Auto Pilot

"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength"
~Author Unknown

I'll give you the cliff notes on my upheaval thus far : We go on vacation to NH from July 18th - July 21st. Grampa has back surgery on the 19th, we're told he'll be admitted and then go to rehab. Come home on the 21st to find grampa in his recliner in the living room. WTF. Thursday the 22nd, I'm home by myself with the kids and my grampa is in excrutiating pain. Call rescue to have grampa re admitted to CCH, he's there for 3 days does great, goes to Harborside in Mashpee for rehab on sunday the 25th. I visit him monday after my MRI and he looks fabulous, acting like him self.


Tuesday the 27th, busy ass work day from hell, thank god for my partner :)Husband is blowing up my phone, I can't talk bc of the insanity in dispatch. All I catch is "There's going to be a massive blow out between me and ****". **** is the leaching cousin from NH who treats our house like a motel and brings her ankle biting dog and leaves it for other people to tend to while she takes care of her own agenda. Anyways, she had been at the house all week while grampa was in the hospital, and Michael and the kids went to the store for 45 minutes and came back to find the dog locked down stairs, where it doesn't belong, in our living space.


Apparently the first time Michael attempted to address this with **** she was on the phone (which he didn't realize at the time ) she waved him off, Michael went down stairs to keep his head from exploading. After a few minutes he goes back up stairs to get the rest of the groceries from the car, where he is met by **** at the top of the stairs. She then proceeds to get in his face, pointing her finger in his face yelling at him, and making many accusations, the most hurtful and inaccurate of all, that we don't help my grandfather. This obviously angers Michael and he then yells back and made a comment about he better not find that dog in our living area again, blah blah blah.


Well apparently **** took it upon her self to call the police, and I had (thankfully) called my father after Michael's call to me, and the situation was a whole to do about nothing. But I was mortified that the police were called on my husband for a supposed threat. In the 7 years we've been together he's never even raised his voice to me. This woman is a complete Dr.Jekyl and Mr.Hyde, she'll be nice when people are around, but as soon as they leave she's completely rude and disrespectful to us, she manipulates people to get what she wants and was bullshit bc Michael called her bluff.


Our unwanted guest left that same night, thank god. Wednesday my brother and I go to visit grampa at the rehab, and he looks to be doing great. We discuss what happened, and I'm not sure if he couldn't really hear or understand me even though he appeared to, and then we discussed the possibility of us (Michael, the kids and myself) moving out. My grandfather seemed on board with this, saying he needed to down size, the house needs a lot of work that he can't afford or do himself. Mj starting preschool in the fall, and especially after the incident with our unwanted guest, we just really felt it was time we left. We had what I thought was a very productive 45 minute conversation, and I thought we were on the same page.


The next day Thursday the 29th, my father visits him to bring him up to speed on us leaving and the situation with the unwanted guest. Apparently my grandfather either totally forgot or did not understand our conversation the day before, bc he got all teary eyed and was insistant that we didn't leave, and that this unwanted guest would be banned from his property. I visited with the kids shortly after my dad left, and he was having an episode of shortness of breathe, chest pressure and feeling cold. The rescue was called and he was admitted into falmouth hospital, where he's been since bc they're still trying to figure out whats going on. There was no sign of any new infarction with the exception of some elevated enzymes, but its extremely difficult to tell with him bc he's had a quadruple bypass, a pace maker, tri gemini PVC's and CHF. On top of that now he's having difficulty swallowing, which is a new development.


So now we're trying to go through our stuff, pack and deal with all this crap. On top of all the stuff going on with my grandfather, I'm going for a repeat MRI on my shoulder to figure out whats going on with it, bc once through the tomb wasn't enough fun for me apparently. And I just had bloodwork, ultrasound, biopsy and removal of my IUD to figure out whats malfunctioning in my uterus and making me hate life. I have a exploratory laseroscopy and D&C to look forward to also. Awesome. So I'm on auto pilot right now, and if I don't seem like my self, that would be why, don't take it personally my friends.

Am I An Imposter?

Today was my first attempt to get back in church on sunday mornings, my old work schedule was not condusive to my church going efforts. Now my more church friendly sunday schedule has afforded me the opportunity to get back into the swing of things. So I had hoped. I think that I probably was setting myself up for disaster bringing both kids with me, by myself, since husband won't get home from work in time to attend. So after emailing my pastor back and forth after she had checked in with me over a week ago, I had looked forward to seeing her. So as the children and I took our seat I looked around and craned my neck to see Pastor Nicole, but I hadn't seen or heard her. Then service began, and there was a Pastoral Intern, apparently Pastor Nicole had accompanied her husband ,who is also a pastor, to Nantucket where he was a guest speaker. Between Pastor Nicole's absence and my wild beasts poor behavior I felt completely deflated. The Pastoral Intern did nothing to invoke my religious spirit, she did the complete opposite. I could barely hear her and I was in the third row from the front. Her gestures were without conviction , or atleast not what I had become accustomed to with Pastor Nicole. We had recieved a letter in the mail from her about a month or so ago, letting us know that she would be stepping down at the end of September to move across country with her husband, as he was afforded the opportunity to be a minister out in California, where she was originally from.


While I wish nothing but the best for Pastor Nicole and her husband, I feel like I've somehow disconnected myself from the church I had just joined. I know it's not supposed to be about the Pastor , but about the church and the community, but I just feel like that Pastor Nicole really was the spark that had made me want to be part of the church in the first place. I feel that with her leadership and encouragement I have grown not only in the spiritual aspect, but the emotional aspect as well. I spoke with her about family conflicts and worked through them as a result, something that I don't think I would be able to accomplish with out her encouragement.






I kind of had a feeling that change was in the air when husband and I, along with a few other folks, attended a church meeting to welcome new members. Someone had posed the question of the event that she were to leave, and her response was that we should feel compelled to join the church regardless of who the pastor is. I know that I should enjoy the time we have left with Pastor Nicole, and be grateful for all that she has done, and we are. I guess after the church service disaster this morning, I felt like an imposter bc I really had no interest in the service or want to be there, I guess I felt let down. I don't know who will be taking over as Pastor, there is no replacing Pastor Nicole, but hopefully there will be someone who can carry on the duties with the same passion as she.