BEST FRIEND, JOB UNCERTAINTY AND MOM

I know my last entry wasn't a very positive one.  There's just a lot of stuff going on and being in pain with a toothache probably made me even more crabby.  The tooth pain comes and goes now, so I'm taking that as an improvement over it being in pain all the time.  Still, it sucks when it does hurt.

Friday, I leave work in anticipation of hubby being pretty much depressed all weekend because a) we didn't have any money to do anything and b) there was a hurricane passing through on the other coast which was sure to guarantee a rainy weekend.  I still wasn't feeling too good because of the tooth and because of everything else that had been going on.

On the way home, my cell phone rings.  I didn't recognize the number, although I did recognize the area code as being from the Atlanta, Georgia area.  Since my brother and his family and my nephew all live there, I took the call.  It turns out to be my best friend, who I've not heard a peep from in months.  That's the way it sometimes goes with us.  Last time I'd talked to her, I sensed things weren't going too good, but she didn't seem to want to get into it, so I didn't press her.  I knew she wasn't working at the same place anymore, either.

She called, supposedly worried about the hurricane and acting like it was coming directly for us.  Well, I'd already been through my share of these things last year, so I'd kept a close eye on it and knew it wasn't coming this way unless it took a strange turn and came through like Charley did.  Really, I think she just wanted to talk to me and it wasn't about a hurricane.  So after getting the focus off of me and how I was doing, I asked her about her situation and she broke down in tears.

This evidently has been a terrible year for her (I know all about that one) and everything that could go wrong has.  She's had custody battles for her son, which I knew had been going on and she had been trying to work out her marriage with her current husband, who isn't the father of her son.  Well now her grandmother is dying in a hospital in Tennessee.  It's one of those situations where she's not going to come out of it.  The woman is 89 years old for one.  Anyhow, she didn't seem as upset about that as she was about being there for her Mom, who is freaking out about my friend's grandmother dying and is now wanting to do everything they can to keep her alive.  My friend disagrees with that, as would I, but it's not really her call.  It's her Mom's call.  She's trying so hard to be strong, to be there for her Mom and she's breaking apart on the inside.  Of course she's having her own demons to deal with, so that's not helping at all.

Evidently her son's father, who actually had custody for a while because my friend was having to deal with a domestic violence charge from her current husband (long story), has a very bad drug addiction problem.  I knew this guy when I lived in Atlanta and both of them attended my wedding.  I knew he had problems controlling his alcohol intake at times, but I didn't know about his drug addiction.  I'm not clear when it started or if it's something he has had for a long time.  Anyhow, I guess his parents got desperate and were physically taking him to a rehab center for admittance.  Well, he escaped.  Now no one seems to know where he's at.  Apparently, he was not wanting to go to rehab, but it was being forced upon him.  Obviously my friend now has custody of their son and she is having trouble trying to explain to her son what's going on with his father. 

She had to take the summer off working because of all of this and she was very vague when I asked how things were going with her current husband.  She was heading up to Tennessee with her Mom to be with her grandmother over the weekend.  I've never heard her be so upset before so I know she has to be going through hell right now.  She feels that everyone thinks she's the strong one so she has to be there for everyone else.  Now her Mom needs her and she's trying to be there for her, but she's falling apart on the inside.  I told her to take care of herself first, otherwise she can't be there for anyone else.  I also told her it's OK if people don't see her as being as strong as she always portrayed.  She's human, she has feelings and she's going through a lot for anyone to deal with, so I know most people would understand. 

I think she felt better after talking to me, which made me feel good.  I just hope things get better for her.  I know how it can seem that everything bad happens all at once at times.

Other than that, not much really went on this weekend.  Hubby wasn't as depressed as I figured he'd be.  It did suck being broke, but we watched movies and found other things to do.  So I do feel better than I did in my last entry.

I'm still stressing over our jobs situation.  Mine is still up in the air because we don't know if we're being bought out or not.  I'm hearing conflicting stories, so I'm just not sure who to believe.  I guess there's not much I can do.  Hubby has been very unhappy with his job, but has felt he's stuck there because he's been there so long that he can't get another job anywhere around here for anywhere close to what he's making there.  Still, he gets so aggravated that he almost quit today.  I guess both he and his best friend were threatened with their jobs this morning.  Then his best friend (who has been staying with us off and on due to girlfriend problems) was told he had a week to clean out his tools and leave.  I don't know if hubby is included in that or not.  Nothing has been said to him yet, so I don't know what's going on.  I have mixed feelings, though.  He's been so unhappy that if they did let him go, at least he could probably collect unemployment until he found something else.  He won't be making as much money though, but that we already know.  Still, I really would hate for him to be out of a job or have to take a lower salary with my job so up in the air too.  It seems neither one of us can feel very secure in our jobs right now, which is not good.  It's much better if at least one of us isn't in this predicament.  I just let him know that my job is up in the air so that hopefully he won't do something rash and just quit his job right now, because we may not have mine to fall back on.  Just another thing to worry about right now...

I suppose I need to call and check on my Mom.  It appears that the hurricane was passing right through her town, although by then it had decreased quite a bit since she's not on the coast.  Still, I hope she didn't lose power or if she did, it wasn't for very long.  I would not wish anyone to have to be without power as many days as we were last year during the hurricanes.  While everyone else seemed to have made out like bandits, getting money here and there from FEMA or getting new roofs, etc., we only got reimbursed $115 from FEMA for motel expenses, which didn't close to cover what we spent in hotel rooms, gas for the car & generator, and replacing over $200 worth of food ruined, plus lost work days, etc.  We easily had over $1000 in unexpected extra expenses.  Hurricanes just flat out suck.