Day 61 Stress With a Side of Cheese

As much as you try to dodge it, some days total annihilation is just inevitable.

My day today actually started at 4:30 p.m yesterday. I picked up the mail to find I had an appointment at 10:30 a.m. today with the state regarding some child support issues. Great. 18 hours notice and the issues really aren't mine, they're my ex's, but since I'm the recipient, or really non-recipient of timely child support in this case, I need to be present. God knows over night is enough for anybody to gather their wits and all necessary documents. Not. I loved it that the letter was dated February 22. Maybe we should try mailing it next time.

But it's not like I had plans or anything. Oh, that's right. I did. I needed to take care of a whole host of things but never matter - I'll trot on down there and deal with something that should never have happened to begin with.

Afterward I decided I'd detox at Whole Foods. On my way I call my 82 year old mom to see how she's doing. Her arthritis is killing her and yep, she's forgotten to take her medicine once again. I remind her and hopefully she goes off and takes it. I do a quick grocery check for her and discover she has drank 8 half gallons of milk in less than a week. Lord, please help me. She's drinking milk and not eating. We get off the phone, I shake off some stress and enter Whole Foods as the invisible woman. No one can see me much less find me here. I'm ordinary and dowdy enough in sweats and my hair in my face to blend right in with the floor tiles. Perfect.

At least so I thought. My phone rings and it's the agency that helps my elderly mother who has lost her mind. This is not a call I can put off or ignore. It's my permanent responsibility to answer it 24 hours a day. I end up standing in the cheese section for 37 minutes. That's a long time to be standing in the cheese section, trust me. I don't even eat cheese.

The good news was there was nothing wrong but the inquiry was endless.

Did you fill out the forms for her prescription reduction?
Yes, I did it online.

Well, was it the right form?
I'm pretty sure it was - how many could there be?

Did you get that bump looked at on her arm?
No, it's her arthritis. It comes and goes. There isn't a cure.

When was the last time you took her to the doctor?
November but see, there's a problem with her doctor and I go into some very stressful detail about this.

The case worker asks me if I'd like a doctor to come visit her at her home. YES, that would help, provided he understands geriatric patients.

We get past that and she asks me if my mother is showering, what's she eating. On and on. This woman is actually great. She does a great job. I just wish she wasn't doing a great job today, in the cheese section at Whole Foods. Then she goes into all the agencies I need to visit to get things underway. I need to fill out forms with the state and do this and do that. I have no time for any of this. I'm a single parent who is barely getting through the days yet I have to make time. I want to crawl out of my skin. I want to scream and run, run away forever.

She ends the call and I am finally released. I feel like the mouse who frees himself from the trap and is able to scurry away just more than slightly tetched. I feel it to the core of my being, the stress welling up and with no way to stop the continous onslaught.

Sadly, I wasn't free for long. Two more mind bending phone calls ensued from the same person. One in the middle of the crowded car wash waiting area and the other once I got back home and was finally sitting down to a very late lunch.

But in direct succession there was more. My daughter gets home from school right after the last call. Not a minute in between. Another day has passed and she's still not cleaned her room, her bathroom, brushed the cat or done any of the chores I've asked of her in the last two weeks, despite talking, spending more time together, then restriction and total loss of all forms of peer communication devices due to her being disrespectful to me.

To add insult to injury, at school they've shuffled all the kids around and somehow my daughter is now in the 'comp classes' which means with all the kids who can't behave in class. My daughter isn't perfect but this is definitely not the class for her and they've certainly not reported any problems to me. I do know her and know she doesn't belong in this class.

Worst of all she's pulled out two huge areas of hair on both sides of her widows peak in less than one day. There are hideous bleeding areas. It appears as if she has cancer. Just looking at it I feel myself crumbling into little pieces and I momentarily stop breathing. My hand instinctively goes to my mouth. I take in a short, sharp audible sniff through my nose and I feel my head perform 4 quick shakes back and forth in disbelief while my insides scream, "NO!!!" with every fiber of my being.

This isn't new but it was formerly resolved. She returned home with this problem after she visited her father last November. Sporting a softball sized bald spot at the back of her head, I had to get over the absolute and utter shock of all of her beautiful long hair gone. We worked on it and she stopped. The hair regrew.

Facing this day and all this again, I feel ineffective as a mother, parent, daughter and human being and I can't even begin to broach the topic of my inability to find a normal man to date, much less share my life with in 7 long years since leaving my alcoholic husband.

But that wasn't the last of my day. Right before bed she hands me her report card to sign. She has a D+ in band. BAND. The reason? Completely avoidable, she failed to turn in 3 of the 6 practice sheets I signed for her in the last 2 months to return to school.

Kill me.


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