change

Not much has changed on my end, today is my 2 week anniversary of being a pariah at home, a condition that seems likely to continue for...well, probably forever. I can't imagine anything changing as long as there is no vaccine and the virus levels remain high. 

And, more importantly, I can't imagine me ever being able to go back to the relationship we had after all of this. All my life I've felt like an outsider. I was a shy kid...heck, who are we kidding, I'm a shy adult and it's always been difficult for me to make real friends so I cherish the ones I have. Having people who have said they love me turn into strangers, barely speaking to me, instructing their kids to stay away from me, not sharing physical space with me if they can help it - even the outdoors - has been devastating for my soul. It's the grown up equivalent of not being invited to the parties or picked last for sports, further solidifying my belief that I was only their "friend" when I could be useful to them by providing transportation. 

However, I'm not going to dwell on any of that. I had a pretty good weekend and spent most of it either outside swimming and sunning or in my room catching up on movies. I also cooked! Yay me! The tenants went out on Saturday afternoon for about 3 hours (because, of course, it's ok when they do it...yeah, I know, my bitter slip is showing) so I ran into the kitchen and tried a homemade bbq recipe that I'd found. It ended up being pretty tasty, if I do say so myself, and the closest I've found to my beloved Roy Rogers sauce.

On Sunday morning I got up and put together a dry rub to use on a pork roast I'd been defrosting overnight. I probably sound like a broken record but I know exactly when that pork was put into the freezer. Taz and I made a big run to Sam's Club in October and bought our usual huge pork roast. We went home and he cut it up into smaller chunks and, with my help, got them into freezer bags to store. He liked to cook it in the slow cooker and then turn it into pulled pork to eat throughout the week. He did that all the time when he lived here alone in 2015 waiting for me to join him. It was easy to cook on Sunday and then not have to think about it when getting home late from work. So that's what we were going to do with all that pork.

I didn't feel like cooking for a long time after he died but lately I've wanted to but haven't been able to since the kitchen is hardly ever empty. But I knew that no other adults get up on weekend mornings before 10 so I was in there on Sunday before 8am, rubbing down the pork with spices and putting it in the slow cooker just the way Taz would have. The end result - 8 hours later - was a delicious, tender piece of meat that I pulled apart with 2 forks and then sprinkled with the sauce I'd made the day before. It's going to be my dinner all this week but I couldn't resist making myself a sandwich last night - OMG, it was good! I was very proud of myself for cooking and for using up the food that had been in the freezer way too long. The best part is, there is at least one more roast in there so it'll be pulled pork for a long time to come!

So now it's May and that's a rather painful month. Today is the 4th anniversary of when we moved to Florida. We got up that morning, said goodbye to our house and all our belongings in the POD container in the driveway and set off for the airport in our rental SUV which was packed with as many suitcases as we could fit. Taz dropped me off and I had to wrangle all the suitcases and Charlie while he dropped off the car. It was not pretty but it probably was funny. We arrived in Orlando around 10pm and went straight to Steak and Shake for a celebratory meal. I even have a picture of the burger I had that night. Our new, unexpected, life had begun. I can't believe it ended so quickly. I still can't quite believe it's over.

Later in the month, on the 15th, will mark 1 1/2 years since I said goodbye to Taz as he walked out the door for work and never walked back in again.

Then just 4 days later it will be Taz's birthday. I have something I want to do for that long weekend, I'd really like to get away because I don't think I can stand being a pariah during those days and I have a completely no-contact place to go with Charlie, an empty house where I would see no one but I am hesitating committing to it because I know the tenants will freak out about me being out in the world and bringing back germs to them. I honestly don't know what to do, I hate to have my life dictated by them, it just doesn't seem right but I'm such a non-confrontational person and I don't want to make any of this worse, plus there's the whole money thing. And yet, I honestly don't know if I can take being in that house with the way things are on his birthday, I might just crack.

At the end of the month it will be the 5th anniversary of bringing Charlie into our family and that's a happy day but still bittersweet.

I don't want to dwell on the unhappy things but I'm running out of happy things to distract myself with because the unhappy things keep piling up. I got a letter from my mother's nursing home on Friday basically threatening to stop caring for my mother if I don't get this Medicaid situation straightened out. I've applied at least twice (it might have been 3 times, I've lost track) and been denied each time because I can't get my hands on certain papers that they require. I've tried but I get doors slammed in my face because my mother set everything up under a trust and I'm not a trustee. I've tried to get the nursing home to help me (I was told they would take care of everything but that was a total lie) but I get nothing but attitude from the social worker. So, even though I really don't know how I'll pay for it, I've contacted a lawyer who specializes in elder care to ask if he can help me push the Medicaid application through. This whole issue has kept me up at night all weekend.

I don't want to dwell on stressful things, I don't want to waste my life in this hell of a limbo. Yesterday brought home the fact that we just can't waste time in this life. I got a call that my oldest nephew's son died on Saturday night. He was only 29, had a wife and a darling little girl (who has special needs) and went to the hospital for pain and they diagnosed it as gallstones and sent him home and then a few days later, he was dead. Who knows what the cause was - was it COVID-19 (without the usual symptoms) or was the hospital in such a hurry to get rid of him that they misdiagnosed him and it was something more serious than gallstones? I never knew him, my nephew (who is only 9 months younger than I am) divorced years ago and I never knew either of the kids, but I followed his wife's blog about life with their little girl and the challenges they were facing so I felt like I knew them. My heart breaks for everyone involved - for a young man with his whole future ahead of him, he had just finished his masters degree and had accepted his first teaching job last week; for my nephew who was so happy to be rebuilding a relationship; for my nephew's ex-wife and younger son who are devastated and heartbroken in a way no one ever should be; and most especially, for his wife who is now part of the club that no one ever wants to join. My heart is breaking especially for her because I know what she's going through and what she will face. I know right now it feels like it's the worst pain ever but I also know that it will feel worse as the weeks and months go on and her faith will be tested again and again. I can only hope that she has things I didn't - family that will stick close by her physically so that she doesn't have to deal with feeling abandoned as well. I hope she has friends that will let her talk and will check on her. I want to be there for her too even though she doesn't know who I am. If there's any good to come out of my own situation I hope that it's that I can give something to people out there facing what I'm facing.

And it's time for me to put my words into action. I want to be there for my nephew, check in with him on a regular basis just so he knows somebody cares. I don't want him to feel the way I have.

And all I can think of, once again, is that life changes in an instant - for good and for bad. My great nephew had everything to look forward to and it must have seemed like he was on top of the world just last week when he got the job offer. We just never know and I don't want to waste any more time. I don't want to be stuck in this no man's land for any longer than I have to. I don't want to be alone, I hate it. I don't want to be unloved, it kills me. But I don't know how to change any of it.

And yet, something has got to change, I guess it's going to be me.