April 8, 2021

Journal: April 8, 2021

The Las Vegas Dream is dashed to a million pieces for the year.  It was a good plan and approved by a party of one, me.  I have hope.   There's always next year.

Chris had a stroke.  The left side of his brain malfunctioned leaving his right side paralyzed.  That had to have been not fun.  For six months he will have to reconfigure.

I thought this was a good time for Vegas.  My mom wants us there but I won't leave without my kids.  

Bryan is 20 and Bree is 14.

Why not?  Ohio's weather sucks.  I'm so done being here years ago.  But Chris is here.  And he is precious.  He's a good father to the kids.   If he never succeeded in anything in his life, he succeeded at that.  The children adore him.  With good cause.

But it was time for us to go, I decided.  

I wanted Bryan to start college at UNLV.  

Bree would attend the cosmetology program at the vocational technical high school down the street from my mother's house.

I could help Chris recover as needed.

We've got this.

Then.

Montgomery County Children's Services got involved.  Things got dicy and tricky.  End of story?  Cathy gets Bree for a year.

Great fucking mother fucker...said I through gritted teeth.

That's not the plan.

The plan is Vegas.  The plan is my mother.

I don't want her to die with unresolved issues between us.

We have to work things out and we are both as hard headed as all get out.

But there is a weak spot, an Achilles Heel and that is I love mother.

That's really hard to say.  

Our relationship has on many occasions been toxic.  So, why?  It's always about the why?  

Our family has known a lot of tragedies.  Yeah I know, you're thinking:

"Get in line buttercup."

And I wouldn't disagree with you.

I just don't want my mother to die with things being unresolved.  I want the beauty of her grandchildren to shine brightly in her eyes.  

I want the hardships that she has endured to be softened by the resolution that her family has for her.

And for God's sake that is no easy matter to accomplish.  But it is justified.  Because she deserves it.  I understand my mother.  And she will squash you like a bug in a heartbeat, but she is fiercely loyal.  She spent twenty years sending money to her brothers and sisters in Vietnam.

If you are a person of responsibility then you deserve your just reward.  If you are a person of irresponsibility then you deserve your just reward.

So that was The Vegas Plan because my mom lives in Las Vegas.  And I was going to glue back together all the fucking broken pieces.

That was before my daughter and my son and my ex-husband had an opinion.  I rather enjoyed it when they didn't have an opinion.  

So...present day timeline.

Ohio.

I fucking hate winters in Ohio.