Teardrop on the Fire (LJ)

It was February of 2009 and the year had started off better than 2008. Or at least, that how things seemed. Then my paternal grandfather got sick. And it wasn't just one of those colds or flus that give you a little scare and then let you zip on your way. This was a bleeding internally, rally the troops and prepare for possible death. My dad is the oldest son, and most responsible. My Uncle P is the second oldest and is an unhappy, single homosexual man, at odds with his church, his faith and his parents. In other words, zero help in a crisis. My second Uncle, T, has ADD and severe depression and is fiscally and emotionally a disaster area. Also, zero help.

This meant my dad shouldered the strain of calming his mom down, going to visit his dad (who lives 2 1/2 hours away) reading legal documents and thinking about his own father's death. WHO WANTS TO DO THAT!?!? Grandpa was in the hospital until nearly the end of March, at which time he ended up in a step down recovery hospital to recover from Pneumonia and massive blood loss. But do you know what nearly two months of near constant emotional strain does to a family?

I won't beat anyone over the head with the obvious, but my mom, who has Multiple Sclerosis, went into a deep depression that she has yet to recover from. During this time, my dad, who also teaches High School and is a respiratory therapist, decides he wants to run a fireworks stand as a fundraiser for the Astronomy club. So from April until mid may he was filing paperwork, meeting with fireworks reps, the city fire dept and filing legal docs etc.

Our house had sort of settled into a semi-permanent state of dis-array. I do what I can, but I am only one person. And often, right after I get one room completely clean, some disaster, or emergency guarantees that all of my hard work gets crapped up as fast as possible.

My mom's office, which we had painted and designed to be accessible and beautiful, becomes the family dumping ground for paperwork and last minute crap no one knows where to put, if we have to scramble to clean if guests come over.

Unless I clean the kitchen, and I mean, I do everything, it never gets looked at, let alone tidied. This gets on my nerves but I don't gripe because it's pretty much the least I can do, since I live with my parents, rent free.

The main reason I haven't written since Feb is that all of this NEEDS to be put down, but it's so draining to think about.

Anyhow, end of May thru July 4 are the shittiest months I can think about. We pretty much eat saltines and don't see the inside of the house unless we are picking something up. We got approved for the fireworks booth and run errands like crazy getting ready, calling volunteers and going mildly insane.

The booth is a huge success, and even though we were in the middle of the damn ghetto (and by ghetto I mean every negative connotation or stereotype you can imagine was there.) we ended up earning the most of any booth in our town. But we also suffered heat stroke, a few minor threats to our safety, 113-116+ days (hotter IN the booth) and I had an anaphylactic reaction to a spider bite and nearly died which left me weak and grumpy for most of the week I helped out.

Whee?

What made it WORSE is on July 4 (you'd think this is not possible but hey) Almost ALL of our volunteers bailed on us because I mean DUH, who wants to be crammed in a small, hot, wooden crate, with a bunch of sweaty people selling explosives, when you could be swimming or fishing or lighting shit on fire?

Anyhow, we closed at 10pm (which is the cities legal cut off time) and by then most of the big fireworks shows we wanted to see were over, and we were still in the &#$*%ing stand. I kid you not, we had tens of thousands of dollars in that booth with us. I have never seen or handled more $100 bills in my life. People who had half naked kids or who hadn't eaten in a week would still drop money on stuff to blow up. O.o

We made the last sale at like 10:35 (we promised people who were in line at 10 that we wouldn't turn them away) and started cleaning up and that's when we got angry, armed thugs threatening to shoot stuff because we wouldn't sell them fireworks. We still didn't sell them anything.

We did not leave the booth until after midnight, missed all the fireworks, had a huge fight with my dad and sang show tunes loud enough to wake the dead.

We drove to the TNT warehouse and dropped off the leftovers and went home. I was grumpy, starving and tired but we lit off the $30 of fireworks I had purchased to support the Astronomy Club. Even though I had purchased some really pretty ones I was too hot and tired to enjoy them. At least mom and my best friend L thought they were pretty. News Flash. If TNT sells fireworks in your area of America, buy the Pink Diamonds, Purple Rain and Tequila Sunrise. They are very pretty, I just remember being completely unenthused.

The rest of July was clean up and recovery of the fireworks selling and then I went to Comic Con.

COMIC CON WAS SO FUCKING UN EPIC AND TRAGIC AND AWFUL AND HORRIFYING AND DISAPPOINTING THAT IT WILL BE GETTING IT'S OWN ENTRY!!!

Yeah so, August I can't remember except my babies came to visit auuuuuuuuuntie and I got to spend a week with my niece and nephew Olivia and Danny :D *squee*

Sept has been bad too. It was supposed to be our "Butts in gear, recovery month" and then a close relative fell ill and we are helping him because his son lives in Oregon and suffers from very bad pain. He did come down to help with some paperwork and visit his father but had to go back after a few days. So we are going to clean out the Apt, help get my Uncle in hospice, and sell off his belongings. *sigh*

I am not really asking for anything special I don't think? I'd just like things to calm down in a fairly normal way. I'd like mom to come out of her depression, I'd like for dad to not have to work so hard and feel like he's getting nowhere, I'd like for family drama to ease up a bit, and tbh, I'd like to feel like I can take a deep breath without choking on something.

I hope this wasn't too whiny. I want to get back to regular updates so I don't have to bore anyone to tears with these long ones.

I applied for SSDI and was denied once, appealed once, have yet to hear back about that. Am still planning on going to NY in November and am truly excited about that trip! :D Overall, I feel like I just want life to kind of even out in a good way and that all of the things that have been making my family function in crisis mode calm down.

That's all for now.