Random Thoughts, Issues and Junk

I've got so many random thoughts in my head I have no idea where this blog entry will go so bear with me. I think I just need to purge. (no, not vomit. lol)

So I had the bottom fall out of my stomach this morning. Nothing gross, it just didn't feel so good. My BIL sent me some pictures of his childhood home in Bay St. Louis. The first one was a pic he had taken a couple years ago. It was a beautiful house. A big white house with a wraparound screened in porch and it sat up on white steel stilts. The second picture was taken by a friend of his last week. All that was left was the stilts and even they were bent all to crap. Granted, this house isn't the one his mom lived in. Her house was built two or three years ago some 500 feet behind his old childhood home. But the impact of seeing the before and after just made my stomach clinch and I thought for sure I was going to burst into tears. It's just so heartbreaking. BIL' s mom and sister flew in from Los Angeles yesterday and the three of them are heading down to the coast today to see if there is anything to salvage from his mom's home. I imagine that it is going to be a horrific experience and I wish to heaven that there was something I could do to make it easier for them. Everything they knew as children is gone. Wiped out and twisted into scattered debris.

My best friend in SC called me last night. (Drama Queen, if you remember from a previous post) Well, her husband came home from Iraq Friday. He was actually supposed to come home on Labor Day but they had problems with the plane and were stuck in Germany for a few days. He had been gone for the past six months and the last time I talked to her, last Tuesday she was so excited at the prospect of him coming home. Now that he's home, it's a different kind of hell. I didn't get to talk to her long. Her mom beeped in and she let me go, but I get the feeling that not all is well in their house. I'm sure it's always a major adjustment for all military families to get used to old routines again after having been apart for so long but something in her voice...something was off. Different. They've had a rocky marriage from the get go but even in their darkest moments she didn't sound this let down. I wish I could be there with her if for no other reason than to give her a hug. Yeah, I might talk smack about her sometimes but I do love the girl. And I want to shake him and if I could just get my hands around his neck...lol I won't say that I dislike him but he's not my favorite person in the world for reasons I won't get into. I suppose I must be sympathetic to him though because I can't imagine the horrors he must have seen while in Iraq. I hope they make it through alright.

My sister, Sis2, is facing more issues that I won't get into, either. I ache so badly for her though. Newlyweds aren't supposed to be miserable and no one should think it's okay to make them that way. And it's so hard for me to be so far away from her that I can't just run over to her house and try to cheer her up. Heck, I can't even just pick up the phone and call her whenever I want because I can't afford expensive phone bills. She won't call me when she needs me for the same reason. She's coming to town Sunday for our cousin's baby shower though so I'm hoping we'll have a chance to talk then...if she'll even talk to me. I think she doesn't want to tell me about it because she's afraid that I won't understand...and I don't. I wish I did. It's torment. *sigh*

My other sister, Sis1, is down and depressed a bit as well. Not only is she upset for BIL and his mom, but she lost her job a couple of weeks ago. Her boss was a complete butthole and took his bad week out on her and fired her for no apparent reason. None that he told her anyway. So she's depressed about that. I'm upset for her because I know how much she hates being so dependant on BIL for money and stuff. And she suffers from so many self-esteem issues that being fired really ripped her up. I wish I could just gift wrap her the perfect job and give it to her. Or better yet, I wish I could go back in time and erase all the bad stuff that gave her all her self-esteem issues.

I'm upset for me because I have to go to the dentist tomorrow and see if I'm going to have to have a root canal. I don't want no stinkin' root canal. I want my teeth to go back to being the good little food choppers they were. But I figure I'll either have to have a root canal or have the tooth pulled. It's a far back tooth so I wouldn't cry if I lost it. I just feel like 26 is too young to start having teeth pulled. I'd like to have all my original teeth when I'm 50. Vanity, thy name is Jana.

And I'm feeling a little put out and unloved. I should feel greatly loved but instead I feel like eveyrone's obligation. Does that make sense? Like people love me because they feel they must or something. I can't really pinpoint an exact reason why I feel this way. It's just a bunch of little things. I know in my head that my family loves me. I just don't FEEL it, I guess. Sometimes I think that they don't even like me. I irritate them. It's like I'll be talking to them and I can see them mentally rolling their eyes. Maybe I'm PMSing. I do tend to get more maudlin...*checks calendar* Nope. That's not it. *sigh* Maybe I've just been so constant in everyone's life that they just take my existance for granted. Like I'm some kind of rock that's always there that they can ignore until they need it or something. Or maybe I've just effectively pushed everyone away. They think I don't need them. I wish sometimes that I didn't. At least then I wouldn't feel this way. I hate feeling this way. I hate it.

And then I resent them because sometimes they make me feel like I can't move. Like I'm stuck in this myre because they need me too much. Need me to justify the value of their own existance. Or maybe they just need someone to dump on. Or in my parent's case, they need to know that they'll always have someone to take care of them. It frightens me to think of how heavily they depend on me. I look at my life and I see my future clearly. My sisters are both married and have families. They both live over an hour away in opposite directions. When the time comes it'll be left up to me to make sure my parents are taken care of. I'll shoulder that burden entirely alone. I know how bittersweet that is. I've watched my grandmother struggle with taking care of her mother for years and how it wears on her and hurts her heart. And she, at least, has my grandfather to lean on and a sister that helps her shoulder the burden. I won't.

And now I feel like such a selfish jerk for thinking of my parents as a future burden. Lord knows they've put up with a lot of crap, work and worry for their children. Caring for them when they get old shouldn't be viewed as a burden. And I hope it won't be. I hope when the time comes I'll embrace the opportunity to give them all the love, care and support they've given me and my sisters all our lives.

Ugh! I don't know why I let my mind travel these paths. They don't go anywhere and they don't help at all. I don't know what my future holds. I'm sure my family loves me. I'm certain that everyone feels these sorts of things sometimes. I guess I just needed to get them out so that I feel better. Now that they're out there I can just brush my hands off and decide that I won't let those silly thoughts get to me.

So, on with the show!