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prev home archive next Momentary Thought I wish your standard energy pills didn't make me feel so awful. I need better life through drugs. Non-naughty drugs, but drugs just the same. High/Low High: Leaving work at 3:00 today to spend some quality time with Marie. Low: The whole family's got the blues, and Michael's gone. Current Obsession Finding our family's happiness (and my own personal happiness) again. Grin Source N/A Storyteller Bio Dramatis Personnae Who I Read Recipes |
Are you guys getting tired of hearing about our household dramas? Round 3,456,723. Lord, I'm tired. Calvin's tired. Marie's tired. Michael's tired. If you asked 'em, I'm sure the dogs would say they're tired. We're all possessed of a lethargy that makes it hard to get up in the morning for work/school, makes it easy to sleep in until noon (which we all did, both Saturday and Sunday), and makes it impossible to get anything useful done with our spare time (which we didn't). This particular lethargy has been ongoing for the past several weeks. We've all just lost all our motivation. Is it some kind of end-of-winter blues or something? Are we not immune to it despite Arizona's sunny weather? We're not fighting with one another, we're all just kind of living *around* each other. Off in our own little worlds and content for it to be that way. For now. We started breaking out of it a little on Sunday afternoon. Calvin, Marie and I finally got energetic enough to take all the pupsters to the park down the street. We ran around, and wrestled, and got tangled up in leashes. We sat on the cool grass and looked up at the emerging stars, and watched some kids play tag football further down the field. We curbed Kye's excitement, and toyed around with Gadget, and sat and snuggled Gypsy. We ran some more, and then went to play on the playground equipment. Gypsy and Kye actually had a ball climbing up with Marie and Calvin, and sliding down the wide plastic kiddie slide. I sat on the swing with Gadget in my lap and held on as he wiggled. I really wish they were the kind of dogs that we could trust to take off the leash and have them stay close. But they're not. Well, Kye and Gadget aren't, and it just wouldn't be fair to only let Gypsy off. Like dogs keep track of what's fair. Anyway! We walked back in the house at about 7:20. We got cleaned up, we fed the dogs, we sat in front of the TV for a bit. At 7:40 the phone rings. And you know what's coming, right? Calvin uh-huh'd and okay'd and I see'd his way through a brief conversation. Both Marie and I chorused "What did Michael do now?" Shoplifted, apparently. $6.00 worth of glow sticks. And he had money in his pocket. I'm not going to go through the step-by-step details of it all. Suffice to say, we went to pick him up. Drove silently back. Not a word was exchanged between any of us the whole time. What would be the point? There's nothing further to say, and all the "What were you thinking?"'s and "How stupid are you?"'s in the world won't fix what seems to be broken with that boy. As soon as we got home, Michael went upstairs to his room and packed a suitcase. He called his mother to come pick him up. He said he needed to get out of the house because he keeps bringing negativity onto Calvin and I, and he wanted to give us a break from him as much as he wanted a break himself. So, X(f) showed up, and some brief words were exchanged between us all. Hugs all around, and tears, and some words of comfort and reassurance from Calvin and I to Michael, and then he was gone. Calvin and I both feel mixed about it. On the one hand, we think having a break from each other is a good idea, and will serve to prevent any damage happening to our relationships with each other. He might even find the peace he needs to dig around inside his head and figure out why he keeps doing all these stupid things. And the kid *is* on a roll. On another hand (hang on, I appear to have grown a few extras), we feel a little bit like Michael was running away from his problem. That he chose to leave the negative environment of our house to the more peaceful environment of his mom's. That he knows his mom won't get on him too bad because they've been estranged for so long. And on the last hand, we feel badly that Michael didn't have the confidence in us to give us a chance to work things out. He didn't leave under bad feelings, not at all. But he did leave, and we didn't have a chance to talk things over. So. Like I said, mixed. We're hoping that Michael only stays away a few days. Marie misses him already (we forget how close the two of them are until circumstances like this arise). And she's highly fearful of his destructive behavior. She's afraid that the next thing he does will end up getting him killed. She takes a lot of his difficulties onto herself, spinning into an empathetic sinkhole as she observes her brother's troubles. Whether he asked for the position or not, Michael *does* have a responsibility toward his sister, as a role model. And so far all he's doing is leading by bad example. Calvin and I both hope that Marie is learning the lesson that Michael doesn't seem to be getting - everything we do, and all our actions, impact on the people around us. What is good, and what I hope Michael understands, is that nothing he has done, and nothing really that he could do, would make us stop loving and supporting him. I'm grateful that no harsh words were exchanged between us last night, and that he left on a note that was as positive as it could be, given the circumstances. I hope he finds the break he's looking for at X(f)'s, but I hope he comes home soon. In the meantime, Calvin, Marie and I are pretty much shot. We're all just plain tired. And we wanted so badly to just stay home from our various responsibilities today, sit around on the couch, and snuggle. But school and work beckoned. I can't speak for Calvin and Marie at this moment, but I'm just as useful to AcronymCo right now as if I had stayed home. So, I shall take Marie to the library after school, and we'll have some comfort food for dinner. Maybe we'll go out and do something, maybe we'll just hold the couch down, maybe we'll go for a bike ride or walk the dogs. But we all feel the need to draw in toward each other right now. Some quality time is in order. |