Back from vacation. I had an incredible time. Hurricane/Tropical Storm Bertha never hit the Florida coast but it produced waves that were well over my head, granted that’s not too far since I am 5’1” but WOW. I made no effort to use a surfboard or a boogie board and I knew that a blow up raft would never make it past the waves with me holding it. I just walked out as far as I could without getting knocked down and it was amazing. The water was warm and I loved every minute of being on the beach. The house was adorable, aside from the fact that the “spa” did not work and the pool filter shut down more than once so the water looked horrible. We went to the beach every morning and afternoon and then again most evenings. A couple of afternoons, I had to take a nap because I could not keep going. Walking on sand is challenging for a body with arthritis. I could not make it as far as I wanted to. Might be that I overestimated my ability.
I had some pretty strong craves for cigarettes, the first one was just as I arrived at the airport to leave for the trip and there were people outside smoking where I would have been in the past, whenever I went to that airport, or any other for that matter. I also had some craves when I would sit outside with my daughter at the table by the pool but I never drank anything alcoholic because I was pretty sure that I would lose any of my resolve at that point. I DID REACH 200 days on August 7th and that was pretty wonderful.
We had to be at the airport by 3:00AM on Friday to return the rental car and check in our baggage…or so we thought, hahaha, the ticketing desk does not open until 4:30 so we sat at the airport from 2:45AM until 4:30 before we could go anywhere. It was crazy because none of us had been to bed since we knew we would have to get up as soon as we tried to sleep. We were pretty goofy. My daughter and the girls were on a 6:00 flight and mine was not until 7:15 but they switched it and put us all on the same plane. Not that it did any good because we were too tired to talk and I was seated ahead of them so it would have been impossible anyways. When we got to Atlanta…they had to make a quick connection in another terminal and my flight gate was not even assigned yet. The tears were flowing like crazy. I did not have more severe issues with breathing at the beach but I could hear my wheezing when I walked from the house to the beach, at one time, I thought it was some exotic bird singing and then I realized that if I held my breath, it stopped.
Ang (Jaxson1) kept me apprised of what was going on at EX, I missed it so much. I just wanted to reach out to people. I am not great at texting because my thumbs are really arthritic and the pain is terrible. I will be getting a smart phone at some point so I can text more easily. I have no idea if there will be any pictures from the vacation, my daughter’s very expensive digital camera kept fogging up because of the humidity which was really intense. It would be fine inside of the house and then fog up when she went outside. Some came out, I think, but not sure how many. The girls took pics with their iPhones that seemed to come out well. Now I will just have to ask them to either post them or email them to me.
Coming home was Hell…I cannot even begin to tell you how much worse it looked after being in a nice, neat little cottage for a week. It was so crowded when I opened the front door that I could not get my little carry on through the path. Things are going downhill here and my craves are really surging because I am depressed and frustrated and I so want to stuff those feelings.
I will be easing back into looking at blogs and responding but, for the moment, I am overwhelmed with what I am seeing as my life now that my eyes have once again been opened. I am not sure what direction I will be going in, I have had so many talks with my husband about this disease (hoarding) and the need to address it but I know that it is beyond his ability and it is also now beyond mine. I had to come up with the money to pay the electric bill before I left town so the power would not be turned off, the gas WAS turned off when I was gone. He said that when he called the gas company, they told him to go to the department of social services and they have turned us down in the past. I am really not sure how anyone lives these days and I am about to take on two new payments in September, one for a Medicare supplement and the other for my partial dentures. Since we are not making it now, I am really considering postponing my shoulder surgery yet again and asking my boss if she wants me to come back for a couple of days a week. I have no idea if I can really do it but I feel backed into a corner. I don’t care about keeping this house, I DO care about keeping SOME of the belongings but they would easily fit into a small storage shed. I have some things I inherited from family, they probably are of no value to anyone except me but I would like to have them. I don’t believe that I can salvage this marriage; I don’t believe that I can save myself if I stay here. Our 40th anniversary is in September.
Well now, there was an uplifting blog, sorry about that. Reality really DOES bite. I AM glad to be back and I will get my sense of humor back…it is just buried at the moment. I am trying to clean a little at a time, just so there are some spaces that do not completely gross me out. I have mostly unpacked and now have to clean up my room, I also have to work out since I have not done that since I left. My love to all!
