This girl's life

A lot has been going on recently, so I thought I would try to give the Reader's Digest version.

1. Bills are kicking my butt and delaying my plans to move much to my dismay. It's been one of those cases of if it could break down or go wrong, it will. The car died a sad death after a vandalism, accident, and old age. Due to the nature of the boy's work being a pizza delivery driver, he had to get a new car. Making a down payment, increased insurance payments, and just having to make car payments again have added pressure at a quite unfortunate time. The lawn mower blew up or at least began vomitting oil. Now somehow I feel partially to blame for this one. I assumed the boy had the common sense to know that much like a car oil needs to be added and changed in a lawn mower. Silly me. I forgot the dear has not a tool to his name. These sort of things are not his area of expertise. After the previous lawn fiasco and insane bill, we cannot let the lawn go. I was beginning to feel like I was leaking money the way expenses kept creeping up out of nowhere. Then, it seemed like there was a conspiracy among other household appliances to commit horrible suicides or at the very least become severly ill. The dryer stopped emitting hot air. The DVD player randomly died one day. The PSP will only play games now, but not movies. Drains would randomly clog. The list goes on, and on sadly. So, in order to fix things that are necessary to maintain the house and day to day functioning, I ended up putting off bills. Since I do not want to move until all bills are up to date, I have had to delay my move.
2. I have become involved in planning and working this year's Pride Week which is actually 8 days jammed pack full of events. We seemed to have already reached a point where we are having at least 2 meetings a week even though the events don't begin til Labor Day. I am thrilled to be so involved and am confident that everything will rock beyond even our imagination. I also have met a ton of truly wonderful individuals through all of this. It is though quite an investment of time.
3. Three of my friends lost their father last week. I actually knew the whole family. I saw the dad several times a week. He was my friends' dad though, so I wouldn't consider him a friend. He had been sick for a few weeks, so it wasn't a complete shock when he passed. I am glad for their sake that they at least got an opportunity to say goodbye. For some reason, when I got home and read the obituary, it struck me hard that he was the same age as my parents. I've had the sad misfortune to lose many friends through the years, as well as relatives. However, most were either around my age or around my grandparents age. Something about him being the same age as my parents really brought home to me the reality that my parents are getting to the age where it is more normal for people to pass away. Now, it should have considered this when I helped my father pick out ties to buy to go along with the new suit he purchased a few years ago, and he dryly informed me that the reason he needed a new suit was that he was getting to the point where going to funerals were becoming a regular occassion for him. Sadly, this seems to be a regular occassion these days for me as this is the 3rd funeral I have attended in less than 8 months, and I missed another during this same timeframe as well. Now, my parents really aren't that old. Both will be 58 by the end of the year. For some reason, this whole thing rattled me a bit. I immediately felt the need to call my parents. I think they thought I was being silly, but I just needed to hear more specifically my dad's voice. I didn't expect to cry at the funeral, though, since I wasn't that close to John. However, seeing my friends in pain trying to speak about their father brought me to tears. I can say I was pleased that the funeral was literally standing room only as it was so packed. It was good I think for the family that so many people were there for the family. On a final note, I simply do not get why people are wearing jeans and sweats these days to weddings and funerals. This trend absolutely drives me batty. I was raised with a different sense of decorum. I wish I could say this was maybe a local or one time thing, but every funeral I've been to I've seen this. And, there were people dressed down at my brother's wedding in New Hampshire.
4. This June 24th, I celebrated my 6 year anniversary of sobriety. Now, I do not say this hoping for praise. Part of me sadly is still embarassed that I even got myself in the predicament that I needed to be in rehab at 25. However, one thing that the program has taught me is that the first year we celebrate anniversaries monthly for ourselves. We celebrate for ourselves because we are often still hanging on by a merely a nail and need the reassurance. After a year, we celebrated yearly not for ourselves, but for those others in the program to show them that it can be done. I can't tell you how amazed I was at my homegroup to hear the stories of those who had made it 15, 20 years and more. I, though, was fortunate enough several years before to see someone with that level of long term sobriety fall. I was bartending and attending our Christmas Party. We could bring family and the executive chef had brought his brother whose wife had recently left him and taken his children with her. My chef despite our differences had told me to keep an eye out as his brother was a recovering alcoholic with 17 years of sobriety but was concerned about his brother in this very emotional time. I went to the bathroom and left the bar unmanned while we were setting up. I came back to see him pouring shot after shot for himself. I am glad that I saw this in person rather than it being just a story someone told me. It adds to the reality that alcohol or any addiction is just a monkey on our back that always continues to haunt us. Having relapsed with bulimia, I know any day it can creep back. Mainly, I can't believe how quickly time passes. I have a few friends who remember me from when I drank. None of us can believe the stories they tell happened so many years ago yet still seem like they happened just yesterday. Some days I need those stories though to remind me where I can so easily return if I take a drink again.