an eventful week

Well, we're back home. Our older baby is off at school in another state. What a busy week it's been...all I want to do tomorrow is sleep...

Wednesday we did the initial move-in for the dorm. Then Dan and I went on the first leg of a long scavenger hunt. The architecture school had sent us a list of needed supplies, front and back single spaced. Some of them were specialty supplies for artists, others for engineers, other for draftsmen. So on Wednesday night after dinner we spent a couple of hours at the Wal-Mart in Muncie trying to get some of the general items like sewing scissors and glue sticks.

That night I called one of my friends, John, who had a daughter graduate from Ball State a few years ago. This is the dear friend who transferred out to Las Vegas in June. I just wanted to touch base with him, since I have only been able to talk to him a couple of times since he moved, and I miss him, and Muncie seemed like a good reason to call him since he also had a child go to school there. Since he works midnights out in Vegas, he doesn't really know anyone out there yet. Well, he had just gotten the news that his father had passed, so he was very sad and upset. What a terrible thing, to lose a family member when you are so far away from your family and your friends.  So I took it upon myself to call some of his other friends to pass on the news, and I asked them to call him. When you cannot get hugs, at least you can hear friendly, caring voices on the telephone. This was someone who really helped to take care of me when my father passed; it is killing me to not be able to help him in an even worse situation.

But that was enough, combined with the stress of moving Bill, to get the stress diarrhea problem going full tilt. I have mentioned to Dan a few times that when I feel emotionally stressed I get sick these days, but it did not really register with him until after that phone call and he saw for himself how sick I get.

Thursday morning we went on the second leg of the scavenger hunt, buying items such as a length of chain at a hardware store. Then we picked up a loft for Bill's room, walked with him through the lines at the parking office, financial aid, and the bursar, and bought those textbooks he could buy (one of his professors had not yet turned in the book list for one of his classes). Since he is only seventeen and cannot have a checking account or an ATM card, I wrote him a pile of checks made out to the college without monetary amounts filled in for all of his architecture lab fees and field trips. We built his loft and put together his TV stand and his easy chair, and helped him get his room put together. Then we took him out for a steak dinner.

We then dropped him off at his room and went on another leg of the scavenger hunt, this time hitting office supply stores and art supply stores. He did not come with us as he had many meetings to attend that night.

Then we finally got a good night's sleep, even managing to catch the tail end of the Tigers game on TV.  Dan and I were both exhausted by that point in time.

This morning we took Bill out to breakfast and gave him the supplies we had bought last night. Then we dropped him off at his dorm and  headed home.

Then we picked up Steven, went grocery shopping, then went to pick up the dog.

I miss my son.   I am worried sick about my friend John.   And something else happened this week that also has me upset...the return of that former friend who has broken my heart so many times.

Since I decided in February that I just couldn't trust that person anymore, and couldn't handle anymore pain from that particular source, I have just avoided him as best as I could. I do not want to make any fuss in front of our mutual friends, as that would not be fair to him or them. So I have just quietly gone about my business and living my life without him in it and ignored him as much as humanly possible whenever he has been around. And he respected those boundaries for these seven months, or at least he seemed to. But all of a sudden this week he started talking to me - God knows why, as he has made it so clear that he does not want me as a friend and that I have no value in his eyes. And of all the weeks to do it - when I was so busy and stressed out over the move. And of all the ways to do it - not being kind and gentle, as I know he can be, or with any sort of acknowledgement of the pain he has caused and a promise to be better, as any normal person would do - or even to say hello and ask how I am doing or what is going on in my life -- but to be snotty. And to my shame, I responded by being even more snotty to him in return. And I am ashamed. So for now I will just stay away from him and our mutual friends for awhile. The whole situation just makes me want to puke.  I hate being mean. I hate being snotty. I do not like the person that I am when I am around this former friend.

I miss my son.  I am worried sick about my friend John losing his father at a time when he is so far away from his friends and family.   And I am just not emotionally up to dealing with this other crap right now.