they might not recover from a devastating misstep. But as a human, I know how unhappy he has been, how lost he has felt, uncomfortable in his skin. This may be the very thing he needs to start doing for him in ways unexpected and happy. My toilet leaked and then proceeded to flood. At first it only flooded at night, and then it began to flood in earnest all day long. I would have to turn off the water every time I had to pee. I had tried to find where the leak was coming from, to no avail. Mike fixed it in about 20 minutes yesterday, when it had taken me all week to putter, being completely unable to diagnose the problem. With all this going on, Michael had been away. I was on my own to do what I had not done for 11 years, run my household alone. I was sitting outside with Michael talking quietly about how I had gotten my ass kicked at every turn for two weeks, now. Tears fell down my sagging face, past the large bags that hung under my weary eyes. 'I remember now what being on my own felt like and why I hated it so much. You would think I would be better at with all that practice." Michael hugged me, "It's a lot for anyone to handle, too much in fact." Yep, it was all too much to deal with at once. I have slept more the last two days than I have in weeks. At one point, I had not slept more than eight hours in three days. I will write about my trip to New Orleans and all the newly formed perspective I garnered from that trip, I will. But for now, with embers still glowing from previous fires that had to be extinguished by me while I was alone, I am going to take full advantage of Michael being home and rest. I want to stock pile all the sleep and comfort I can just in case, Hell decides to escape, break loose, causing more chaos and wreaking havoc. I looked at my Michael darling, "Never leave me again." He said soft in my ear, "I never really do."