The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow

Only it will be an hour earlier. I guarantee I will not be up to see it on a Sunday morning. I will be snuggled and warm in my bed with fresh clean sheets and fresh clean dogs to match. I don't know how fresh and clean A will be. :) I've watched a few lovely sunrises the last few weeks as I drove to work but I'm really more of a sunset person. Friday night we had such a beautiful evening; there was no wind and the lakes were as smooth as glass. It makes for some beautiful scenery when I take the time to enjoy. I didn't have my camera with me but I took this picture about 5 miles from my home one other night when the sky looked very similar.

I can't believe Halloween came and went. A and I were just not in the mood this year. The Saturday night before we went to hang out with our friend, Faye, while her boyfriend JK (the Elvis impersonator) performed. She got a costume the week before but just wasn't feeling it at all that night either. The three of us sat toward the back, ate pizza, people watched and gossiped. JK has his groupies and some are there so often they have become part of the act. I'm always flabbergasted by the number of drunks who yell at a man dressed as Elvis to "sing some Johnny Cash!" It never fails and JK has actually worked it into his act and will sing a song if it's requested. That night some drunk guy dressed as a sheik took it a step further by thinking it was karaoke. He stumbled and muttered the lyrics for the first half of the song and Elvis actually had to catch him before he took out a speaker.

Halloween evening we had beautiful weather. Most of the time it's very cold and the kids have to be bundled up over their costumes. One year it was so frigid and blowing sleet so parents were driving their kids door-to-door.  We had our light on, pumpkin carved and lit and a huge bowl of candy. We popped Jiffy Pop and watched scary movies. We waited for hours and only had 5 trick-or-treaters (3 of them live on my street)! I live in town but I'm on a dead end street and I think the kids just don't come over this way. I could stand on my front porch and hear the kids on the other side of the park. Anyway that means I had a huge bowl of candy left that I promptly threw in the freezer. A only carved one pumpkin this year but she said I was her inspiration.

Halloween I decided to extend the olive branch to my younger brother after our bitchy late night conversation 2.5 weeks prior. He didn't answer and didn't return my call. Later that night I thought I would check my sister-in-law's Facebook to see if she posted pictures of my nephews in their costumes. That's when I found I had been blocked by her.

Really?!!!! It really wasn't that big of a disagreement. I just told him I was tired of the bitching and he should help mom after all the help she's given him. I had not written one thing about the situation on FB either. There's the part of me that thinks "it's only FB" and it's infantile behavior but there's that other part of me that can't help but feel hurt. I don't regret what I said and if I had the chance to do it again, I would say it exactly the same. I only spoke the truth. Tonight I realized I have now been de-friended by my bother, his wife and my oldest nephew. It's only FB, right?  I admit I cried. It hurts. They've done a lot of stupid things, have had a rocky marriage both personally and financially and I have stood by through a lot of shit and only spoke up once when the kids were getting affected by their parents' behavior. So now I'm cut off for daring to say one thing against them.

So tonight I'll cry and feel the hurt. I'll mourn the fact that during the last year my family has disintegrated and morphed into people I hardly recognize. I'll think about the last time I saw my nephews in the hospital in Ohio when they came to see Dad after his stroke. I'll remember how my 10 year old nephew cuddled up next to me at the hotel and we cried together. He's so smart and sensitive...way too mature for his age and worries all the time about his parents and the things he has no control over. I have always seen a whole lot of myself in that boy.  I'll hate how they use their children as emotional blackmail. I'll want to get in the car, drive 5.5 hours and confront them. Instead I will cry it out, go to bed, curl up next to A and whisper how much I love her, hug my fur-kids (and fosters too) and think of the wonderful friends in my life who have become my real family. The sun will come up tomorrow; I'll feel better after getting it out tonight and I'll never let them see how much it hurts.